Off for 3 Weeks Vacation

I will be leaving this evening for my belated summer vacation.

Tomorrow at this time, Viviane (Mrs. Library Boy) and I will be zipping between Paris and Brussels on the TGV high-speed train.

Itinerary: Brussels, then Namur (capital of Wallonie) and the Entre-Sambre-et-Meuse region, then northwards to my father's birthplace Ghent (or Gent in Flemish or Gand in French, depending on your language preferences or political proclivities - this is important in the context of Belgian communitarian tensions). Then, off to visit a friend in Munich for Oktoberfest (!), then hop on the overnight train to Paris in the 2nd week of October for the last few days before jetting back over the Big Pond.

Arrive home and collapse from exhaustion after 3 weeks of mussels, carbonnades flamandes, Ghent waterzooi (thick chicken stew/soup), steins of Bavarian beer and many servings of Zwetschgenkuchen (plum cake), and French pastries.

Will I blog while on vacation? Maybe, maybe not. Let's say I'll try.

European e-Government Awards 2007

Awards for the best e-government initatives in the European Union were announced yesterday at the Ministerial eGovernment Conference in Lisbon:

"The City of Amsterdam from The Netherlands, the Ministry of Government Administration and Reform of Norway, the City of Besançon from France and the Portal of the Federal Government of Germany each picked up one of the prestigious awards celebrating Europe’s most innovative public services. The prize for the 'Most Inspiring Good Practice' went to the State Police of Italy as a result of a public vote. The winners were each presented with the European Award Trophy by Vice President Siim Kallas of the European Commission and Minister Silva Pereira of the Portuguese Presidency".

The full list of the 52 finalists for 2007 is available.

Earlier Library Boy posts about e-government include:

• International Conference on E-Government (August 3, 2006): "UNPAN, the United Nations Online Network in Public Administration and Finance, recently held a conference in Budapest on the topic of E-Government."
• Brown University 6th International Ranking of E-Government (August 4, 2006): "The Taubman Center for Public Policy at Brown University in Rhode Island has just released its 6th annual ranking of e-government initiatives. Asian countries take three of the top five spots in the global e-government study. South Korea came in first, followed by Taiwan, Singapore, the United States, and Canada."
• More E-Government Rankings from Brown University Study (August 6, 2006): "The Taubman Center for Public Policy at Brown University, Rhode Island, have released their 7th annual e-government ranking for the United States. Researchers looked at more than 1,500 U.S. state government sites, plus 48 federal government legislative and executive sites and 13 federal court sites (...) According to the study, Texas and New Jersey are the best American states for e-government initiatives. The U.S. federal portal FirstGov.gov and the Department of Agriculture are the most highly rated federal sites."
• UN Compendium of Innovative E-Government Practices (June 11, 2007): "The Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat has just released a Compendium of Innovative E-Government Practices (...) The document describes a number of justice-related projects, such as: The Electronic Filing System (Federal Court of Australia) (...) The e-Government Code (Italy) (...) Real Time Crime Center (New York City Police Department)"
• Governments Willing to Learn From the People on Web 2.0? (June 19, 2007): "The Law Librarian Blog, in a post entitled 'Government 2.0', draws attention to discussion in the UK of a new official report, The Power of Information, that calls on government institutions to actively engage with citizens who are out there using and inventing new interactive Web 2.0 tools."
• Audit of UK Government Websites: Lots of Room for Improvement (July 28, 2007): "Earlier this month, the United Kingdom's National Audit Office, the equivalent of our Office of the Auditor General, published its report on English government websites. Entitled 'Government on the internet: progress in delivering information and services online', the report to the UK Parliament found that Internet users rated government websites reasonably well, but that the quality of those websites has improved only slightly since 2002."
• Brown University 7th International Ranking of E-Government Initiatives (July 29, 2007): "The Taubman Center for Public Policy at Brown University in Rhode Island has just released its 7th annual ranking of e-government initiatives. The findings are based on the analysis of 1,687 government websites in 198 different nations. The types of websites analysed included executive offices (president, prime minister, ruler, party leader, or royalty), legislatures, major courts, and major agencies and ministries."

International Privacy Conference in Montreal

International privacy experts are gathering in Montreal next week to explore emerging new threats to privacy. Many top names in the field will be there.

Called "Privacy Horizons: Terra Incognita", the 29th International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners will examine issues such as privacy and public safety, globalization, Radio Frequency Identification, children and the Internet, location-based tracking, data mining, and Internet crime.

Library Porn - Lots of Pictures!

Librophiliac Love Letter: A Compendium of Beautiful Libraries:

"Everyone has some kind of place that makes them feel transported to a magical realm. For some people it's castles with their noble history and crumbling towers. For others it's abandoned factories, ivy choked, a sense of foreboding around every corner. For us here at Curious Expeditions, there has always been something about libraries. Row after row, shelf after shelf, there is nothing more magical than a beautiful old library".

Montreal Conference on Prevention of Genocide

The Legal Scholarship Blog mentions an upcoming Global Conference on the Prevention of Genocide hosted by the McGill Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism October 11th - 13th, 2007 in Montreal.

Great line-up of speakers:

• Lieutenant-General Romeo Dallaire
• Michael Ignatieff, Deputy Leader, Liberal Party of Canada
• Irwin Cotler, former Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of Canada
• Jan Pronk, former Special Representative of the UN Secretary General in Sudan
• Francis Deng, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide
• Juan Mendez, Former Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide
• Ben Kiernan, Professor of History and Director of the Cambodian Genocide Program, Yale University
• Hon. Gareth Evans, President of the International Crisis Group
• Brian Stewart, CBC Correspondent
• Salih Mahmoud Osman, Sudanese Human Rights Lawyer and activist
• Martha L. Minow, Harvard Law School
• Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court

Implementation of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement

The federal government announced this week the implementation of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.

Former students who were subjected to abuse in Indian Residential Schools will be able to submit applications for compensation until September 2011. Aboriginal children were often grabbed away from their families to be shipped off to the boarding schools that tried to assimilate them.

There are an estimated 80,000 Canadian native people living today who are affected by the compensation deal. Many suffered physical, sexual and/or psychological abuse at the hands of teachers and supervisors.

