2006 CLawBies - Canada Law Blog Awards

There's no doubt that Canadian Law blogs were on a roll in 2006. Our online voices have made inroads into the US blogosphere, and we've established great connections with European law blogs. So in the spirit of the Blawggies & the Blawg Review awards, here's my inaugural edition of the CLawBies. Enjoy!

1) Best Canadian Law Blog (or Blogger) Award: Michael Geist - Simply put, Michael Geist is the most influential of Canadian law bloggers. He's the epitome of a thought leader, and our Canadian equivalent to Lawrence Lessig. And that's saying something. Runner ups: Rob Hyndman, Simon Chester.

2) Best Practitioner Support Blog - No question on this one. If you track privacy law in Canada, you read David Fraser's Canadian Privacy Law Blog. David must also be Canada's most dedicated blogger. His work is as close to exhaustive as a blog can deliver. And did I mention David's selection as a 2006 Outstanding Young Canadian? Runner ups: eLegal Canton, Alan Gahtan’s Technology and Internet Law Blog

3) Legal Culture Award - Precedent: The New Rules of Law and Style. Melissa Kluger's mix of law firm issues, fashion advice, and legal news worthy controversy is one of a kind in Canada. The tabloid approach to law blogs may soon be upon us, but we can take comfort that Precedent is doing it right - with class and humour.

4) My Non-Legal Audience Award goes to Rob Hyndman - Law bloggers constantly talk about engaging non-legal audiences, Rob Hyndman does it. The 'A-list' Technology bloggers read & comment on Rob's posts like he's one of the family. Why? Probably because better than any other Canadian law blogger, Rob understands his blog as a voice. He engages and converses where others simply opine. New law bloggers should take note.

5) Friend of the North Awards - Blogging is international, and keeping the north-south idea flow is important. So I'm recognizing Kevin O'Keefe and Dennis Kennedy with the first 'Friend of the North' Awards -- given to a US law blogger that actively reads and links to Canadian law blogs.

6) EuroCan Connection Awards - In a similar vein, European law bloggers are also very important to making our Canadian voices heard. Leading the way in 2006, I thought, were these three blogs: Information Overlord, ServiceDoc Info and Markenblog. A big and regular thanks to each of them.

7) Practice Management Award - I didn't think there was a worthy Canadian in this category, but a new entry is about to add a substantial Canadian voice to this blogging genre. Allison Wolf's The Lawyer Coach Blog is very new, but very good. So trust me on this one, take her feed, and watch it soar in 2007.

8) Law Librarian Blog Award - Michel-Adrien Sheppard's Library Boy. Michel-Adrien has had an outstanding year, breaking stories faster than almost everyone. He's constantly relaying content that Librarians can rely on. Runner ups: BCCLS What's New Blog, Connie Crosby. (Of note... I'm excluding the VLLB from this and all other Award categories.)

9) Best Legal Technology Blog - I'm biased on this one, but Slaw is world class. From Jordan Furlong's guest blogging, to the Marshall Rothstein SCC appointment, to the Grey Lit theme week, Slaw is the context behind legal technology. 2006 was a mighty fine year, and I'm proud to be a part.

10) Best New Law Blog Award - Lots of great new Canadian law blogs, and way too tough to call anything but a tie here: Vincent Gautais, Atlanteknology, Precedent, and the Canadian Trademark Blog*. (*Disclosure: While I've disqualified the VLLB, the content coming out of the CTB is top notch. So I think this one's justified, despite my involvement.)

11) Law Professor Blog Award - University of Toronto Law School Faculty Blog. This category is still under represented in Canada, and the UofT blog could bump up their posting frequency, but this initiative is definitely a quality effort. Let's hope that 2007 will bring out more Canadian law professor blogs! Runner ups: Vincent Gautais, Michael Geist

I know I've missed a number of great Canadian voices, and my apologies for any glaring omissions. Plus, this really is all in fun! Make sure you're on my list for 2007!

2006 DK Blawggies

Well it's year end, and time for recognizing the blogs you read. For the second year in a row, this blog has had a link mention in Dennis Kennedy's Blawggies. Under the Best Legal Blog Category, Dennis handed out a tie between 'Law Librarian Blogs' & 'Canadian Legal Blogs'. I obviously have a connection to both these groups, and also great respect for the others mentioned, including Rob Hyndman, Slaw, and Connie Crosby.

And speaking of Connie, link on over to the Blawg Review to see her award for Legal Support Blog, a recognition well deserved. Connie's a pioneer, and for many of us Canadian legal information types, her blog is a must read.

Maybe one day I'll hand out some awards to compliment my Canadian law blog list. hmmm... make sure to check back here in a couple days. I just may be motivated this year... :-)

5 Things You Didn't Know About Me

Jim tagged me with the ever popular '5 things' meme.

1) I'm a closet business book junkie. Riskin & Maister aren't in my blogroll by accident, and the fact that I can send either of them an email, get a response, and not be labeled a spammer will always amaze me.

2) As a 5 yr old I willingly dropped a brick on my own head. While demonstrating my Superhero strength, a young lady told me that the real Superman could lift the brick with no hands. Guess I proved her wrong...

3) I was once able to juggle anything, from bowling balls to flaming torches.

4) I'm a techie that's never taken a programming course. Pure hacksville. I can tweak most scripting languages, and have coded a number of unique legal-web products, but almost everything I know is self taught.

5) While I work in Vancouver, and this blog has 'Vancouver' in the title, I actually live in Mission, BC. I'm up at 5:00 am and have a one hour commute into the city each day. (Whew! that one was cathartic!!)

Tag forward: Scott Vine, Kevin O'Keefe, Simon Fodden, Cindy Chick, & Bonnie Shucha.

The Lawyer Coach Blog

Best of luck to Allison Wolf on the launch of her new Lawyer Coach Blog.

Most people in the Vancouver legal market will recognize Allison as the former Marketing Director at Harper Grey LLP. Allison's background includes being a certified executive coach, as well as the incoming President-Elect of the LMA Vancouver Chapter. Her blog (and new business!) will focus on Business Coaching for lawyers.

Canada Tops in Blog Readership

Steve Rubel points to a new study by Comscore Media Metrix which measures blog readership by country, and remarkably, Canadian online readers came out on top at close to 60%! Here's the first bullet from their summary:

• "Among the eight countries examined in the study, Canada saw the highest penetration of visitors to blogs, with 58 percent of all internet users visiting the category in October 2006. Half (51 percent) of all internet users in Spain also visited blogs."

This makes total sense to me. Canada is a physically large country with a population that has to work at keeping in touch. The Internet historically has made it easier for us to communicate, and new web-techs like blogs are simply the next logical step to exchanging ideas online.

The other big finding was the European adoption rate (Spain: 51%, France & UK: 45%). Again, no surprise. When my we launched our Trademark blog earlier this year, readership from across the pond was as good as here in North America (still is). Despite the fact that most of the top law bloggers originate from within the US, blog readers really are international.

