US Library Association Oppostion to Trump Continues

This is a follow-up to the Library Boy post of 2 days ago entitled US Library Association Statements on Trump Government Crack Down on Free Flow of Information.

American library associations  have been speaking out against various initiatives of the new Trump administration in recent days:

• Association of College & Research Libraries: "The recent disappearance of pages from the White House website and attempts to silence scientists and the media are of serious concern to our Association. We hope that all members of ACRL will join us in reaffirming our commitment to support students, faculty, staff, and the public we serve. We are committed to representing many backgrounds and advocating for social justice on campus and in our communities. We oppose actions used to suppress free expression, academic freedom, and intellectual freedom in academe and condemn the use of intimidation, harassment, bans on entry to the United States from Muslim-majority countries, and violence as means with which to squelch free intellectual inquiry and expression.."
• Asssociation of Research Libraries: "President Trump’s recent executive order temporarily barring entry into the US by individuals from seven countries is contrary to the values held by libraries and presses, and the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) and the Association of American University Presses (AAUP) stand unequivocally opposed to this immigration ban." 
• American Library Association:  "Today American Library Association President Julie Todaro released the following statement responding to recent actions by the new administration and specifically addressing issues regarding access to information, discrimination and intellectual freedom. We are shocked and dismayed by recent executive orders and other actions by the new administration, which stand in stark contrast to the core values of the American Library Association (ALA). Our core values include access to information; confidentiality/privacy; democracy; equity, diversity and inclusion; intellectual freedom; and social responsibility."

Legal Community Reacts to Trump Immigration Executive Order

Last Friday, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order temporarily banning immigrants and refugees from 7 Muslim countries.

The negative reaction from the legal community has been swift:

• Canadian Bar Association statement: "While the US government has now given high-level assurances that the order does not apply to Canadian citizens and permanent residents, it seems to be based on the national interest exemption in the order and determined case-by-case with no clear procedures. Individuals may still face issues at ports of entry. We also urge the government to examine the impact of the order on agreements and policies between Canada and the US, including the Safe Third Country Agreement."
• Canadian lawyers have important role following Trump immigration order (Canadian Lawyer magazine blog): "Canadian lawyers will have important work ahead of them as a result of a controversial executive order by U.S. President Donald Trump, says Sukanya Pillay, executive director and general counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association... The CCLA is calling on the Canadian government to take eight steps in the wake of the order, including boosting the number of refugees accepted into the country and implementing procedures to take applications from asylum seekers impacted by the ban."
• At least five judges block Trump's immigration order; more than 4,000 lawyers volunteer (ABA Journal): "Groups seeking to provide legal help, in addition to the ACLU, include the National Immigration Law Center and the International Refugee Assistance Project. In a conference call on Sunday, group officials said rotating shifts of lawyers are stationed at major airports, and another 2,000 lawyers have volunteered, according to the National Law Journal. Lawyers at the airports are holding signs in different languages offering help. Lawyers from top law firms are among those filing lawsuits on behalf of immigrants affected by the ban and providing pro bono assistance. They include lawyers from Mayer Brown, Kirkland & Ellis, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton, and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld."
• Federal law gives Trump broad immigration authority, but critics see these legal impediments (ABA Journal): "President Donald Trump cited a federal law giving him broad immigration authority when he issued his executive order on Friday that temporarily blocks refugees and immigrants from seven mostly Muslim countries from entering the United States."
• Big Law Responds to Trump’s Immigration Executive Order (Bloomberg Law): "It’s a busy time to be a pro bono lawyer.After President Donald Trump issued an executive order Friday to severely limit immigration from seven Muslim-majority nations, lawyers across Big Law jumped in to help travelers, visa and green card holders, who faced uncertainty and deportation in the wake of the order that was soon followed by federal rulings staying parts of the action."
• The Airport Cases: What Happened, and What’s Next? (Just Security, online forum on U.S. national security law and policy based at the New York University School of Law): "In case you’ve had trouble keeping score (I know I have), I thought it would be useful to start the week with a brief post recapping the work of the courts (and the lawyers) on Saturday and Sunday, where things stand as we head into the work week, and what the big questions are for the next few days." 
• Civil Rights Challenges to Trump Immigration/Refugee Orders (University of Michigan Law School Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse): "Legal challenges ensued immediately; information on them will be kept current in the cases linked below. On Saturday and Sunday Jan. 28-29, alone, over 30 cases were filed. It will take us some time to incorporate all of these into the Clearinghouse fully, but in the meantime, we've posted a list..."
• Resources Related to President Trump’s Immigration Executive Order (U. of Baltimore Law Library Blog