The government released a backgrounder to clarify which applications would be accepted at this point. The Common Experience Payment page on the Service Canada website has more information.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation website has created a timeline on the residential school issue.

Do Supreme Court of Canada Justices Change their Policy Preferences After Their Appointment?

That's what 2 University of Toronto law professors wanted to find out.

Andrew James Green and Benjamin Alarie have made their paper entitled Policy Preference Change and Appointments to the Supreme Court of Canada available on the site of the Social Science Research Network:

"As Canadian courts have taken on a greater role in reviewing government action following the advent of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, judges have been increasingly criticized for making social policy. The criticism of judicial decision-making has brought the judicial appointment process under scrutiny, particularly the process for appointing justices to the Supreme Court of Canada. Supreme Court justices are appointed by the Prime Minister through a process which has in the past not been open to public scrutiny. There have been increasing calls to reform the process, possibly by instituting a U.S. style public hearing process prior to appointments. The assumptions underlying the debate are that Prime Ministers can predict the voting of their appointees, that they appoint justices whose political preferences accord with their own and that these judges vote in a predictable pattern over time".

"Unlike in the U.S., there has not been a considerable amount of empirical work undertaken on decision-making by justices of the Supreme Court of Canada. This paper examines Supreme Court of Canada decision-making in the post-Charter era. We examine how the policy preferences of the justices on the Supreme Court of Canada between 1982 and 2004 shifted (if at all) during their time on the Court, focusing particular attention on the behaviour of the justices immediately following their appointment. We use two methodologies to assess preference change among the justices of the Supreme Court of Canada. One is a direct methodology based on the observation of judicial votes in various areas of law. The other is an indirect methodology, which uses Bayesian inference and a Markov Chain Monte Carlo methodology to uncover the latent policy preferences of the justices based on a spatial item-response theory model. In undertaking our analysis, we first assume that judges have constant preferences over their tenures, and then relax this assumption and assess the consequences. Our results suggest that the policy preferences of justices shift over time and the analysis has implications both for the debate surrounding the Canadian appointments process and for models of judicial decision-making".

Canadian Study on Digital Rights Management and Privacy

The Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa has just released a study into the privacy implications of digital rights management technologies (DRM) currently used in the Canadian marketplace:

"Our assessment of the compliance of these DRM applications with PIPEDA [Personal Information Protection and
Electronic Documents Act] led to a number of general findings:

• Fundamental privacy-based criticisms of DRM are well-founded: we observed tracking of usage habits, surfing habits, and technical data.
• Privacy invasive behaviour emerged in surprising places. For example, we observed e-book software profiling individuals. We unexpectedly encountered DoubleClick – an online marketing firm – in a library digital audio book.
• Many organizations take the position that IP addresses do not constitute 'personal information' under PIPEDA and therefore can be collected, used and disclosed at will. This interpretation is contrary to Privacy Commissioner findings. IP addresses are collected by a variety of DRM tools, including tracking technologies such as cookies and pixel tags (also known as web bugs, clear gifs, and web beacons).
• Companies using DRM to deliver content often do not adequately document in their privacy policies the DRM-related collection, use and disclosure of personal information. This is particularly so where the DRM originates with a third party supplier.
• Companies using DRM often fail to comply with basic requirements of PIPEDA."

An Executive Summary is available.

Law Library of Congress Redesigns Website

As part of its 175th anniversary, the Law Library of Congress in Washington has released its newly designed website.

It includes many international legal resources such as:

• Global Legal Information Network: "a public database of official texts of laws, regulations, judicial decisions, and other complementary legal sources contributed by governmental agencies and international organizations."
• Multinational Collections Database: "lists items which reprint the laws and regulations of international jurisdictions on a particular legal topic, comparative in nature."
• Global Legal Monitor: "intended for those who have an interest in legal developments from around the world."
• Foreign and International Law: "the Law Library of Congress has prepared a guide to reference sources, compilations, citations guides, periodicals (indexes and databases), dictionaries, web resources, free public web sites, subscription-based services, subject-specific web sites, and country overviews." So far, the Library has prepared guides for Australia, Brazil, the UK, China, India, Lebanon, and Sweden.

Supreme Court of Canada Fall 2007 Preview

The Supreme Court of Canada is gearing up for the opening of the Fall 2007 judicial season in the 2nd week of October. There are 32 cases on the docket.

Last Friday, Kirk Makin of The Globe and Mail profiled some of the "big" cases in an article entitled Key challenge to fishing rights leads court's fall agenda:

• a constitutional test case involving differential treatment for aboriginals in the area of natural resources
• a challenge to mandatory minimum sentences
• an appeal against a statute that orders third parties to produce phone records for police investigations
• a Human Rights Commission case involving a woman refused a job by local police on the grounds of bad "moral character"
• a case in which a couple found guilty in the death of their child are seeking to obtain the results of a coroner's review into the work of a disgraced pediatric pathologist
• a New Brunswick language-rights case involving a traffic ticket given by a unilingual anglophone RCMP officer to a francophone driver
• a challenge to a provision allowing young people over 14 to be sentenced as adults in manslaughter cases unless the young people can show why they should not be treated as adults (reverse onus)

Happy 25th Birthday Smiley Face Emoticon!

The computer smiley officially turns 25 tomorrow!

The smiley, written symbolically as :-), was created by Carnegie Mellon University professor Scott E. Fahlman in 1982:

"Language experts say the smiley face and other emotional icons, known as emoticons, have given people a concise way in e-mail and other electronic messages of expressing sentiments that otherwise would be difficult to detect".

"Fahlman posted the emoticon in a message to an online electronic bulletin board at 11:44 a.m. on Sept. 19, 1982, during a discussion about the limits of online humor and how to denote comments meant to be taken lightly".

" «I propose the following character sequence for joke markers: :-),» wrote Fahlman. «Read it sideways»."

Carnegie Mellon University has created an official smiley anniversary page.

National Constitution Day in the U.S.

Yesterday was National Constitution Day for our neighbours south of the border. The members of the Constitutional Convention signed the United States Constitution on September 17, 1787 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The Law Librarian Blog pointed to online resources from the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia and from LLRX.com.