Looks like the influx of euro-law bloggers we saw in 2006 may just become a phenomenon in 2007!

Good Work by the BCCLS

Updated copies of the BC Courthouse Library Society's Mission & Values and Strategic Directions are now available on their website. (Source: BCCLS What's New Blog)

Let me also take the opportunity to support BCCLS Executive Director (and current VALL President) Johanne Blenkin and her bid to be a member of the CALL Executive. Good luck Johanne!

Blog Anniversary

My 2nd blogoversary, on Nov. 30th, went right by me. Definitely going into my calendar for 2007.

Santa Claus vs Government of Canada

Santa Claus has a true friend in Larry Munn over at the Canadian Trademark Blog. Despite the fact that the Canadian Trade-marks Act prevents the registration of marks that are “merely the name or the surname of an individual who is living”, or, that the man's got a legit address (remember, postal code: HOH OHO), AND that he's in non-profit cahoots with Canada Post, Larry writes, the 'Big Guy' is still not getting proper protection from the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO)!

Come on people! Who are you going to believe, the USPTO? Go Larry!

David's Fight for Computer Time

On a bit of a one off, legal management guru David Maister may soon find himself fighting for computer time with his wife Kathy. She's just started a blog aimed at teaching "the absolute basics of cooking, with short cooking videos and step-by-step photo tutorials." Very interactive, and a nice interface too...

Aaaah, I remember when I first went off to University, and getting a copy of Cooking Without Mom... But now, I'm thinking I can 2.0 my parenting technique, and simply blast my kids a link to Kathy Maister's Start Cooking! woo hoo, who says technology doesn't make the world easier! :-)

Congratulations on the new business Kathy & David, and best of luck!

BC's QP LegalEze Adds RSS

QP LegalEze, the "web-based subscription service providing access to the current laws of British Columbia", has retooled their website, and launched its collection of RSS Feeds. Here's what's available:

• Updated Statutes
• Updated Regulations
• Defunct Regulations

Congratulations to everyone at QP, and thanks to Ken O'Connor for giving me a heads up. Next up, we want to see the changing text delivered by RSS, paragraph by paragraph! Oh well, I suppose I should be happy for small blessings. :-)

Librarian Blogger is AALL President-Elect

Congratulations to James Duggan, who has been elected Vice President/President-Elect of the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) . His VP term will begin in July 2007, and in July 2008, he will take over as AALL's new President.

Also worth noting, James is a fellow law librarian blogger, and part of the team at Southern Illinois University's Law Dawg Blawg. Wouldn't it be great if he also became the first AALL President with a voice in the blogoshphere?

Tom & Dennis, Thank-you

There's a lesson to be learned in getting extra mileage out of our past successes online. In the case of my rss in law firms post, I'm still deconstructing the chain of events, but obviously there's something to be said for sitting back, and letting guys like Tom Mighell and Dennis Kennedy do the work for you.

Tom & Dennis have not once, but twice made mention of it in their jointly authored articles for ABA's Law Practice Today. Dennis was also one of the first to post about it on Between Lawyers, a collaborative blog that both Tom & Dennis are a part of. And that's not to mention the spin off buzz that arose.

Guys, I've exchanged emails with both of you, but before I let 2006 slip away, let me say it publicly... thank-you!

Blog Networking for Introverts

Kevin O'Keefe has a great list of tips to help introverts utilize their blogs for business networking... definitely worth the click over.

I've been reading Kevin's blog for a few years now, and recently got to do a panel with him. One thing that really amazes me, is how much he believes in his technology. Not that he doesn't believe in his product too, but you always get the sense he's on a pulpit for professionals blogging, and doesn't need to put the 'hard sell' front & centre. I admire that tone for doing business, and think there's a few marketing lessons to be learned there too...

Back to the original topic... probably the best quote I've heard about blog networking was that "it's like 'working a room', only you don't have to touch people." :-) Funny quote, but a lot of truth too. Many of us cerebral types aren't always comfortable 'working a room'. Sure, it's a skill that can be learned (and should be), but why not play to our strengths? Many of us [Not sure if I should include myself here, but a little self-doubt goes a long way in life...] do great one-on-one, especially with the written word. And professional blogging, whether it's posting, commenting, or emailing behind the scenes is all about one-on-one. If it's your strength, why wouldn't you use it?

17 years ago

I don't give glimpses into my social moral side very often, but as a father of two daughters, my memory of 17 years ago seems to become more vivid as each year passes.

It's good to see groups like the White Ribbon campaign working, and now, even better to see them blogging! Two thumbs up for the good guys.

Technorati "operation aborted"

Anybody, anywhere, have a clue as to why my IE 6.x browser is crashing on Technorati's website? I'm getting an error message: "Internet Explorer cannot open the Internet site http://www.technorati.com/ Operation Aborted"

I did a little sleuthing and came up with a few complaints that this might be a IE7 beta thing, but that doesn't mesh with me using an older browser.

Linkout Friday - UK Law Blog Edition!

For this week's linkout (ok I've missed a few...), I'm going to recommend everyone expand their UK subscriptions beyond Scott Vine's Information Overlord. I've been reading these two blogs for a while, and have now promoted each to my blogroll:

• Binary Law is written by Nick Holmes. Nick is a publishing consultant specialising in the UK legal sector, and Managing Director of infolaw. His blog is well written, and reflects many of the issues surrounding online information delivery I'm interested in. (Subscribed!)
  
• Lo-Fi Librarian is a new-ish law blog, but I'm buying stock early. Check out this witty exchange we had over the 2000th Slaw comment. Lo-Fi's blog content is excellent, but it's that kind of entertaining writing style that makes it a winner. (Subscribed!)

Have a great weekend!
Steve

Second Life Users & Protecting IP

[cross-posted to Slaw]

Check out this Wired Magazine article on Second Life's challenges with copyright protection, and the resulting legal battle.

The economic infrastructure of the SL user community is now being threatened by a software program that can duplicate any "in world" item on demand. The article provides an interesting discussion on the valuation of virtual goods, and how devastating this new 'Copybot' could be to SL merchants.

The response by Linden Labs is also very interesting. Beyond the idea of banning members who use the software, LL has also excluded the possibility of using DRM technology, or (ack!) IP lawyers. Instead, the company will be trying to embed IP requirements into its various communities, and make IP protection self-policing.

Normally, I would find this response to be naive, as in, 'what makes you think IP rights will be valued more in the virtual world than the real world?'; but here's the trip... The IP infringers in the SL world, unlike 'the real world', are significantly more likely to also be IP owners. Not everyone who plays is, of course, but the vast majority of regulars have put 'some' of their time into virtual creation.

A bit of a twist, don't you think?

Uniform Case Naming Guidelines

Via the BCCLS What's New blog:

"The November 2006 Canadian Citation Committee's Uniform Case Naming Guidelines are now available on their website.