Opportunities for Academic and Research Libraries and Wikipedia

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) recently published a white paper on Opportunities for Academic and Research Libraries and Wikipedia explaining how academic and research libraries can cooperate with the famous online encyclopedia:

"IFLA has the opportunity to support libraries, library staff and library associations by enabling their members to engage with Wikipedia: through networking, skill development, and showcasing examples of successful cultural and knowledge collaborations that can act as models for potential future initiatives."

"This paper explores several ripe areas of mutual benefit and collaboration around crowdsourcing and community engagement: writing and reference, technical tasks, linked open data, project coordination, high-speed publishing, learning communities, and the support of teaching, learning, and research. There is also consideration of the challenges of pursuing this vital work together. However, the shared mission of sharing knowledge with the world, and the growing bridge that Wikipedia has created between libraries and other information and knowledge actors with the broader public, makes these collaborations broadly beneficial to both communities. Wikimedia and libraries’ collaboration strengthens the strategies, skills and tools available for both communities in their efforts to share knowledge with the world."

One example of collaboration took place at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia:

"Launched on January 15, the #1Lib1Ref campaign is uniting libraries around the world.

Supported by Wikipedia Library and a number of Wikimedia Affiliates, the campaign aims to make Wikipedia better for all by encouraging information professionals to add citations to Wikipedia entries."

"Libraries of all types and sizes are hosting activities and the Dalhousie Libraries is no exception. Lindsay McNiff (information management specialist librarian) and Margaret Vail (systems developer) hosted a ninety minute Wikipedia Edit-a-thon for the Dal Libraries on January 24."

Bora Laskin Law Library Reading List for Reconciliation With Canada's Indigenous Nations

The Bora Laskin Law Library at the University of Toronto has created a list of resources called Reconciliation through Reading:

"With the start of a new year the Faculty of Law’s Indigenous Initiatives Office (IIO) challenged each student, faculty and staff member to make and keep a reconciliation resolution. A reconciliation resolution is an action that will help the country move towards a better relationship with Indigenous people and the IIO suggest committing to three over the year."

"One of the suggested activities includes reading and learning more about Indigenous people in Canada and the resolution process. With that in mind, here are some resources that can help you fulfill that resolution."

US Library Association Statements on Trump Government Crack Down on Free Flow of Information

In the wake of the disappearance of public information from US official websites and of orders from the new US administration silencing federal government experts and scientists from agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency, American library associations have been raising their voices in the past week:

• The Office for Intellectual Freedom of the American Library Association: "Amidst reports of the Trump administration’s attempts to order media blackouts of federal agencies, it’s important that we resist any attempt to use the power of government to stifle the very agencies charged, like libraries, with the dissemination of information (...) To restrict citizens’ access to information essential to their health because it fails to agree with the political viewpoint of a particular administration is blatant government censorship. Rather than returning power to the American people, such strategies endanger us."
• American Association of Law Libraries: "[AALL President Ronald E. Wheeler Jr.]: As legal information professionals, law librarians rely on accurate, timely information to serve government officials, judges, the bar, legal scholars, and members of the public. We urge the new Administration and Congress to support an open and transparent government in which all people have access to official, trustworthy information produced by all three branches of government (...) As James Madison once wrote, 'A popular Government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance; and a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives'."

Supreme Court of Canada Tackles Link Rot With New Online Archive

To combat link rot, the Supreme Court of Canada today launched an online archive of Internet Sources Cited in SCC Judgments (1998 – 2016).

Link rot refers to broken URLs or to URLs that direct to the original site but whose corresponding document has been removed or relocated without any information about where to find it.

From the Terms of Use:

“The Office of the Registrar of the SCC, recognizing that web pages or websites that the Court cites in its judgments may subsequently vary in content or be discontinued, has located and archived the content of most online sources that had been cited by the Court between 1998 and 2016 in order to preserve access to them. These sources were captured with a content as close as possible to the original content (…)”
“Since 2017, online sources cited in the ‘Authors Cited’ section in SCC judgments have been captured and archived. When a judgment cites such a source, an ‘archived version’ link is provided.”