Copyright Article Comparing Canadian Fair Dealing to UK Fair Dealing and US Fair Use

Dr. Giuseppina D'Agostino of York University in Toronto has published an article on the Social Science Research Network entitled Healing Fair Dealing? A Comparative Copyright Analysis of Canadian Fair Dealing to UK Fair Dealing and US Fair Use:

"As a result of the March 4, 2004 Supreme Court of Canada decision in CCH Canadian Ltd v. Law Society of Upper Canada for the first time in Canadian copyright history, the court determined that Canadian law must recognize a 'user right' to carry on exceptions generally and fair dealing in particular. This paper compares the Canadian fair dealing legislation and jurisprudence to that of the UK and the US. It is observed that because of CCH, the Canadian common law fair dealing factors are more flexible than those entrenched in the US. For the UK, certain criteria have emerged from the caselaw consonant to Canada's pre-CCH framework and in many ways there is now a hierarchy of factors with market considerations at the fore. The real differences, however, ultimately lie in the policy preoccupations held by the respective courts, with Canada's top court alone concerned in championing user rights above all other rights. The paper concludes that Canadian fair dealing does not require too much healing but would benefit from some remedies outside (and complimentary to) the law and the courts. While doing nothing does not seem to be the appropriate response, legal intervention as many advocate may not be warranted either. Rather than, or at the very least together with, reforming the law, establishing fair dealing best practices is most promising. The parties directly affected in a specific industry can together develop these guidelines to ultimately aid in clearer and ongoing fairer fair dealing decision-making in the courts. It is here that US initiatives can serve as most fruitful to emulate".

Use of Social Tagging in Libraries Spreading

The article Tags Help Make Libraries Del.icio.us in the online version of Library Journal describes how more and more libraries are turning to social bookmarking tools such as del.icio.us to organize information about recommended resources and replace the traditional subject guide.

On del.icio.us, users can create an account to save bookmarks and assign subject tags to them. Those tags can then be made available to the public:

"Libraries like the Thunder Bay Public Library, Ont., and the Nashville Public Library have del.icio.us tag clouds rolled on their web site, so patrons can find information on any number of topics just by clicking on a tag. Other libraries like the College of New Jersey Library and University of Alberta Libraries experiment with del.icio.us link rolls to replace or supplement traditional subject guides and pathfinders".

"But why is using social bookmarking tools better than traditional pathfinders and subject guides? It lowers barriers for participation, both for library patrons and staff. Tasha Saecker, director of the Menasha Public Library, WI, notes that del.icio.us helps 'less tech-savvy librarians have an equal voice in the collection,' instead of having one or two librarians editing a static web page".

(...)

"While library catalogs and databases rely on controlled vocabularies and traditional subject guides, and pathfinders often address only broad categories, tags allow library staff to assign worthy links multiple tags in what Staley [information technology department head at the Lansing Public Library in Michigan] calls 'plain language'."

"Tagging is often controversial among librarians, largely because adding keywords to resources lacks authority control. But libraries employing del.icio.us and other social tools can use the lack of controlled vocabulary to their advantage".

According to the article, some libraries have been addressing the authority control issue by bundling tags according to the Dewey classification. And in the case of the Sorbonne, in Paris, tags are grouped together by time period, discipline, format, country, and language, thus combining the traditional and the web 2.0 worlds to provide access to professionally evaluated, high quality electronic material.

On July 9, 2007, I published a post entitled MIT Updates Virtual Reference Pages Using Social Bookmarking that explained how the Massachusetts Institute of Technology uses del.icio.us to keep its virtual reference site up-to-date.

Play Library Science Jeopardy!

This looks like a fun way to waste time:

"Welcome librarians, MLS candidates, and other interested pursuers of knowledge; welcome one and all to Library Science Jeopardy. Just like the popular television version, the primary rule remains to provide your answer in the form of a question. There are six categories to select from, each containing five answers in ascending order of difficulty. Click on any of these from the game board below and you will encounter your first answer. Below the answer will appear four possibly correct questions, from which you must select the correct question. If you are of the competitive sort, you might want to have pencil and paper handy to keep score. There are no prizes, but, if you guess correctly, you will win an expanded explanation of the correct question".

[Source: LISNews]

Canadian Bar Association Article on Disaster Planning

CBA PracticeLink, a publication of the Canadian Bar Association, has published an article entitled Not If, But When: Prepare a Disaster Recovery Plan Today:

"The goal of disaster planning is making a recovery that ensures the firm’s survival. If, as a lawyer or a law firm, you think of planning for disaster recovery as a luxury you can ill afford in a time of increasing cost and profitability pressure, think again. Considerable research suggests that you are jeopardizing the future of your practice through unpreparedness and through missing an opportunity to gain competitive advantage".

The article does not address library issues. I published a post on that topic entitled Library Disaster Planning on January 22, 2006.

Canadian Government Consultation on Lawful Access

On his Canadian Privacy Law Blog, David Fraser has posted about the upcoming law access consultations organized by Public Safety Canada:

"The purpose of this consultation is to provide a range of stakeholders - including police and industry representatives and groups interested in privacy and victims of crime issues - with an opportunity to identify their current views on possible approaches to updating Canada’s lawful access provisions as they relate to law enforcement and national security officials’ need to gain access to CNA [customer name and address] information in the course of their duties. The possible scope of CNA information to be obtained is later identified, but it should be noted from the outset that it would not, in any formulation, include the content of communications or the Web sites an individual visited while online".

Comments from University of Ottawa's Michael Geist. More background from the Sept. 12 Canadian Broadcasting Corporation story Government moving to access personal info, sparking privacy fears.