The Canadian Citation Committee is an ad hoc group formed to support the standardization efforts of the Judges Technology Advisory Committee of the Canadian Judicial Council."

Law Firm KM Presentation

I was going to post about my KM talk at yesterday's CBA BC Legal Research lunch, but Emma's done a fantastic re-cap, so please, link on over and get the details there.

Many thanks to Fasken Martineau's Simon Patey for arranging the session. Also, thank you to my law librarian colleagues who showed up. Even if you were interested in the topic, the support was nice!

After the presentation, I got to thinking ... other than Slaw, Research Lawyers & Law Librarians really don't mingle as much as they should. There was a lot of common ground in that room that we could/should explore.

Canadian Legal Blogging Panel

I had the good fortune to take part in yesterday's Canadian legal blogging panel, along with Kevin O'Keefe and Christine Mingie. Put on by the Vancouver chapter of the LMA, the discussion was moderated by Doug Jasinski.

I thought the session was well worth the time, and somewhat unique in that it captured such varying perspectives. From the individual lawyer, to the firm and culture issues, to selecting & marketing a blogging solution, the audience seemed to be as engaged in the discussion as the speakers. Lots of topics, a few war stories, and a feeling that we left too many stones unturned. What else can you ask for? :-)

Domain Tasting

The Canadian Trademark Blog has a nice summary on the practice of Domain Tasting - whereby almost every domain name that expires is snapped up.

Individuals who take part in this practice, the so-called "domainers", and many of whom are registrars, are able to bypass registration fees by taking advantage of a "a five-day grace period". If the re-registered domain has traffic and warrants the $6 registration fee, they re-publish the website with pay-per-click advertising. Otherwise, the domain is released and the cycle starts all over again.

ICANN is currently considering a 're-stocking fee', with a vote to be held later this month. The grace period for .CA domains, managed by CIRA, is 7 days. The CTB post also notes that domain tasting creates a secondary market, and that it can "propagate cyber and typo-squatting".

Not everyone is aware of this domain registration monkey-business, which is why I'm passing it along. The moral of the story is, of course, never EVER let your domains expire!

Canada's Federal Court Adds RSS

The Federal Court has revamped their web presence (launched Oct. 31st), and now includes an RSS feed.

So far, looks like the feed can be used as an alert to the court's weekly decisions, notices for the profession, and general news items. Hopefully we'll see a more sophisticated product in the future, but for now, definitely a step forward.

Hat tip to Anne Whelan at Mercer HR Consulting in Toronto. In her email to me, Anne comments that this is "just one more step towards critical mass and pushing all the courts to do this". I totally agree.

What's Steve Matthews Doing in Texas?

No, I'm not leaving beautiful Vancouver, but I did get my RSS in Law Firms blog entry re-published in this month's Texas Bar Journal. How cool is that?

Many thanks to the TBJ's technology editor John Sirman, who picked up on the post. I'm very honoured to be included. Thanks John!

AmLaw 100 Firms with KM Programs

From the ILTA KM listerv... Lisa Kellar, Senior Practice Consultant at Hunton & Williams LLP, has published results to her informal poll on the number of AmLaw 100 law firms with KM Programs.

I'm passing along Lisa's email below, with permission:

Some of you know that I recently attempted to reach the AmLaw 100 to find out what percent of them have formal KM programs. I offered to share the final numbers without revealing any firm-specific information - the numbers are below. The higher of the two numbers represents the percent if all of the 9 firms that I didn't hear from, said they DO have a KM Program.

• AmLaw 50 = 78% - 84%
• AmLaw 100 = 66% - 73%

This survey was based on my own personal definition of what a formal KM program is and would probably vary based on your own definition. For my purposes, I defined a firm as having a formal KM program if they met any of the following conditions:

• the firm has a Chief Knowledge Officer, a Director of KM (or similar) position
• the firm has a KM department or people with KM in their title
• the firm has a KM budget
• the firm has at least one attorney spending 50% of his/her time on KM activities

These are obviously rough percentages, but still, a good sign that things are headed in the right direction. Thanks Lisa!

UBC SLAIS Bloggers?

I just came across Allan Cho's blog. Allan is a 2nd yr student out at UBC SLAIS.

So now I'm wondering, are there any more?

Google CSE - Blawg Search

Blawg Search from Bill Gratsch at Blawg.org

Vertical Search is Back!

With the addition of the new Google Coop Custom Search Engine (CSE), I'm now predicting an increase in the number of vertical search web properties. I'm also thinking that this new feature could be WAY more important than anyone is giving it credit for.

Why? consider...

1) Google has just given us the opportunity to segment their database. This is huge! The average person has simply never had a filtering tool of this magnitude. Don't want spam? Find a CSE that fits your search.

2) Google has found a way to add a human element to their top web property. People add the element of 'authority', and if you trust someone, you can trust their collection. Frankly, that's as Web 2.0 as we've seen out of G!

3) Vertical Search is now possible for anyone and everyone willing to take the time. Why delve into spidering technology when Google can power your application. Sure, it's not a business model, but Google's revenues are driven by partnering up with mom-n-pop web developers. And by sharing a cut of the ad revenue, you can expect vertical search portals to be back in vogue.

4) Librarians now have a huge tool at their fingertips. Can you say Subject Collections? Dust off your collection development skills people, we're being turned loose on the Google generation! Who uses the raw-Google search anymore, anyway? keep your spam, I'm using a Librarian-enabled search engine! ;-)

5) This concept leverages the Google's Adsense revenue stream better than ANY they've previously come up with. Imagine thousands of vertical search properties, and some of them potentially creating viable web-brands. Google takes a cut of the ad revenue on every one of them, their brand becomes even more powerful (if that's possible...), and website owners have once again found Google religion ($$$).

Update - Emma has a good post up comparing Rollyo & Google CSE, with a couple of law firm-esque practical examples.

Connie's Been Shifted!

I've never been slashdotted, but it must be somewhat similar to being shifted (close, no?). Either way, it's nice to see Connie Crosby's mention in the Shifted Librarian blog.

The favoured event? Connie's most recent LLRX post on the use of Flickr by Librarians, which includes a fantastic Q&A session with Librarian/Flickr power user Michael Porter. If you're looking for some insight into the Libraries and Librarians group inside Flickr, it's well worth the read...

When is a Law Blog Just a Newsletter?

Blogs are the new black for law firms, right? Ok, well let me throw out a scenario. Firm management wants to get into the blogosphere because they hear it's the next great thing. So they hire a web design firm, and fire up Wordpress with all the standard features enabled - comments, permalinks, RSS, trackbacks, pings, etc. But then, things go horribly wrong.

How wrong? Well, imagine a blog with no identified bloggers -- "because it's a firm effort... and we don't want any stars, do we?". Then imagine that *nothing* is written in first person -- I mean nothing. A blogroll? "Why would we want to send people away from our blog? that's crazy". The standard fare that typically went into the firm's newsletter is now transferred into the blog.

