Let's Get Together in Toronto - Blog Conference in May

News flash! Big blogging event coming to Toronto in May! See Mark Evans' blog Let's Get Together in Toronto.

Thanks to one of the founders of this event, Rob Hyndman, for the tip. I only hope it runs when I'm back from the CALL conference.

New School of Information Studies at University of Ottawa

According to this job posting for Director, the University of Ottawa is planning to open a new School of Information Studies in its Faculty of Arts. According to the ad:

We are soliciting candidates with the vision, energy and commitment to lead North America’s first bilingual graduate program educating library, archives and information professionals. This challenge offers the opportunity to contribute to an innovative interdisciplinary program characterized by a management perspective and an accentuated adoption of new information technology. In collaboration with the Deans of the Faculties of Arts and Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, other university colleagues, and representatives of major employers of information professionals, the successful incumbent would actively participate in designing course content for on-site and web-based delivery, recruiting new faculty and students, and organizing allocated financial, personnel and physical resources in order to achieve proposed strategic initiatives and business plan outcomes.

One can only imagine other positions will follow. And this at a time when the Faculty of Information Studies at U of T is still conducting its faculty search for five new members.

The additional qualification of bilingualism may just make this new faculty a little difficult to get off the ground....

A Special Day

It's a special day in the Connie Crosby household. We are celebrating because, well, I actually had a story suggestion picked up by my favourite vlog Rocketboom. I brought to their attention the very important chicken limbo recall.

JUSTICE ROTHSTEIN briefing material released by Law Blog

JUSTICE ROTHSTEIN briefing material released by Law Blog

February 26, 2006

Toronto: In time for today’s pioneering parliamentary hearing to meet Supreme Court of Canada nominee Justice Marshall Rothstein, Weblog SLAW (http://www.slaw.ca) today released in-depth information regarding the nominee selection process and the candidate.


On Monday, February 27, 2006, 1 p.m. EST, CPAC will broadcast the interview of Mr. Justice Rothstein by the Ad Hoc Committee to Review a Nominee for the Supreme Court of Canada. SLAW has assembled a comprehensive set of links to key news, commentary, government websites, and extensive court decisions by Mr. Justice Rothstein. "The Marshall Rothstein Pages" (http://www.slaw.ca/marshall-rothstein-pages) marks a first in Canada: SLAW’s page is the most timely and comprehensive resource on any Supreme Court candidate.

SLAW has included a list of ten qualities the nominee brings to the Supreme Court and a break-down of how some of his decisions at the Federal Court level fared later at the Supreme Court level, whether upheld or overturned. Readers across Canada have been invited to submit questions they would like to see asked of Mr. Justice Rothstein in Monday's session.

SLAW is a co-operative weblog about Canadian legal research and technology. SLAW was founded by Simon Fodden, Professor Emeritus at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University. Contributors include lawyers, law librarians, law professors and legal researchers from across Canada. For further information, visit the website at http://www.slaw.ca .

Contact:
Simon Fodden
sfodden@osgoode.yorku.ca

Simon Chester
Schester@heenan.ca

CBC Radio Podcasting

CBC.ca - CBC Radio Podcasting

Podcasts coming soon--sign up to receive the newsletter. Also there are resources for locating podcasts and getting started on podcasting.

Online Reference - Library Success: IM Wiki

I think it was last week that I mentioned chat reference being out, and IM being in. Michael Stephens on his Tame the Web blog, has pointed out this Online Reference - Library Success: A Best Practices Wiki that specifically covers IM: applications people use, libraries using IM, and links to articles on IM.

Naked Conversations : How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers: Books: Robert Scoble,Shel Israel

New book: Naked Conversations : How Blogs are Changing the Way Businesses Talk with Customers: by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel. You must check out this episode of RocketBoom for the, um, most interesting book promo I've ever seen: RocketBoom, Thursday, February 23, 2006

OSALL - Organisation of SA Law Libraries

The Organisation of SA Law Librarians, based in South Africa, have a list of some fantastic South African resources on their website:

OSALL - Organisation of SA Law Libraries

I was emailing back and forth with their listserv manager today, and was delighted to discover she has been following my column on LLRX. It's a small world!

Out of the Jungle: Library Salaries

In a recent rant on blog Out of the Jungle, Betsie McKenzie calls for action in getting student workers (and, subsequently, law librarian) salaries up. See: Out of the Jungle: Library Rant. She says:

I do not believe that librarian salaries will significantly improve. I am royally pissed off. I do not see any significant or effective action from AALL. They are piddling around making tiny tempests in tiny teapots lest WE violate antitrust talking to each other about student worker pay levels (the student workers are not competing with each other for the positions, how can this be anti-trust?), while the salary survey shows year after year, clear evidence that university pay levels are within pennies in the same region. Isn't that how the baseball players' union busted the owners' chops for collusion? I'd like to see some action here!

She also talks about the need to negotiate hard for the best salaries possible since our subsequent salaries are based upon these first salaries. As are the industry's salaries, since everyone looks at what everyone else is paying vis-a-vis salary surveys.

Trackback

LLRX.com - New articlesI

The February articles have now been posted on LLRX.com
I'm very pleased that my column The Tao of Law Librarianship - Do-It-Yourself Professional Development, Part II has been posted. In it I talk to colleagues Louise Tsang, Danielle Brosseau, and Le Dieu Tran. I have been truly inspired by these intrepid women and hope you will be, too.