Earlier Library Boy posts on lawful access include:

• Government policies may point to more restrictive Internet (March 7, 2005): "In his regular Law Bytes column in the Toronto Star, University of Ottawa professor Michael Geist argues that the days of the Internet as a realm of unlimited access and unlimited possibility are under threat from a number of potential policy developments (...) Among the threats Geist identifies are the federal government's lawful access initiative that would allow for easier interception of private communications (...)"
• List of Electronic Surveillance Laws in the U.S. (December 22, 2005): "For Canadian material, one can have a look at the lawful access section of the CIPPIC website. CIPPIC is the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic based at the University of Ottawa."
• Canadian Bar Association Worried About ISP Surveillance (July 8, 2006): "The Canadian Bar Association appears concerned that Internet service providers have been putting into place the technical capacity to monitor their customers' communications without proper authorization."
• Update on Canadian Internet Surveillance Proposals (October 30, 2006): "University of Ottawa law prof and Toronto Star columnist Michael Geist has published a piece about the state of the federal government's lawful access initiative. The idea behind lawful access is to provide Canada law enforcement with new, more sophisticated electronic surveillance tools to prevent and fight organized crime, money laundering and terrorist activities. Geist analyzes various internal government documents recently obtained under the Access to Information Act that show how authorities are attempting to deal with the initial negative public reaction to the proposals to expand police powers."

Dilbert on Web 2.0

The Dilbert cartoon series tackles the web 2.0 issue. Or how the term can be made to mean anything you want.

Information Literacy of Incoming Law Students

The Social Science Research Network recently published an article by Syracuse University - College of Law professor Ian Gallacher entitled 'Who are Those Guys?' The Results of a Survey Studying the Information Literacy of Incoming Law Students :

"This article presents the results of a summer 2006 survey of students about to begin their first year of law school. In total, 740 students from seven different law schools responded to the survey. The survey gathered general information from the students, as well as self-evaluative data on student reading, writing, and research habits in an attempt to understand how the students perceive their skills in these crucial areas. The survey data suggest that while there is some positive news to report, incoming law students overestimate their writing and research skills and come to law school inadequately trained in information literacy. The article concludes with an analysis of some of the broad conclusions suggested by the data from this survey and from other studies of law student and new lawyers, and proposes some possible remedies for the skills deficits displayed by incoming law students".

I published a related post on April 3, 2007 entitled Debate Continues on New Lawyers'/Students' Lack of Research Skills.

People may also want to check Leah Christensen's research paper entitled Legal Reading and Success in Law School: An Empirical Study (August 2006, University of St. Thomas Legal Studies Research Paper No. 06-29) :

"Does the way in which law students read legal text impact their success? This article describes important new research on how law students read legal text. This study examined the way in which first year law students in the top and bottom 50% of their class read a judicial opinion and whether their use of particular reading strategies impacts their law school grades. The results were significant: even when students had gone through the same first-semester classes, the more successful law students read a judicial opinion differently than those students who were less successful. In addition, there is a correlation between the reading strategies of the top law students and their first-semester grades. This article describes the results of the study using both empirical data and actual student transcripts to show how the most successful law students read legal text. This article also offers practical suggestions for legal educators to help students learn to internalize the most useful and efficient reading strategies".

Review of New Zealand Privacy Law

Yesterday, I published a post about the Review of Australian Privacy Law.

There is a similar review being done by the Law Commission of New Zealand:

"This review of public registers is part of the Law Commission’s major review of privacy, to be conducted in four stages (...) This is a complex and wide-ranging project in four stages, and it will not be completed until late 2008".

"Stage 1 of the review is a high-level policy overview that will set the conceptual framework and help identify issues for more detailed examination in the later stages. The Stage 1 report will consider different ways of conceptualising privacy, and discuss the implications of political, social and technological change for privacy protection. The report will be published in early 2008".

"Stage 2 is concerned with public registers. This issues paper is a preliminary publication inviting public submissions and comment by 5 November 2007. These will be taken into account and a report produced in early 2008, in tandem with the Stage 1 report. Stage 3 will examine the adequacy of New Zealand’s civil and criminal law to deal with invasions of privacy, and Stage 4 will be a review of the Privacy Act 1993".

Fall 2007 Law Student Special Issue of Canadian Bar Association's National Magazine

The most recent annual law student issue of National , the Canadian Bar Association magazine, is up on the CBA website.

Content:

• The new landscape of law: Five vibrant practice areas that weren’t on the radar ten years ago
• Culture shock: There's a revolution happening in Canadian law schools
• What you need to know: Lawyers and judges across Canada tell us what they wish they’d known when they first entered the profession
• From the Editor: This generation is taking charge of the legal profession
• Addendum: What law firms expect from students; choosing the right employer; conflicts of interest; must-see websites

Making New Zealand Law More Accessible

The Law Commission of New Zealand has released what it calls an Issues Paper on "methods of making New Zealand Statute Law more accessible by the introduction of a more systematic method of classifying and/or indexing Acts of Parliament".

Apparently, laws down there are in a bit of a mess:

"This issues paper is about the accessibility of New Zealand’s statute law; we believe that it falls well short of the desirable standard. Certainly there have recently been improvements in the way our Acts are expressed, and in how they are presented. Moreover we are soon going to have official versions of Acts, continually updated, available electronically and accessible by computer free of charge. However, we believe that much more still needs to be done".

"Acts on the same topic are scattered throughout the statute books, and can be hard to find. The relationship between them is often not clear. There is no official index to help the user. Some Acts have been in force for so long, and amended so often, that they are shapeless and confusing to the reader. It is hard to piece all the amendments together. Old Acts are often drafted in a dense and wordy style that everyone, even lawyers, find hard to understand. These old Acts exist side by side with more modern Acts and provisions. There is thus a mixture of styles. Some old Acts are probably dead wood, and are not needed anymore".

"In short, our statute law as a whole lacks coherence, is untidy and unwieldy, and is difficult to find, understand and use".

"We believe that a detailed official subject index would be of great assistance. So would a programme of revision to tidy the statute book and make it easier to navigate and understand. We believe that a new position should be created in the Parliamentary Counsel Office to oversee such a programme".

"The advance of the electronic age also raises questions about the future of hard copy. They are explored in the paper. We also take the strong view that historical Acts, dating right back to the mid-nineteenth century, should be captured digitally and made available electronically. Some of the old books are in such a precarious state of repair that there is a risk of losing them if something is not done".

"In summary, in this paper we examine the present problems of access to our statute law, and express our strong view that something needs to be done to improve the position".

Review of Australian Privacy Law

The Australian Law Reform Commission has released a list of more than 300 proposals to amend Australia's privacy laws.