So... is it a blog? Nope, not even close. Here's my take... If you're not prepared to put your picture on it, tell me about the 'person or people' writing it, or give some of your thoughts on a subject, it's not a blog. I'm not trying to put up a barrier to entry here, but if you don't want to be a blogger, why are you putting one up? Let's just call a spade a spade, and a newsletter a newsletter, shall we? I like newsletters. I find them very informative.

Why does this happen then?

A couple of reasons come to mind. First of all, very likely not one of the lawyers involved has ever read a blog. They've simply been told they should be on this bandwagon. Second reason, zero effort has been made to train those involved. Some kind of blogging coach, a crash course, or 'something' would have been appropriate. And lastly, there should have been a discussion on 'why blogging is different' and the social side of this technology.

For some lawyers, blogging comes easy. Others... are going to need some help. Nothing wrong with that. And for those wondering, the answer is 'yes', I did have a certain law blog in mind when writing this post, and 'no' I'm not going to call them on it. Perhaps the better question is, could it be yours?

New Google Reader, 5 reasons I hate it

I still don't like the new google reader.

1. It's really really slow. I'm watching that 'loading' test tube bottle way too much.
2. I have to manually mark everything I read by scrolling over it. A big waste of time.
3. Unread item counts are sometimes incorrect.
4. Reading by category folders doesn't mark enclosed items as read, scrolling or no scrolling.
5. You have move through items s-l-o-w-l-y. Scroll too fast and it won't mark all items in-between as read.

I know I'm in the minority, but for web based Aggregators, I still like the Bloglines reader way better. The Bloglines AJAX interface is also better than Google's (IMO), and while I'm not a fan of frame designed sites, this is one situation where it works.

New Vancouver Law Library Blogs

I'm very proud to announce that two of my Vancouver colleagues have jumped on the law library blogging circuit. Similar to Anh Huynh and Kay Samuels who recently started contributing to Connie Crosby's blog, two of our more ambitious VALL members, Emma Wood & Rob Golbeck, have started their own blogs!

Check out Emma's Ballad in Plain E and Rob's LibTech Life. For those reading along at home, make sure you grab a copy of Emma's feed, and Rob's feed. Both sites will be a part of my blog roll by the end of today.

There are obviously a limited number of Library Technician blogs online (especially in the law library realm), and both Rob & Emma should be congratulated for being among the first. And the fact that it's these two who are leading the way, at least for me, comes as no surprise. Both Emma and Rob are active in various local Associations, especially LTAIG, and both are great communicators. Regular VLLB readers will remember that I recently blogged about Emma's article in Free Pint.

I will make one tiny point of disclosure -- Rob & I work together. And we all know what that means... double brownie points for taking me to task whenever I put my foot in my mouth. ;-)

Best of luck Emma & Rob! Our west coast tribe is expanding!

Canadian Law Student Blogs Featured

A new article on Canadian Law Student Bloggers is included in the fall edition of the CBA National's Law Student issue.

Congratulations to Alastair Clarke, who finally outed himself as the anonymous author of Queens Law Life. Also, congrats to the other prominent law student bloggers included in the article: Sarah Shody, Andrew Kirk, Ryan Austin, and Michael Paris. Nice way to start your legal career!

I now have a question. What happens to your blog when you graduate? Anyone care to blog a response?

CNET on the Best Search Engines (hint:Librarians!)

CNET Staff Writer Elinor Mills has given Librarians some of the best press they'll likely receive all year. Thanks Elinor!

Read: Most reliable search tool could be your librarian

Welcome Readers of The Shifted Librarian!

A BIG thank-you to Jenny Levine, aka The Shifted Librarian, like she needs an intro! :), for mentioning my Legal RSS top-10 post.

As you can imagine, this blog is getting a pretty big traffic boost today. Please take a look around, and if you like the conversation, consider taking this blog's feed!

thanks again Jenny,
Steve

Top 10 Uses for RSS in Law Firms

I've haven't posted a top-10 style list before, but there's a first for everything, right? :-) So... (drum roll, please) ... here are my top 10 uses for RSS Feeds in a law firm setting.

Top 10 Uses for RSS in Law Firms

1) Current Awareness - Surfing your favourite websites, newspapers & blogs is a waste of time. Smart firms & lawyers need to automate web content to come to them via RSS. These personalized collections can then be customized (through mixing and filtering) to only deliver the content that matches a lawyers' interests.

2) RSS for Firm Marketing - From blogs, to press releases, to firm newsletters and publications -- adding an additional delivery channel using RSS feeds is not a huge investment. And speaking from experience, those clients that do use it, will tell you how much they love it!

3) Vanity Feeds - Every time one of your lawyers, or the firm, gets mentioned in the news media or blogosphere, someone should be notified by RSS. Your firm's ability to use RSS could be the difference between finding out immediately or days later.

4) Internal Research Collections - Your library catalogue should offer an RSS feed for newly added materials that match your Lawyer's research interests. Same thing goes for internal KM & research collections. In the future, I expect Internal RSS will be as important to law firms as RSS is to bloggers today.

5) Client Press - Do your clients have their press releases RSS-enabled? Are you tracking your clients in the news media? What do you know about their latest products, disputes, and business initiatives? Knowing more about your client's business is always good for firm business.

6) Feeding on Marketing Content for KM - Do your firm members have blogs? contribute to an industry discussion forum? wikis? Are you feeding those public internet contributions back into your internal KM repositories? Something to think about.

7) Case Law & Legislative Changes - The importance of RSS notification for new & changing legislation cannot be underestimated. Nor can receiving the newest judgement just minutes after it has been published on a Court's website. In the future, searches on those websites will, via RSS, enable us to receive exactly the legislation and topical cases we desire. I also expect these applications may be coming sooner than most firms are anticipating.

8) Aggregated Tagging - Do your lawyers tag with a tool like Del.icio.us or Furl? (If they don't now, they might in the future, read on...) Tagging is the new 'favourites' or 'bookmarking' for online reading. Rather than creating a browser-based bookmark, these 'gems' are classified & kept in an online web collection, which just happens to be RSS-enabled! Does it not make sense to take those feeds, from multiple firm members, and aggregate them behind the firewall into a searchable repository? The line between public web-vs-behind the firewall collections is blurring. In the future, your KM efforts should be capturing firm members' public web contributions, and RSS technology will be right in the middle of that.

9) RSS Republishing - RSS helps to move web content to where it needs to be. We can automate the republication of any firm content -- from story headlines to full-text of publications -- to anywhere on a law firm's Intranet or public website. RSS is a very powerful website maintenance tool.

10) Feed Mixing & Filtering for Subject Collections - RSS should be easy for the end user, and starting from scratch building a personal feed collection doesn't always make sense. One new task I see for Law Librarians will be to create, remix and filter groups of feeds for different subjects. Creating & offering these pre-fab feed widgets that your lawyers can plug into their Aggregator could be a very valuable tool.