Earlier Library Boy posts about link rot include:

• Most Recent Issue of Law Library Journal (November 5, 2010): "Among the articles that attracted my attention: ... Breaking Down Link Rot: The Chesapeake Project Legal Information Archives Examination of URL Stability: 'Ms. Rhodes explores URL stability, measured by the prevalence of link rot over a three-year period, among the original URLs for law- and policy-related materials published to the web and archived though the Chesapeake Project, a collaborative digital preservation initiative under way in the law library community. The results demonstrate a significant increase in link rot over time in materials originally published to seemingly stable organization, government, and state web sites'."
• Fifth Annual Link Rot Report of the Chesapeake Digital Preservation Group (May 3, 2012): "The Chesapeake Digital Preservation Group has just published its 5th annual study of link rot among the original URLs for online law- and policy-related materials it has been archiving since 2007 (...) In 2012, 218 out of 579 URLs in the sample no longer provide access to the content that was originally selected, captured, and archived by the Chesapeake Group. In other words, link rot has increased to 37.7 percent within five years."
• CBC Radio Interview about Link Rot in Court Decisions (October 28, 2013): "The most recent episode of the CBC Radio show Spark includes an interview with Harvard Law School researcher Kendra Albert who co-authored an article about link rot in US Supreme Court decisions (...) In the case of the URLs in US Supreme Court decisions, the authors found a link rot rate of 50%. The Spark researchers checked URLs in Supreme Court of Canada decisions and found many broken links to texts from the Canadian Association of Journalists, the Law Society of Alberta and the Uniform Law Conference of Canada, among others."
• Georgetown University Symposium Searches for Solutions for Link Rot (March 16, 2015): "Retired Supreme Court of the United States librarian Judith Gaskell published an article today on Slaw.ca called Link Rot: the Problem Is Getting Bigger, but Solutions Are Being Developed. The article describes a symposium in the fall of 2014 at Georgetown University that examined emerging solutions to the problem of link rot.." 
• Profile Article About Inventor of Anti-Link Rot Perma.cc Web Tool (September 27, 2015): "The ABA Journal last week published a profile of "Legal Rebel" Jonathan Zittrain, the director of the Harvard Law Library. The Law School invented the tool Perma.cc that helps organizations create an archive of permanent links for web citations. It acts as a tool to deal with the growing menace of link rot."
• US Supreme Court Tackles Link Rot Problem (October 11, 2015): "The New York Times reported last week that the Court has created a dedicated page on its website where it posts permanent copies of the materials to which it links in its decisions."
• Law Library of Congress Tackles Link Rot (April 14, 2016): "The US government website DigitalGov has published an article called Law Library of Congress Implements Solution for Link and Reference Rot.  It explains how the Law Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. adopted Perma.cc, a tool developed at Harvard to help law journals and courts deal with link rot." 
• Harvard Law Receives Major Grant to Continue Developing its Anti-Link Rot Tool (April 18, 2016)

Canadian Association of Law Libraries Webinar on Libraries and Access to Justice

The Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL) is hosting a webinar on Tuesday, January 31, 2017 called Libraries and Access to Justice. It starts at 1PM Eastern time:

"The Justice system has been described as in crisis. Following the release of the Action Committee on Access to Family and Civil Matters’ report in 2013 a number of initiatives across the country have been launched to address the issue. With the increase in self- represented litigants this is an issue that affects all law librarians from those who serve the public and firm librarians. Johanne Blenkin, CEO of CLBC will talk about the role of law libraries in access to justice, opportunities for law librarians and also about the LawMatters program for public libraries  that CLBC operates. Sarah McCoubrey, Access to Justice Strategist at CALIBRATE, will speak about the Ontario initiatives on A2J and collaboration with Ontario public libraries."

Amnesty International Canada Report on Making 2017 "A Year for Human Rights"

Amnesty International has released its annual human rights agenda for Canada entitled A Year to Get it Right.