In a press release accompanying the document, Commission President Prof. David Weisbrot is quoted as saying:

"The federal Privacy Act sets out different principles for private organisations and for government agencies. On top of that, each state and territory has its own privacy laws or guidelines and some also have separate laws on health privacy".

"The ALRC is proposing there be a single set of privacy principles for information-handling across all sectors, and all levels of government. This will make it easier and less expensive for organisations to comply, and much more simple for people to understand their rights".

"The protection of personal information stored or processed overseas, as is now routine, is another serious concern. The ALRC wants to ensure that such information has at least the same level of protection as is provided domestically. We propose that a government agency or company that transfers personal information overseas without consent should remain accountable for any breach of privacy that occurs as a result of the transfer..."

A final report and recommendations are expected to be completed by March 2008.

Law Library of Congress World Law Bulletin 2000-2006 Now Online

The 2000-2006 issues of the World Law Bulletin, a publication of the Law Library of Congress in the U.S., have been posted on the Internet.

On the site of the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy!

"The WORLD LAW BULLETIN is a monthly publication of the Directorate of Legal Research at the Law Library of Congress.

The Bulletin, which is distributed to members of Congress and staff but not the public, provides updates on foreign law developments".

"In May 2006, the Law Library began publishing the Global Legal Monitor, which partially replicates the contents of the World Law Bulletin in publicly releasable form".

[Source Barclay Blog, Syracuse University College of Law]

Supreme Court of Canada Library: New Titles

The list of new library titles added to the Supreme Court of Canada collection for the period of August 16th to 31st, 2007 is now available on the Court website.

The web page explains: "The Supreme Court of Canada Library does not lend materials from this list, which is provided for information only."

But, once the material goes into the general collection, after about a month, the works do become available for inter-library loans to authorized libraries.

It is possible to subscribe via e-mail to receive the list.

Policy Options Sept. 2007 Issue on Reasonable Accommodation of Minorities

The Sept. 2007 issue of Policy Options, a journal of the Montreal think tank Institute for Research on Public Policy, contains a number of articles on the issue of reasonable accommodation of minorities, in particular religious minorities.

The issue was published just as public hearings of the Bouchard-Taylor Commission on state secularism, immigrant integation and relations between minorities and the French-speaking majority of the province get underway in Quebec.

Among the articles in the current issue are:

• "Neutralité de l'État et accommodements : convergence ou divergence ?" by José Woehrling
• "Reasonable accommodation in a global village" by Yasmeen Abu-Laban and Baha Abu-Laban
• "The paradoxes of reasonable accommodation" by Julius Grey
• "De convictions et d'accommodements" by C. Allard, M. Blanchard, M. Bourque, A. León-Germain, S. Gervais, C. Giguère, J. Maclure, et F.-N. Pelletier
• "Secular logic and faith: a dialogue of the deaf?" by David Mendelsohn
• "Des balises pour une société ouverte et inclusive" by Marie Mc Andrew
• "Reasonable or mutual accommodation? The integration debate in Germany" by Rita Süssmuth
• "Un débat inachevé qui refait surface" by Rachida Azdouz

See my August 15, 2007 Library Boy post entitled Quebec Hearings on Reasonable Accommodation of Minorities Begin Next Month:

"The Consultation Commission on Accommodation Practices Related to Cultural Differences was created by the provincial government last spring after a number of incidents involving clashes or controversies between members of minority groups, in particular religious minorities, and the members of the highly secularized French-speaking majority that overthrew the restraints of its earlier conservative Catholic culture more than 40 years ago during the 'Quiet Revolution' of the 1960s. The Commission's consultation document is available online".

Review of Canadian Anti-Terror Laws

The most recent issue of Choices, a publication of the Montreal-based Institute for Research on Public Policy, features an article by University of Toronto professor Kent Roach on how the bitter and petty partisanship in the House of Commons has undermined Parliament's ability to deal seriously with the issues surrounding Canada's response to terrorism.

The article is entitled Better Late Than Never? The Canadian Parliamentary Review of the Anti-terrorism Act :

"This paper assesses the policy-making process behind the Canadian Parliament’s mandated review of the Anti-terrorism Act (ATA) and the expiry of preventive arrests and investigative hearings in the ATA. As such, it provides a preliminary glimpse into the complexities of national security policy-making. Policy-makers in this area must grapple with difficult issues that involve liberty, security, equality, privacy and Canada’s international relationships. In addition, they must also respond to a seemingly overwhelming array of policy drivers including United Nations edicts, varying assessments of the threat environment, predictions about the restraints that will be imposed by courts under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, recommendations by public inquiries, rights watchdogs and parliamentary committees, the experience of other countries and input from interest groups. The policy environment is dynamic and the issues are multifaceted. There are no easy answers. At the same time, there is a danger that the issues will be simplified, sensationalized and politicized in a partisan manner".

(...)

"The conclusion of this study will explore whether Parliament is up to the task of building on the work of the committees in a rational and intelligent way and completing the long-delayed three-year review of the ATA through amendments. The recent debate over investigative hearings and preventive arrests, regardless of one’s views about the outcome, does not justify optimism. It may be that good work by committees in the sensitive area of antiterrorism law and policy may be better received in courts and unelected upper chambers than in the elected Commons. This, at least, has been the experience in the United Kingdom (...). Such a conclusion would not, however, bode well for the ability of Parliament or the Canadian public to deliberate about the many difficult security issues that we face".

Roach holds the Prichard-Wilson Chair in Law and Public Policy at the University of Toronto. He has also been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He has written eight books, including September 11: Consequences for Canada (McGill Queens Press). He is the co-editor of Global Anti-Terrorism Law and Policy (Cambridge University Press) and of The Security of Freedom: Essays on Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Bill (University of Toronto Press).

Article on Blogging Judges

The Spring/Summer 2007 issue of Case in Point, a publication of the National Judicial College in the United States, has an article called Bench Blogging (starts at page 3) about judges who blog.

The College, located on the campus of the University of Nevada in Reno, is the top judicial training institution in the U.S.

The article interviews a number of blogging judges and discusses many of the ethical issues involved.