Jordan Furlong Guest Blogging on Slaw

Be sure to keep a watch on Slaw this week! Jordan Furlong, Editor-in-Chief of the Canadian Bar Association's National, will be guest blogging.

His first post, Innovation and the 21st-century lawyer, is up today!

Linkedin Librarians?

Over the past couple of weeks I've been revisiting my LinkedIn membership and thinking about this website's potential uses. One such thought is this -- Librarians could benefit from this tool through increased networking opportunities, better mapping of our social relationships, and (similar to blogging) increased professional exposure. Read on...

For those unfamiliar, LinkedIn is an online social networking website targeted towards professional and business users. Similar to Facebook or MySpace, tools which are aimed at high school or University students, LinkedIn allows members to establish connections with their preferred social contacts. You are also able to see your contact's contacts, making your visible 'network' expand each time you add a connection. Members are also given facility to create an online CV to establish who they are, with the choice to add as much (or as little) as they want to their personal profile.

So here's my thinking... Every online trend has a window of opportunity. Obviously some are going to fizzle, while others become ingrained in our day-to-day online experience. Social networking is now, IMO, entering that phase of opportunity. And LinkedIn, with a user base of over 7 million, looks ready to make such an impact.

I can see many benefits to establishing a Librarian's social network. For example, Can you imagine job hunting in another city, and knowing every contact your current colleagues have in that city? I know some established Librarians do this (very well) without a social networking website, but the greater benefit here is to the community as a whole. This type of tool could help continuity between generations, especially helping younger Librarians. Knowing who can help you when you're just starting out can be difficult -- reference requests, job hunting, etc. -- are all difficult tasks without connections. What if established Librarians mapped and shared their connections with younger members of their Library community? Social Networking could be a great tool for supporting the collegial nature of our profession.

I also see social networking websites as an opportunity for increased exposure to our profession. As a group, Librarians were very quick to pick-up professional blogging. Do you think we gained from it? I do. There's more than a little evidence from other blogging professionals that express an altered perception or a hidden appreciation for our profession. And those that know we're in the mix, also know that we're not sitting on the sidelines waiting for our card catalogues to come back in style. Facts are, if you deal with any Librarian online, you come away with a greater understanding of the multi-disciplinary nature of our work.

So I have to wonder... Will we be on the front end of the social networking curve too? I certainly hope so.

Friday Linkout - Jack Vinson

This Friday's linkout goes to Jack Vinson and his blog Knowledge Jolt with Jack.

Jack is one of my most trusted sources for Knowledge Management information outside the legal industry. Not only does he regularly link up to quality sources, but when he does, he usually offers a bit of his own personal commentary. That's important to me.

I think anyone who reads a blog regularly must eventually trust that author's voice. Simply put, I trust Jack's. He run his own consulting practice, Knowledge Jolt, Inc., based out of Chicago. He's also adjunct faculty at the Center for Learning and Organizational Change at Northwestern University, and active with the KM Chicago group. All great credentials. But most of all, I value Knowledge Jolt for the new directions I've been sent in. For example, I wouldn't have discovered Luis Suarez (another great KM blogger) without KJwJ. The on blog coversation isn't bad either.

Finally, if you're touring the site, be sure to check out his list of book reviews. He rates them from one to five cups of coffee. As he describes, "based on how many cups I might drink talking to you about the book". How can you not like a guy who measures value with caffeinated beverages? RSS subscription here.

VALL September Meeting

The first VALL meeting of the year is set for September 21st. Mandy Ostick, Virtual Librarian at the BCCLS, and Joanne Lecky, Reference Librarian at BHT are going to presenting on 'What You Can Do With RSS Feeds'. Lots of practical tips, workplace implementation ideas, and perhaps a war story or two about the BCCLS RSS initiative. Can't wait!

Emma Wood's Free Pint Article

One of my VALL peers, Emma Wood, is the author of this month's FreePint feature article, titled Emulating Web Tools to Become Indispensable to Your Users.

Congratulations Emma [Freepint, what is that? 78k subscribers? wow!], and thanks for letting me contribute. Have I mentioned lately that you really should be blogging? :-)

Topix - Better than I remember...

Be sure to check out the changes over at Topix. The targeted news search engine has expanded, archiving stories for a full year, and now including a graphical search timeline.

One of their recent blog posts, titled 'Biggest Index, Most Sources, Best News Search – Our Dial Goes to 11', describes the changes. Admittedly, I haven't used Topix for a while, but this is a far cry better than what I remember. The design, interface, and application of RSS are also excellent.

And you have to think they're doing something right when the 500-lb gorilla launches an archive search of their own, just a few days later.

Drupal 5.0.0 is Coming Soon

Dries Buytaert, Drupal founder & maintainer, says the 4.x code has been frozen, and we can expect Drupal 5.0.0 in a few months (at least 2).

Good news, and the new features mentioned will be welcome additions.

Linkout Fridays

I was asked by a friend recently to start sharing more of the blogs that I'm reading. I thought I had been, but after looking back at my recent posting history, I could probably do so a bit more. I'm not sure I can commit to an every Friday thing, but for now I'm going to try and highlight a blog (or blogs) that have recently entered my aggregator, and let you know why I'm enjoying them. This Friday, I'll start with a double. [no pun intended]

First up, Tom Boone & Joshua Brauer's Library Laws (Are Meant to Be Broken) blog. They built it on drupal. Isn't that enough? :-) I'm also into the open source and LAMP stack software themes, and how they apply to Libraries and information delivery. Add in commentary on Web 2.0, development trends, tagging, the moodle/drupal integration, and a bit of KM, and is it any wonder these guys fast tracked to my blogroll? I only wish this one came out more often (same could be said of this blog, no worries guys!).

And the second linkout goes to Melissa Kluger's Precedent: The New Rules of Law and Style. Completely off my beat eh? Yup, and Fashionista (the resident fashion critic) would skewer me for wearing a sports jacket, but this blog is way too cool to not get noticed. One of the few fun blogs I subscribe to, but well worth the time, and keep an eye out for Melissa's litigator / reporter side too. Plus, it's Canadian! The blog design could use a bit of work, but hey, I'm a techie... Keep it up Melissa!

The CALL Salary Survey is Important

I just wanted to say kudos to Gary Pon for facilitating the 2006 CALL Salary Survey.

If Canadian law librarians do nothing else to help their Association this year, please participate in this survey. Otherwise, you have no right to complain about compensation benchmarks.

It's time to step up.

RSS Feeds for Cases ... Scrape, Scrape, Scrape!

No guarantees or implied warranties here, and use this at your own risk, but....

Cool tip time!