It provides a list of 35 recommendations for the Canadian government including:

• halting construction of the Site C dam in northeastern British Columbia
• beginning implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples
• increasing accountability for Canadian extractive companies operating abroad
• adopting a human rights-based approach to national security
• and much more on issues ranging from gender equality to refugees and foreign policy

Alex Neve, Secretary General of Amnesty International Canada’s English Branch, and Béatrice Vaugrante, Director General of Amnesty International Canada’s Francophone Branch, explained the rationale behind the report in a commentary published this morning in the pages of The Ottawa Citizen:

"There will be much pressure on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to appease new counterparts, south of the border and elsewhere, who have come to power having fuelled discrimination and division. But there can be no room to waiver. Respect for human rights must be at the heart of what Canada seeks to advance around the world, as never before."

"2017 must be a year for human rights."

New Publication – Voices: Topics in Canadian Librarianship

The website Librarianship.ca has launched a new publication called Voices: Topics in Canadian Librarianship that will draw attention to experiences that have inspired librarians:

"We are launching this new publication with stories from members of our community about those experiences that were satisfying, gratifying, or grounding to them in a way that made them PROUD to be a library professional."

"It is these stories and memories that are so dear that recalling them can elevate our moods and we find ourselves looking back to them from time to time. They are our Library Happy Places when the world around us is dark and gloomy."

Statistics Canada Article on Organized Crime

The Statistics Canada publication Juristat published an article yesterday on Measuring organized crime in Canada: Results of a pilot project:

"Organized crime has long been identified as a government priority and a public safety issue. As a result of high profile incidents in the 1990s and extensive consultations by the government, the Criminal Code of Canada was amended in 1997 to help identify criminal organizations and to protect justice system participants (...) The aim of this and subsequent legislation was to provide law enforcement and justice officials with tools to respond to organized crime, including a clear national definition of a criminal organization (...), broader powers through sentencing guidelines, and the ability to seize property obtained for the benefit of organized crime (... )"

"To address the issue of organized crime, data are needed to inform both resourcing and policy questions related to detection, prevention and officer and public safety. Recent reports have indicated that the complexity of organized crime creates additional resource demands on policing (...). Further, the nature of organized crime is to constantly evolve to adapt and exploit new opportunities—characteristics which, without data and data sharing among law enforcement and those responsible for public safety, make it even more challenging to fight (...). Despite the need for data to inform resourcing and policy, there are currently no standardized data to monitor the nature and extent of organized crime at the national, provincial/territorial or local levels."

"This Juristat article provides an overview of existing measures of organized crime in Canada and raises awareness regarding data availability and the efforts being made to collect national police-reported data through the Uniform Crime Reporting Survey (UCR). The article draws from a pilot project launched to determine best practices in the collection of police-reported data on organized crime."

Supreme Court of Canada: 2016 in Numbers

The Court.ca, the blog of the Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, has published a statistical overview of the decisions the Supreme Court of Canada delivered in 2016:

"2016 was a fairly quiet year for the Supreme Court.  In total, 60 appeals were decided through 55 individually indexed reasons for judgment.  Some appeals were heard and decided together, accounting for the difference between appeals heard and judgments rendered. Of those 55 reasons, 12 were given orally."

"The number of reasons released in 2016 is down from the 65 reasons given in 2016 (12 orally), and the 76 given in 2014 (21 orally).  Indeed, last year’s activity continues a general downward trend in the number of decisions released annually.  There are many reasons that may help explain this, including an increasing complexity of legal questions at issue before the Supreme Court."

The article looks at applications for leave to appeal, the disposition of the cases heard, the number of unanimous vs. split decisions, the length of the Court's judgments, and also offers stats for each judge.

Supreme Court of Canada: New Library Titles

The list of new library titles added to the Supreme Court of Canada collection from January 1 to 15, 2017 is now available on the Court website.

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

Freshly Minted Profiles of Library and Information Studies Students and Grads

The website Librarianship.ca has been running a series of profiles called  Freshly Minted since 2013.

The series introduces Canadians who are studying for the Master's program in Library/Information Studies or who have recently graduated and are now working in the field.