It also lists "Some Do’s and Don’ts for Blogging Judges":

• DO provide links to other sites and to raw materials so people can find information more easily.
• DO treat blogs the same as any other mode of communication, adhering to the canons of ethics.
• DO blog on judicial issues to provide information other judges may need.
• DO provide helpful tips on challenges such as caseload management.
• DO write about judicial issues that might give citizens a better understanding of the court system.
• DON’T write blog posts about pending cases.
• DON’T mix your personal and your professional life into one blog.
• DON’T write anything that could compromise your safety or the safety of those in the courthouse.
• DON’T blog on issues that could increase the number of cases from which you could be recused.

I posted about Judges Who Blog on April 19, 2006.

Ontario Appeal Court Webcasts Begin

Webcasting of proceedings in front of the Ontario Court of Appeal finally got underway on Friday, September 7, 2007:

"Certain proceedings in Courtroom #1 at the Court of Appeal will be recorded and streamed live on the Court's Internet website at www.ontariocourts.on.ca/appeal.htm. DVD copies of recorded proceedings will be distributed to accredited media twice per day on request. They will also be available for use by journalism and law schools and other organizations for educational and training purposes. An audio feed box for reporters is available if audio recordings of proceedings are required. Recorded proceedings will be archived on the Court's website for 90 days to ensure round-the-clock public access."

Live streaming of the proceedings was one of the recommendations of the Panel on Justice and the Media that reported to the Attorney General of the province in August 2006 (see the August 24, 2006 Library Boy post entitled Report on TV Cameras in Ontario Courtrooms).

Earlier Library Boy postings on media access to the courts include:

• UK Courts to Accept TV Cameras (November 14, 2006): "The British media is reporting that civil and criminal trials in the UK may soon be televised. According to the Nov. 13, 2006 Reuters article Courtroom TV could be a step nearer, '(P)roposals that could lead to television cameras being installed in courts could soon be set out by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, head of the judiciary. A five-week pilot was started in Nov 2004 in the Court of Appeal in the Royal Courts of Justice in London and the consultation process was completed in the summer of 2005'."
• Report on Televising U.S. Supreme Court and Other Federal Court Proceedings (November 29, 2006): "The Federation of American Scientists has made available on its website a report by the Congressional Research Service entitled Televising Supreme Court and Other Federal Court Proceedings: Legislation and Issues (...) 'This report also discusses the arguments that have been presented by proponents and opponents of electronic media coverage of federal court proceedings, including the possible effect on judicial proceedings, separation of powers concerns, the purported educational value of such coverage, and possible security and privacy concerns. Finally, the report discuses the various options Congress may address as it considers legislation, including which courts should be covered, whether media coverage should be authorized or required, possible security and privacy safeguards, and the type of media coverage that would be permitted'. "
• Maryland Appeals Court to Webcast (December 1, 2006): "The Maryland Court of Appeals, the highest court in the state, will provide live webcasts of its proceedings, 'hoping to be ready in time to broadcast arguments set for Dec. 4 in a high-profile case involving gay marriage,' according to an Associated Press agency story reprinted in the Houston Chronicle on Nov. 27, 2006. Maryland will thus join other U.S. states. The newspaper story explains that '(A)bout half of the appellate state courts (...) allow coverage of hearings on the Web or on cable channels'."
• U.S. Judiciary To Make Court Proceeding Recordings Available Online (March 19, 2007): "The legal news site JURIST is reporting that the Judicial Conference of the United States has approved a pilot program to make free audio recordings of court proceedings available online."
• Webcasting of Ontario Court Proceedings To Start Soon (May 27, 2007): "At the end of last week, the Ontario Attorney General's office announced it was going forward with certain recommendations of the Panel on Justice and the Media, including the live streaming of some proceedings of the Court of Appeal for Ontario..."
• Michigan Symposium on TV in the U.S. Supreme Court (June 23, 2007): "First Impressions, an online companion to the Michigan Law Review, has just published an 'Online Symposium on Televising the Supreme Court' (...) A diverse panel of authors explores the implications of the prospective legislation [to allow live broadcasts of U.S. Supreme Court hearings] and considers potential costs and benefits of televising the Court’s proceedings."

Report of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers

Leandro Despouy, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, recently released a report to the UN General Assembly on threats to the judiciary and to lawyers around the world.

"It is based on an analysis of the Special Rapporteur’s many involvements from 1994 to 2006. One of the conclusions he has reached is that the judicial actors in the majority of countries are unable to discharge their functions independently and — all too frequently — find that their own and their families’ protection and safety are jeopardized. In this regard, he urges States to adopt specific measures to guarantee these persons’ security and independence. He also urges the United Nations to attach priority to the defence of justice in its analysis of institutional matters and to give precedence to the justice sector in its support and technical cooperation activities".

(...)

"Threats, intimidation and acts of aggression directed against lawyers accounted for 17 per cent of communications issued by the Special Rapporteur; the corresponding figure for judges and prosecutors was 4 per cent. Arbitrary detention and judicial harassment accounted for 26 per cent of communications concerning lawyers and 4 per cent of those concerning judges and prosecutors. Assassinations of lawyers, judges and prosecutors accounted for 4 per cent of the total number of communications. In some countries, the level of violence was especially high. For example, in one Latin American country, the Office of the Special Rapporteur recorded the assassination of 16 employees of the judicial system, 63 cases of threats, 2 abductions and 2 cases of exile between January 2005 and August 2006. In one Asian country, no fewer than 15 lawyers and 10 judges were assassinated with impunity between 2001 and mid-2006. The authorities do not always provide sufficient protection or a clear condemnation of these criminal activities, which often go unpunished".

The former U.N. Commission on Human Rights established the mandate of the Special Rapporteur in 1994. The mandate encompasses all aspects related to the structure and functioning of the judicial system and their impact on the enjoyment of human rights. This covers issues such as corruption, equal access to fair proceedings, the level of financial allocation and independence of the judiciary, and ways in which judges are being appointed and removed.

New Ontario Law Commission Officially Launched

The government of Ontario officially launched the province's new Law Commission yesterday in Toronto.

The Law Commission of Ontario is a partnership among Osgoode Hall Law School at York University, the Law Society of Upper Canada, the Ministry of the Attorney General, the Law Foundation of Ontario and the Deans of Ontario's six law schools. Its creation was announced last November (see the December 6, 2006 Library Boy post entitled Ontario Creates Law Reform Commission).