If you're still waiting for case law RSS like I am, try this trick... Conduct an advanced search, using the date restrictors, on your favourite decision database, like this. Then, take that URL, and paste it into an HTML feed scraper like feedtier. In this case, you'll need to click on 'try refining', and then highlight one of the case names. The final result - a make-shift rss feed for new-er Canlii cases (after July 1st, containing the term 'trade-mark act'.)

If anyone knows how make Canlii sort by date, please email me -- we can make this technique even better!

Court Decisions Next for RSS?

There are two fundamental areas that will make RSS technology indispensable to legal practice - the first is feeds for legislative changes, and the second is feeds for court decisions.

In Canada, legislative feed efforts are being led by Alberta's QP, with Parliament close behind. I also have high hopes that BC's QP Legaleze will release something in the near future. Things aren't moving as quick as many of us would like, but at least they're moving.

The next important step for legal RSS should be, as I see it, the ability to create RSS feeds for new court decisions. More specifically, decision database search results need to be available in RSS format -- similar to that of Google News. That way, as new decisions are added that match our keywords, interested users will be immediately notified in their RSS Reader software.

That's the vision, anyway.

Update 08/24: Gary Price notes the United States Appeals Court (Seventh Circuit) has just launched RSS Feeds. More movement, nice!

My Firm's First Law Blog!

Summer project announcement time [remember last year's?] ... As of yesterday, my law firm has launched our first professional law blog. Three members of from our Technology & IP Group - Neil Melliship, Larry Munn and Karen Monteith are going to collaborate on the Canadian Trademark Blog! [Subscribe here]

Disclaimer time... I'm the designer, developer, back-end-guy & blog coach here. So if anything goes awry, full marks to me; and if the blog's a success, kudos to Karen, Larry & Neil for the fantastic content I know they'll be publishing.

The concept is pretty cool. Here's the description from the official first post ...."Our goal here is to mix three different perspectives on Canadian Trade-marks - solicitor, litigator, and trade-mark agent; while still drawing connections and pointing out issues relating to technology, IP & privacy law."

Neil's the Solicitor, Larry's the Litigator & Karen is the Trade-mark Agent. My original thought was that Neil should do this alone (one blog, one voice), but after a little persuading (thanks Neil), I have no doubt that this will be a great group effort. The addition of Karen and Larry not only provide insightful voices, but like Neil, I'm personally pulling for them because of the type of people they are. And yes, you can consider that a personal endorsement. :-)

So congratulations gang, and here's to a successful first CW blogging effort!

Update: For those interested in the nuts & bolts of putting the blog together, I have a Slaw post up on that topic.

CCH Canada RSS Feeds

As of August 8th, CCH Canada looks to have added RSS feeds for their new or modified publications. The feeds included are:

• All Products
• Legal Products
• Tax & Accounting Products
• Business Products
• Financial Planning Products

CCH also includes feeds for their complete product listings, which I'm presuming could be used to export or exchange their product databases. From a current awareness perspective, it doesn't look to be as useful, but perhaps they want the products to be searchable in the RSS Search Engines? (if it's something different, perhaps someone at CCH / Wolters Kluwer could email me.)

Welcome to the RSS party CCH!

Connie Crosby's Carnival Next Week

Keep an eye on Connie's blog next week for Carnival of the Infosciences Edition #49.

For those not familiar the blog carnival concept, each week a group of related blogs will put together a list of their best posts, or contributions on a particular subject. There's a master list of sequential 'hosts' published online (somewhere), and each host will take a turn at publishing the weekly Carnival. -- That's the gist of it anyway.

And for those looking to create exposure for their blog, or take part in a blog-to-blog conversation, Carnivals can be great tool to 'stick your nose in' where you might not otherwise feel comfortable. Good clean online marketing, in my books. :-)

On Vacation... Back on August 8th

On vacation next week, back on August 8th. :-)

SLA NorthWest Regional Conference

Quick note to say the SLA NorthWest Regional Conference will take place October 6 & 7, 2006 in Vancouver. This year's theme is 'Content Management - Converging Information, People and Technology'.

• Registration Info
• Program & Speakers list

VLLB Going to the Carnival

First time in the Carnival of the Infosciences for me! Thanks to Eric Schnell for hosting, and beefing up what looked to be a lighter week for contributions.

Largest Group of Blogging Professionals? Say it With Me, Librarians!

Are Librarians the largest group of blogging professionals out there right now? Steven Cohen thinks so.

Right at the end of the above post, he says:

"BTW, librarians have, by far, the most professional blogs. My conclusions are by no means scientific. When I was at PubSub, I looked at this stuff all day (Oh, what a wonderful service we could have provided to the industy - ho-hum). Second would have to be the PR bloggers. Third. Maybe the legal profession."

I can't help but think this is true. Having actively tracked both Librarian & Law Blogs (Cohen's #3) for a while now, I'd say the volume does seem larger within the Library realm.

However, one distinction must be made - the strength of the Law blogging community is not in volume, but in the number of influential bloggers. This blog (the VLLB) was probably one of the few listed on both of PubSub's rank lists, and I can tell you that getting to the top of the Legal blog tracker was way harder!

Now obviously the numbers thing isn't something that can be easily proven, but I have to say, even if Librarians are only 'one of the largest groups' blogging, that's cool! And coming from a profession that's needed a kick in the 'ol profile department for a while, the trend of Blogging Librarians may just represent our branding emancipation! We need to establish ourselves as a smart tech-info-business-savvy group, and we're doing that, via the blog. The same way Lawyers are adding the human elements of trust & understanding to their profession, via the blog.

Can you feel the tide changing? I can. :-)

Info*Nation features Liisa Tella & Christina Tribe

CLA's newest online product to promote Library careers, Info*Nation, shows two local Law Librarians - Liisa Tella & Christina Tribe - under the 'Take a Tour' section of the site.

Check out the warhol-esque image...



Marketing Department at Harper Grey has to be loving that!

Drupal & An Introduction to Open Source CMS Products

[cross-posted from Slaw]

In a recent Slaw comment, Connie Crosby asked if someone would write something about Drupal. Subsequent comments from Patrick Cormier & Simon Fodden gave brief summaries, but I thought I'd go a bit further, and try to relay some of the basics surrounding this type of web software.

Briefly, Drupal is an open source CMS, written for the LAMP stack, which is modular in design. What does this mean? Well, let's start with a couple definitions.

• Open Source (OS) - open source software (generally) lets you download the software for free, view the source code, alter and re-distribute. Each OS product typically has a development community, which can be quite large in some cases, creating new features, fixing bugs, and helping each other when they have common goals.


• CMS - Content Management System, a database driven web-tool, which can deliver a variety of automated webpages. Content is created, edited, and archived within this system.
  
• LAMP stack - an acronym for Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP. Linux is an operating system like Windows (only older, better designed), Apache - the webserver software that delivers the pages to your browser, MySQL - a high capacity database software, and PHP - the code that ties everything together. These technologies are frequently used as a group, and make up the most popular development environment on the web.