The most recent instalment is about Lorisia MacLeod, a student at the School of Library and Information Studies, University of Alberta:

"Is there one aspect of the profession that surprises you that you were not expecting when you started the program? What is it?
I was pleasantly surprised about how accessible everyone in the field is to students. Before starting classes I contacted all of my professors to meet with them and every single one was willing to take time out of their busy day to meet with me. Even beyond that there was directors and managers that when I reached out were very happy to sit down and talk about their training and knowledge base. I guess I thought that as a student, important people wouldn’t have much time for me but I was pleasantly surprised with how supportive the field is of their students."

Senator Murray Sinclair's Residential School Reading List

Canadian Senator Murray Sinclair, the former Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, has produced a Residential school reading list:

"Many of you have asked for a reading list on the topic of residential schools. Ask and ye shall receive. Here’s part of a larger reading list I use."

"There are several related topics of course which I recommend people take a look at such as Genocide, Colonization/Decolonization, Indigenous activism, child welfare and Indigenous children, Indigenous people and the Justice system etc. I also highly recommend all of Vine Deloria’s books, Thomas King’s Inconvenient Indian, Richard Wagamese’s book Indian Horse, all of the Research papers compiled by the Aboriginal Healing Foundation ... and the website of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation ..."

In 2015, the Commission released its findings after its years-long investigation into the many abuses against Indigenous children at Church-run Indian Residential Schools in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Upcoming Ottawa Conference on the Charter and Emerging Issues in Constitutional Rights and Freedoms: From 1982 to 2032

The University of Ottawa is organizing a conference entitled Charter and Emerging Issues in Constitutional Rights and Freedoms: From 1982 to 2032 on March 8-10, 2017:

"Our conference will bring together leading constitutional scholars, as well as community leaders and policy makers to discuss and examine the possibilities and challenges for constitutional rights and freedoms over the next 10-15 years. The conference will begin on the evening of Wednesday, March 8, 2017 with a public debate on 'Resolved: The Charter Revolution is Over'. There will be a reception at the Supreme Court of Canada on the evening of Thursday, March 9, 2017."

"The Honourable Mr. Justice Richard Wagner of the Supreme Court of Canada will deliver a keynote address."

The conference is part of the Constitution 150 project, a year-long partnership of the Public Law Group at the University of Ottawa, the Centre for Constitutional Studies, the University of Alberta, and the Université de Montréal.

Statistics Canada Article on Trends in Remand Over Past Decade

The Statistics Canada publication Juristat yesterday published an article entitled Trends in the use of remand in Canada, 2004/2005 to 2014/2015.

It looks at trends in the number of adults and youth being held in remand (pre-trial detention) in the period from 2004/2005 to 2014/2015.

Among the highlights:

• In 2014/2015, on an average day, there were more adults in custody awaiting trial than there were convicted offenders serving time in sentenced custody. Provincial and territorial correctional facilities across the country supervised an average of 24,014 adults per day in sentenced custody and pre-trial detention; 13,650 of them, or 57%, were in pre-trial custody (remand).
• In provincial and territorial correctional facilities, the average daily number of adults awaiting trial in remand has exceeded the number in sentenced custody since 2004/2005.
• In comparison to ten years earlier, the number of adults in remand has grown almost six times more than the number in sentenced custody. From 2004/2005 to 2014/2015, the average daily adult remand population increased 39%, while the average daily sentenced custody population was up 7%.
• All provinces and territories saw their adult remand numbers climb between 2004/2005 and 2014/2015. There have been particularly large increases in average daily counts in Nova Scotia (+192%), Northwest Territories (+139%), Manitoba (+134%) and Alberta (+109%).
• One in four adults (25%) admitted to remand in 2014/2015 were Aboriginal persons (excluding Alberta and Prince Edward Island). This is about 8 times greater than the representation of Aboriginal persons in the overall population (3%).
• Similar to the situation for adults, on an average day in 2014/2015, there were more youth aged 12 to 17 in pre-trial detention (561 or 56%) than were in sentenced custody (448 or 44%) (excluding Quebec). There have been, on average, more youth in pre-trial detention than sentenced custody since 2007/2008.
• Unlike the findings for adults, the average number of youth in pre-trial detention has been declining, mirroring the notable drop in the number of youth charged with a crime in recent years.
• In 2014/2015, more than one-third (36%) of youth admissions to pre-trial detention (in the eight jurisdictions where information was available) was an Aboriginal youth. This was about five times their representation in the general population (7%). In 2004/2005, Aboriginal youth accounted for 21% of admissions to pre-trial detention. In comparison to pre-trial detention, Aboriginal youth accounted for a larger share of admissions to sentenced custody in both 2004/2005 (26%) and 2014/2015 (40%).