Its role will be to act as an arm's-length independent forum in which to research sensitive legal policy issues and recommend reforms.

Its predecessor, known as the Ontario Law Reform Commission, had been abolished in 1995 by the provincial Conservative government.

Other law reform commissions in Canada:

• B.C. Law Institute - its website maintains a database of over 7000 publications from law reform bodies around the world.
• Alberta Law Reform Institute
• Manitoba Law Reform Commission
• Law Reform Commission of Nova Scotia
• Saskatchewan Law Reform Commission

New Biblioblogosphere Survey Results

Meredith Farkas, author of the blog Information Wants To Be Free, has just published the results of her survey of library bloggers.

She received some 839 responses. Major results and/or comments from Farkas:

• female bloggers - 66.3%
• "The percentage of folks in the 40-60 range definitely went up since 2005, which means that the blogosphere is definitely getting more diverse in terms of age".
• "The Midwest is still grealy overrepresented here as it was in 2005".
• bloggers with the Master's degree - 71.5%, library school students - 13.2%: "The numbers haven’t changed too much for those blogging with and without a Masters in Library/Information Science, but there are definitely a good deal more people in library school who are blogging (they were only 8.6% of the population in 2005). That’s great news!"
• "Public libraries have certainly made a comeback and are now a much more significant portion of the biblioblogosphere. I wonder if that can be attributed to changing attitudes about blogs or to the increased education about social software in public libraries (thanks to initiatives like Learning 2.0). The percentages are also up in library systems and consortia, school libraries and medical/health science libraries. " Self-identified law librarians who blog represent 2.3% of those who answered this question about their workplace.
• "The blogosphere is definitely getting more diverse in terms of the types of positions people work in. The percentage of people working solely with library technologies has actually declined from 2005. People who self-identified as being in public services areas of library service make up the largest part of the blogging population (34.6%). The next largest are those working in library technologies (20.6%) and technical services (9.3%)".

Canada Post Salutes 100th Anniversary of Law Societies of Alberta and Saskatchewan

On September 13, 2007, Canada Post will mark the 100th anniversary of the Law Society of Alberta and of the Law Society of Saskatchewan by issuing 2 domestic (52 cents) commemorative stamps.

The stamp celebrating the birthday of the Law Society of Alberta is designed by Xerxes Irani:

"A photograph of James Muir, the Society's first President, lies alongside the books, and the Society's original seals are embedded on the books' spines."

The stamp saluting the centennial of the Law Society of Saskatchewan is designed by Catharine Bradbury:

" 'The key photograph of the stamp is the historic photo of the Benchers, who were founding members of the law society,' Bradbury explains. The second visual is a photo taken from the registry roll of the society. This roll has been signed by every member of the society since its formation. 'The colours,' Bradbury says, 'are all derived from the handmade paper found on the inside cover of the roll.' It is a philatelic homage to this institution which oversees the pursuit of law and justice in the public interest."

5 Law Librarians Make Top Bibliobloggers List

Horn-tooting time.

The Online Education Database came up with a method to determine who the top library bloggers are.

The methodology took into account various measures such as Google PageRank, Alexa Rank, Technorati Authority, and number of Bloglines subscribers.

These contests are always a bit "iffy" (see post questioning some of the criteria) but what the heck? Let's pat ourselves on the back.

5 blogs featuring law librarians (including 2 Canucks!) made the top 25 list:

• Law Librarian Blog (5th)
• Vancouver Law Librarian Blog (17th)
• Connie Crosby of Toronto (20th)
• The Handheld Librarian - some of the contributors are law librarians (21st)
• Jason the Content Librarian (24th)
  

Is the Future of Legal Scholarship in the Blogosphere?

That is the question asked in an article published last week in the Legal Times.

It provides an overview of the increasing use of the legal blogosphere by tenured law professors to pursue legal scholarship:

"If you are looking for the future of legal scholarship, chances are that you may find it not in a treatise or the traditional law review but in a different form, profoundly influenced by the blogosphere (...) Who are the bloggers? The uninitiated might think they would be young professors, those who have grown up with the Internet and are comfortable with self-publication in that format. While there are some of those, the legal blogosphere tends to be populated by midcareer professors who have tenure, are intimately familiar with traditional legal scholarship and see the Internet as a way to reach more readers in a less ritualized format (...)"

"Why, then, spend the time? One answer is that a blog reaches far more readers than traditional scholarship. Eugene Volokh said in 2006 that his blog gets about 20,000 unique visitors a day. Readers of traditional law review articles are not counted, but, he says, he's pretty sure that number is very far from 20,000".

"Immediate feedback is another reason. In days of yore, a law review article would be written, published and perhaps presented at a symposium. Scholars would reply with another article, perhaps followed by a response from the initial author. With a law review publication schedule of six to 18 months, scholarly dialogue proceeded at a snail's pace. Bloggers explore issues as they happen, knowing that others will critique their opinions within days, if not hours or minutes".

Earlier Library Boy posts on the topic include:

• Harvard Blog and Legal Scholarship Conference Update (May 11, 2006): "In the past few years, blogs have begun to affect the delivery of legal education, the production and dissemination of legal scholarship, and the practice of law. We are delighted that over twenty of the nation’s leading law professor bloggers have agreed to join with us for the first scholarly conference on the impact of blogs on the legal academy."
• Open Access Publishing and the Future of Legal Scholarship (March 31, 2006): "A few weeks ago, the Lewis and Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon hosted a conference on open access publishing in the legal field. 'Interestingly, the open access publishing model has not yet become as popular in legal scholarship as in other fields. Why has legal scholarship lagged in the open access publishing movement? Should law schools, who do the most to fund both the production and publication of legal scholarship, push toward an open access publishing approach?' "
• More Law Journals Adding Blog Companions (April 20, 2007): "A number of law journals are now leveraging weblog technology to present information and commentary online. Some are offering online weblog 'digests' which supplement the traditional printed journal, while others are solely online. The common thread (...) is a desire for a more timely forum to comment on new developments in the journal's area of coverage"
• Gatekeeping in Legal Scholarship in an Online Age (July 24, 2007): "Paul Horwitz, a visiting professor at the Notre Dame Law School, has recently published a paper on the open access Social Science Research Network entitled 'Evaluate Me!': Conflicted Thoughts on Gatekeeping in Legal Scholarship's New Age: «Bloggers, SSRN, and online law review supplements like this one have increasingly routed around and weakened, if not undermined, the traditional gatekeepers who certified legal scholars and their scholarship. Is this a good thing?» "

Novel Courses at Canadian Law Schools

The most recent edition of the magazine Canadian Lawyer has an article entitled New Style Law School about some of the innovative courses being offered by Canadian law faculties.