What this all means, in layman's terms, is that Drupal (or any other CMS) is free to download and install on your webserver. It is then possible to do any of the following (to name a few):

• customize the functionality by adding different Modules
• Re-code any of those Modules to fit your needs
• Download different Themes to change the design
• Re-code any of those Themes to fit your needs
• Create user 'roles' and set permissions for what users can see & do
• Search all content, automatically track usage, and allow comments on any content element

The functionality also goes way beyond blogging. Think of it as a common delivery tool for: blogs, forums, wikis, RSS publishing, custom user profiles, image & photo galleries, event calendaring, and a ton of other content based tools. And all of these features are delivered by the same software mechanism.

My only caveat with this type of tool, is that you're working without a safety net. When things go wrong, the buck really does stop with you. Open Source communities are (mostly) great for helping to find the fix, but when the suggested fixes don't work, you might have to find a specialized consultant to help out -- perhaps using the paid services part of the community website (as Patrick Cormier did). I haven't had to go that route yet, but it's good to know it's there.

On the positive end of things, the upside to open source products like Drupal is huge. There's a constant flow of new ideas, and I've found it to be the place for online innovation. To me, it seems that whenever a cool new website comes out, there's almost always an open source angle to its development. And if there isn't, a similar open source alternative comes out soon there after.

KM & Legal Vendors

An interesting post yesterday by Cindy Chick where she notes the Los Angeles law firm Alschuler Grossman Stein & Kahan LLP, and their use of three different vendors for KM document retrieval.

To start off, I like the mixed approach that Cindy advocates. She says - "The bottomline is, just like digital cameras, no product does it all." Very true, and no doubt the future for many law firms will include a multitude of product lines to serve various KM functions. Document repositories are, after all, only one element of a Knowledge Management program.

My second reaction to this post is something that I've seen coming for a while now, and I'm a bit concerned. My problem is this: Are we really comfortable tying our KM document repositories to the online vendors?

I understand why Thomson & Lexis want this. Every case cite, in every memo, letter, opinion, (...) will draw law firms closer to their product lines, will drive up usage rates, and then drive up our flat fee contracts. The Vendors will continue their 8-9% subscription hikes (nothing new to us Librarians), and objectively, it's good short term business on their part. Hard to argue...

The question for me is, why do Law Firms, who have traditionally been treated like the captured market we are, want to draw even closer to the Vendors? Are we prepared for: 1) being completely reliant on their technology platform (& rate of innovation); 2) rising costs that may force us to pick one Vendor over the other; 3) using their cost recovery modules; 4) being just like every other firm that chooses their KM 'solution', and lacking any possible KM competitive advantage.

Law firms need to get beyond the 'me too' trend here. Sometimes purchasing a ready-made 'solution' isn't as advantageous as purchasing the right tool. Case in point, the many firms who are building their own repository solutions in-house, and building them to match their firm's practices, culture, and business objectives. Guess which direction is more customizable, and which one will innovate first? ... I just hope that we, in the legal KM community, are entertaining all the options.

Slaw Turns 1!

Congratulations to my fellow Slaw contributors! It's been a great first year.

Gerry Riskin's Seven Immutable Laws of Change Management

Just wanted to say I'm enjoying Gerry Riskin's Seven Immutable Laws of Change Management [link to the 7th law and work backwards...]. Well worth the read!

Nice work Mr. Riskin! :-)

Building Online Profile Beyond Blogs

I have a new Slaw post up titled Building Online Profile Beyond Blogs.

Also, make sure to check out Connie Crosby's most recent addition on LLRX on the value of blogging!

2006/2007 VALL Executive

As mentioned in yesterday's VALL meeting, here is the 2006/07 Executive:

The Core Executive:
Past President - Susan Crysler
President: Johanne Blenkin
Vice President - Steve Matthews (yup, that guy)
Treasurer - Katie Heung
Membership- Teresa Gleave

The Program Committee:
Gwendoline Hoar
Deborah McLeod
Yoko Beriault

The Communications Committee:
Andy Froese
Kathy Barry
Christina Tribe
Susannah Tredwell

As I've mentioned before, VALL is full of friends and I get far more out of it than I could ever put in. It's a 3 year committment on my part, and I don't take it lightly. As you can probably guess, I'll be writing a lot more about VALL in the future, but for now let's just say I'm happy to be back.

Steven Cohen Comes Back to Law

Welcome back to Law Steven Cohen! Arising from the PubSub fallout, Steven is returning to his Law Library roots by joining Law Library Management, Inc..

Think his new company's going to get a profile boost? very shrewd hiring decision, IMO.

Congrats Steven! Now you can get Bonnie to add you to the 'Shucha List'!

Legal Marketing - TV & Radio -vs- Blogs

Library Boy, aka Michel-Adrien Sheppard, and Law Librarian at the Supreme Court of Canada, has posted his thoughts on the lack of French Canadian law bloggers.

Responding to an article (pg. 14) in the most recent edition of the National, Michel-Adrien suggests that the problem may have more to do with the fact that francophones have an easier time building profile with traditional media like TV & radio. Who needs a blog when the most popular forms of media are so accessible?

From the post:

"In Quebec, there is a tight little media world and any lawyer who attracts attention can easily and quickly get invited to all the major TV and radio studios, most of which are located within a 10-15 minute taxi ride of each other in Montreal (with perhaps a handful in Quebec City), and become known as an authority on an issue. They might even give you your own newspaper column or ask you to guest host a show segment (civil libertarian Julius Grey seems to be on Marie-France Bazzo's morning show Indicatif Présent on Radio-Canada almost every other week). Who needs blawgs?

That might be very pre-Web2.0 but that would be my theory."

Michel-Adrien's points seem valid, but I hope this doesn't stop potential francophone law bloggers from getting started. The value of blogging, from a marketing perspective, is the same regardless of language or media accessibility. And unlike a radio or TV interview, blog posts don't give you a profile spike once and then go away. A quality professional blog can become a body of work that will continue to demonstrate your expertise over a career. Building one's 'online profile' is fast becoming an essential marketing tool, and those without one are - simply put - invisible online.

Lord Denning Video

Check out this online video clip of Lord Denning from the LawProse Website!

New LTAIG Newsletter

The BCLA Library Technicians and Assistants Interest Group (LTAIG) has just published their first newsletter!

It was put together by the LTAIG committee, which includes fellow VALL member Emma Wood, who is acting as Editor. Emma also looks to be blogging SLA, for those in the local community keeping track. :-)

One other notable, kudos to LTAIG for posting that handy list of Canadian Library Technician programs on their website.

excited utterances is moving

Watch out! Our KM blogging friend excited utterances is moving, partnering and going entrepreneurial!

Before I get too far, home base has changed. Here's the new url: http://www.practicesource.com/excited/

So here's the scoop. Joy London has partnered up with Sean Hocking's Law Library News over at PracticeSource.com. The new publication is titled "Law Librarian News & excited utterances", and will now be a subscription service, with an annual price of $130 Canadian.