Call for Nominations for Denis Marshall Memorial Award for Excellence in Law Librarianship

The Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL) is seeking nominations for the Denis Marshall Memorial Award for Excellence in Law Librarianship:

"This award is an honour bestowed upon a current member of CALL/ACBD who has provided outstanding service to the Association AND/OR enhanced the profession of law librarianship in the recent past. The specific contributions  must reflect the qualities embodied by Denis Marshall:

• a continued commitment to excellence in law librarianship;
• a strong service ethic;
• a commitment to continuous learning;
• a significant contribution to the scholarship of the library profession;
• mentoring and encouraging those who seek a profession in law librarianship;
• the pursuit of innovation and/or innovative solutions;
• and/or a contribution to leadership in the law library profession. "

The name of the nominated person must be accompanied by two signed letters from colleagues in support of the nominee, with names and signatures of three additional CALL members supporting the nomination.

Nominations should be sent in by April 1, 2017.

January 2017 Issue of Governance and Recordkeeping Around the World

The Governance and Recordkeeping Around the World newsletter, published by Library and Archives Canada (LAC), highlights issues pertaining to government and recordkeeping practices in the public and private sectors around the world.

The January 2017 issue has just been published.

It includes:

• news items from Canada and around the world 
• announcements of upcoming Canadian and international events (meetings, conferences, seminars) 
• project and product news in areas such as digitization, archives, open source, e-government, access to information and Web 2.0 
• listings of papers and readings (white papers, presentations, reports)

Library-Related Highlights from the Canadian Government's 2015-16 Departmental Performance Reports

Last month, the website Librarianship.ca published Highlights from the 2015-16 Departmental Performance Reports.

Every year, the President of the Treasury Board, a federal Cabinet minister, tables Departmental Performance Reports (DPRs) on behalf of dozens of federal government departments and agencies:

"Departmental Performance Reports are a measure of how well individual organizations met their plans and expected results as set out in their respective annual Reports on Plans and Priorities, including those for internal services."

"Below are some highlights of interest to the Canadian library and information management community as identified by individual departments and agencies."

The article includes excerpts from the DPR of the Supreme Court of Canada that covers IT risks (cyber attacks), electronic case management, the implementation of a new document management system by the Library and Information Management Branch and changes in the Court Records Centre.

January 2017 Issue of In Session - E-Newsletter of Canadian Association of Law Libraries

The January 2017 issue of In Session is available online.

It is the monthly e-newsletter of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (CALL) and contains news from CALL committees and special interest groups, member updates and events.

Supreme Court of Canada: New Library Titles

The list of new library titles added to the Supreme Court of Canada collection in the month of December, 2016 is now available on the Court website.

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

Supreme Court of Canada Calendar of Upcoming Hearings

The Supreme Court of Canada has published its calendar of appeal hearings for January 2017.

To find out more about any particular case, the Court's website has a section that allows users to find docket information, case summaries as well as facta from the parties. All you need to do is click on a case name.

Winners of 2016 Canadian Law Blog Awards

The winners of the 2016 Canadian Law Blog Awards (known as the Clawbies) were announced a few days ago.

The prize for Best Canadian Law Blog went to The Court, a blog covering the Supreme Court of Canada that is produced by faculty and students at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto.

The Best Law Library Blog award went to Robeside Assistance maintained by the County of Carleton Law Association library in Ottawa. Library Boy was a runner-up in that category. Cool!

There were awards in many other categories.

The Clawbies are organized by Stem Legal, a B.C.-based strategy firm.

Supreme Court of Canada 2016 Review

Ottawa-based Supreme Advocacy LLP recently published a Supreme Court of Canada 2016 Year-in-Review that provides a "complete legal snapshot of all the law from the SCC in 2016 (...) Each section is arranged in alphabetical order below by area of law so you can more easily find the decisions relevant to your practice."

Supreme Advocacy LLP specializes in agent services (production, technical review, servicing and filing) as well as involvement as counsel (drafting leave applications or factums, preparing oral argument, and providing strategic advice) in front of Canada's top court.