Among the list:

• Wrongful conviction workshop (University of New Brunswick)
• Elder law (Queen's University)
• Ethical lawyering in a global society (Osgoode Hall Law School)
• Law of the Olympic Games (University of British Columbia)
• Communications law/class actions (University of Windsor and University of Ottawa)

The article adds:

"The courses noted above are just the tip of the iceberg; there are many other innovative offerings at Canadian law schools that have students and faculty excited about returning to class this fall. Others available for the first time include: animals, culture, and the law that is being offered for the first time at the University of Victoria; law and religion at Dalhousie; anti-terrorism law at the University of Ottawa; law of armed conflict at UBC; racial profiling at the University of Windsor ... and the list goes on."

Government Technology Conference in October

The next annual Government Technology Exhibition and Conference (GTEC) is taking place at the Ottawa Congress Centre from October 15 to 17, 2007.

GTEC is an annual meeting place for IT/IM decision-makers from the federal, provincial, municipal, and regional levels of government. This year's theme will be "Government 2.0: Exploring a new age of Innovation and Collaboration".

There will be many information management sessions at GTEC. Based on a recent e-mail from the Treasury Board Secretariat, some of the IM-themed sessions will be:

• Policy on Information Management 2007: How does it apply to me?: "The objective of the Policy on Information Management is to achieve efficient and effective information management to support program and service delivery; foster informed decision making; facilitate accountability, transparency, and collaboration; and preserve and ensure access to information and records for the benefit of present and future generations. This session, will not only outline the renewed policy but it will explore compliance, effectiveness, and how it affects the average Government of Canada employee." - Speaker: Hélène Valin, Manager, Information Management Strategies Division, Treasury Board Secretariat
• Competitive Technical Intelligence and Patent Information Analysis, A New World of Data Management: "Defined by the Society of Competitive intelligence (CI) Professionals, CI is the legal and ethical collection, organization, analysis and interpretation of the activities going on with other organizations. The desired result of this process is a competitive advantage for your organization." - Speaker: Grégory Fruchet, Group Leader, Competitive Technical Intelligence, NRC Canada Institute for Scientific and Technical Information
• Don't Delete! – Electronic Discovery and its Impact on Information Management: "Information regardless of form is subject to discovery and may be required to be produced. That includes every e-mail sent or received, every file or anything touched by the alleged discriminating official. This session will cover the IM impact of e-Discovery and how it is affecting service delivery as well as highlighting the potential conflict between IT's need to free up server space and IM's obligation to produce information under e-Discovery, getting to the bottom of the true dangers of instructing users to delete files and e-mails that are not longer relevant." - Panellists: Diane E. Crouse, Director, Knowledge and Information Management Services, Government Consulting Services; Susan B. Wortzman, Partner, Lerners LLP, Commercial Litigation and Dispute Resolution, and Class Proceedings Practice Groups; David Wilson, Vice-President & General Counsel, Alcatel-Lucent Canada Inc.
• Library 2.0: Library Services and Web 2.0: "The world of library services are changing as Web 2.0 becomes more wide spread. According to Wikipedia, Library 2.0 is a loosely defined model for a modernized form of library service that reflects a transition within the library world in the way that services are delivered to users. Based on the philosophies of Web 2.0, this includes online services that increase flow of information from the user back to the library. This session will cover how the libraries are using these new methods including wikis, blogs and second life, to provide library services, and what benefit there are to the Government of Canada." - Speaker: Donna Bourne-Tyson, University Librarian, Mount Saint Vincent University
• Government 2.0: Wikinomics, Government and Democracy - Don Tapscott, Chief Executive and Co-author of Best-Selling Book, Wikinomics, New Paradigm: "In recent years, governments have embraced "e-government" and "citizen-centric" approaches to service delivery and emphasized inter-agency collaboration. Some governments have even extended new roles to citizens, community-based organizations, and private businesses in a bid to lower costs, harness new competencies, and leverage untapped sources of innovation. Today, four forces are bringing the urgency of public sector transformation to the fore: A technology revolution, a demographic revolution, a social revolution and an economic revolution Don Tapscott has called it Wikinomics. The principles of Wikinomics - openness, peering, sharing, and acting globally - provide a powerful manifesto for public sector transformation. Tapscott, one of the world's leading authors, strategists and change agents, will discuss initial insights from a new multi-million dollar research program on the future of government and democracy."
• Beyond Google: Enterprise Content Management - The Future of Enterprise Computing - Tom Jenkins, Executive Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer, Open Text Corporation: "As Google and search technology have dominated the thinking of the consumer Internet by transforming the way software is delivered to users, there is an enterprise equivalent also taking shape primarily around a product area called Enterprise Content Management (ECM) which is the management of unstructured data. This presentation will be a discussion around the core elements that make up ECM and the major business and technical influences that can be expected to shape ECM in the coming decade. Information discovery is a critical component of ECM and the discussion will trace the history of internet based search engines from the perspective of the speakers' early participation through to current research into meta data techniques and the impact of email attachments as a defacto repository in many organizations today. "

Canadian Association of Law Libraries: Application Deadline for Continuing Education Scholarship Fast Approaching

Members of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries should know that September 15 is the deadline for applications for funding of continuing education activities through the James D. Lang Memorial Scholarship (there is a link to an application form):

"The scholarship is designed to support attendance at a continuing education program, be it a workshop, certificate program or other similar activity deemed appropriate by the CALL/ACBD Scholarships and Awards Committee."

The scholarship honours the memory of James D. Lang, a long time employee of Canadian legal publisher Carswell and a member of the Association.