Also in this issue Katherine Thomas (better known to many of us as Katie Thomas) has given us a reprise of the resources she put together for a past CALL conference in Job Swaps and Library Exchanges

Jim Milles on Law Library Administration

In this week's episode of podcast Check This Out!, Jim Milles talks at length about the law libary administration course he is teaching at the University at Buffalo. He goes into detail about the purpose of the course, how it has developed, and the content. He also sets out some ideas of how he would like to see it develop. Very interesting stuff!

He's also got some fun clips including 9 minutes from a knitting blog that really talks about starting out in a new vocation. One of the best lines, on getting frustrated: "put the knitting down and step slowly away!"

This is a must-listen episode. Heh, and I'm not even in this one.

Cheers,
Connie

P.S. If you do check it out, add a pin to the Frappr Map so we know you've been listening!

Chat Reference Out, IM Reference In

I am hearing that chat reference died a while back, but the way to go for direct electronic connection to the client is IM (instant messaging). Amanda Etches-Johnson shares her presentation PowerPoint and materials from her Ontario Library Association Superconference presentation here on Blog Without a Libary.

Desperately Seeking: RSS from Legal Publishers

Today on Slaw I look closely at Canadian legal publisher websites for RSS feeds in Desperately Seeking: RSS from Legal Publishers.

I was surprised to find that, despite a number of recently redesigned websites, not a one has incorporated RSS feeds into their sites. Surely feeds would be the perfect way to provide their information-oriented customers with notice of new products.

And I bet, once they get started, the publishers will find some fabulous new uses for RSS and feeds!

Re:Generations - Canadian Library Association blog

I was poking around the Canadian Library Association (CLA) website and found this co-operative blog: Re:Generations . From the Canadian Association of College & University Libraries (or CACUL), a division of CLA, the blog's aim is to dialogue with young academic librarians and re-energize the profession. I'm not overly surprised to see FIS library student Stanislav Orlov as one of the contributors. Our friend Stan is everywhere!

Check This Out! Episode 15 - on podcasting and new logo

Jim Milles has released his latest episode of podcast Check This Out!, my second installment as Canadian correspondent. I am just in the process of listening to it, so don't have any specific comments about my own performance. I tried to bring more variety and shorter bits this time. Your feedback greatly appreciated!

I'm also interested to note that Jim recorded the opening in an "undisclosed location". He talks about some interesting developments regarding podcasting over at SUNY. As well, he interviews Matt Lubniewski, law student, about his Shady Law podcast available from iTunes as well as his blog site. They have a terrific discussion about the implications of podcasting, as to how it is so wide open for anyone to broadcast now. Key quote: "It reminds me of the Internet ten years ago."

I should also point out the terrific new logo created by Nina Cascio, International Law Librarian at University at Buffalo Law Library.



and take a look at all the cool merchandise with the logo at Cafe Press

Making Law Firm KM Smaller - A Reprise

It's interesting how a message has different meaning to us at different times. When I first read this post by Steve Matthews back in April: Vancouver Law Librarian Blog: Making Law Firm KM Smaller I just found it interesting in a cursory way.

Now I have re-read it, and wonder to myself, "How can I do that?".

What he has suggested is that we must make lawyers feel connected to any content collections we have. One way to do that is to allow them to track the content they find useful. And, I think from his post he is also implying we should be able to see that and use that to guide the use of the collection and future development of it.

Given that I am using InMagic software (DB Textworks and WebPublisher) I wonder what my options to do this are? Wouldn't it be nice for the user to have a flagged area in which they can have a list of books, research memos, websites links, they found most useful? And wouldn't it be nice to have another flagged area showing the communal wisdom on most popular items--papers, memos, websites, books, etc.?

Is this all sounding a little like Amazon to you? Just as I thought our physical libraries could use some inspiration from Starbucks or Chapters/Indigo a while back, I'm now starting to think we need to look at popular online sites for our online inspiration.

Lexis Nexis Wooing Customers Worldwide

Legal information industry blog House of Butter is back up and running (they were on a short hiatus for the month of January). Today they report that Lexis Nexis Australia is working hard to convince their jurisdiction that the new global interface will be suitable for their needs. HOB reports: "Lexis have already flown a select group of Aussie law libs to Dayton ... we presume to lay their minds at rest about the new system/product."

We'll wait for the follow-up report on what they learn.

Michael Stephens on Weblogs & Libraries

I have posted more extensive discussion about the talk by Michael Stephens onto SLAW entitled Weblogs & Libraries - A Talk by Michael Stephens. Take a look, especially for these new phrases (at the bottom of the post):

- biblioblogosphere
- ref grunting
- Technology Evangelist
- wiki whacking

Bills, Blogs and Water

I had a very interesting day yesterday, in many ways. I spent the day as an audience member and really learned a lot:

• at the TALL luncheon, John Gregory, Mariam Leitman and Tamara Kuzykm, all counsel from the Ministry of the Attorney General, spoke about Bill 14, the Access to Justice Act, especially the proposed Legislation Act, 2005 contained in Schedule F which, if passed, will make e-Laws an official source of law in Ontario.



• at University of Toronto's Faculty of Information Studies, I attended a talk by fellow librarian blogger Michael Stephens called "Weblogs & Libraries: Communication, Conversation and the Blog People" which outlined the results from the survey he did of blogging librarians in November for his PhD thesis. (I remember taking that survey!) He was in town as speaker at the OLA Superconference. [Thanks to Ted Tjaden for pointing out this talk on Slaw]



• the movie "Water" by Deepa Mehta. I had not expected the Romeo and Juliet references, nor the heavy influence of Ghandi. It was a very moving film--I recommend it if you have the opportunity to see it.

I hope to talk more about these, either here or elsewhere.