Under the new arrangement, excited utterances' archives will now be taken behind a subscription firewall. My only comment here is that I hope this situation doesn't destroy the growth of Joy's blog. It's rare, in my experience, for blogs do well outside the vision of the search engines where most new readers are likely to come from. That said, Joy's blog has an excellent reputation, and a strong word-of-mouth viral marketing aspect to it.

If you're an RSS subscriber, you'll want modify your feed to the new URL. Looks like the full text feed option is no longer available, dropping down to headlines only. Hopefully this is just a transition issue, and the RSS can get back to a full text delivery. (???)

For more than 4 years now, excited utterances has offered exceptional legal KM coverage, and I continue to be a big fan. This is a big step, and in many ways, a brave one. So best of luck to you Joy and Sean! My fingers are crossed.

VALL Executive Changes

VALL members received an email today describing changes to the Executive structure for 2006-2007.

The biggest change is that there will now be a core executive, made up of a Past President, President, Vice President, Membership, and Treasurer. This group will liaise with, but not meet with, two supporting committees - Communications and Programme, each with 4 members.

Perhaps it's because I'm only a year removed from the VALL executive, but these changes seem very reasonable. At over 100 members, it was time to add more support to the two core operational functions - lunches and publishing. These functions, while very important to VALL, can at times overwhelm the Executive's larger role. By focusing the 'team', and increasing the number of helping hands from 10 to 13, other good things can now happen.

Also, by separating out the executive group, there's now a chance to address the bigger issues like: skills training, succession planning, electronic communications, awards & recognition, or at the very least, brainstorm & talk about new ideas and directions.

If you haven't looked at the strategic directions document, it's well done and worth a look. Short, simple and to the point.

My year in the VALL executive was one of the most rewarding I've had, so I've gladly signed up for another run. Wanna come? you have until May 30th to contact Susan Crysler. There's only a couple of spots left! :-)

Proud Pop Again!!!

My wife Leah and I are proud to announce another addition to our family, our new daughter Bethany Julia Matthews. She was born yesterday at noon exactly, weighing in at a whopping 7lbs 7 oz. (whopping by our standards anyway, since neither her older brother or sister were over 6 lbs.)

LexisNexis Canada Goes for RSS!

Looks like Library Boy has broken the LexisNexis Canada RSS Feeds story. I'm told that there were rumblings about this at the CALL conference, but this is the first I've seen of it.

From the Lexis website:

From new case law, to new print titles, to new Quicklaw™ sources, to Canadian legal news, Really Simple Syndication (RSS) technology gathers all updates in one place and makes it easier for you to stay informed.

I believe some of these feeds were available previously (What's New, News Releases, & The Lawyers Weekly) , but some look to be new, and this 'one-stop-shop' approach is definitely new!!!

Congrats to Lexis! You've made a number of techie Law Librarians very happy, and the Crosby dream of putting all new publisher materials on a single website may yet happen.

Off to Edmonton

I'm on a 1:00 flight tomorrow heading to my first CALL Conference, and just a reminder that the best place to check out us Canadian law librarian bloggers is on the CALL Blog!

Finally! I'm now going to get to put some faces to the names. Believe it or not, I've never met face-to-face with Connie, Jim, Michel-Adrien, Michael, Mark, Heather, and whoever that mystery blogger is!?!

For the period of the conference, I'll be posting mostly on the CALL Blog. That said, if I want to offer more personal commentary, it will likely end up back here.

See you in Edmonton! (where hockey fever is still alive!)

Help Make SLAW Better!

If you're a reader of Slaw, a Canadian collaborative blog focusing on legal technology and research, please consider donating 3 minutes of your time taking this user survey.

I'm a proud member of this group, and I think the content is excellent, but we don't see things from a reader's perspective. If you don't have the time to comment or contribute, this is a great way to show your support!

Research in a Digital World -or- Personal Knowledge Management for Legal Researchers

Rich McCue, System Administrator for the UVic Law Library and UVic Faculty of Law, and a fellow Slaw-er, has just published a new paper titled: Research in a Digital World -or- Personal Knowledge Management for Legal Researchers.

I haven't read it yet, but with illustrations like this, how can I resist? :-)

2006/2007 IMA Web Awards

Heads up for all you law firm web award officiandos. Micah Buchdahl has released the long awaited 2006/07 Internet Marketing Attorney Awards - THE most thorough review of legal websites available.

Micah reviews the top 250 law firm websites in the United States, as well as the top small mid-size law firm websites that are nominated.

Unfortunately for us up here in Canada, it looks as though the international category for non-U.S. firms will be released in June. I'd expect that this category has grown a fair bit over the past couple of years.

What is KM? Yes, We're Still Asking...

My apologies for the lack of posts lately. Work & 'real life' keep getting priority. :-) Other than the time in-and-around the CALL conference, postings will be light in May, but I should be back to normal for June. In the mean time, I'm including one of my recent postings from Slaw, which discusses balancing one's efforts between implicit and explicit KM tools.

cheers,
Steve

Funny thing KM. It seems we've been asking what is it as long as its been around. Case in point, a little post by Ross Mayfield which critiques some of the early KM practices, and offers a new term - Manage Knowledgement (MK).

Ross defines his new term as "a way of describing KM that's backwards but works", and that with MK, through blogs and wikis, the principle activity is sharing, driven by social incentives.

Problem is, as Luis Suarez points out, relying exclusively on social software offers no more balance than exclusively relying on tracking explicit knowledge, or what Mayfield describes as 'traditional KM'.

No need to critique here, as Luis Suarez makes all the points I would. But what I will add is that in a law firm setting, I see KM as a balance as well, but also as a series of building blocks - along the lines of Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

And in that hierarchy, a firm should tackle explicit knowledge prior to implicit knowledge, to the extent that explicit collections are already identified or established. As an example, firm precedents, memos & opinions, or agreement collections should take priority over social software. In most law firms, these collections are already in existence, or sitting in binders in your lawyers' offices. To ignore them in favour of extracting more unorganized implicit knowledge makes little sense. Wouldn't it be better to have an established collection in place where the 'best-of-breed' discussions & postings could be highlighted and classified by subject? Surely every piece of content derived from social software is not of the same value?

Simply put, I think firms should get their content collection houses in order before tackling the high-end features of their KM program. Can explicit and implicit needs be tackled simultaneously? Sure, but explicit KM collections still provide the overall context, and need to take priority.

RSS Subject Collections - FeedRinse can help!

Check out FeedRinse.com. This new service allows you to filter your RSS feeds to include (or exclude) keyword phrases, authors or tags! Very cool! At least on initial testing, it seems to do this very well, with little effort, and right out of the box.

There are lots of great mixers out there (see RSSMix, as an example) that will allow you to splice together mulitiple feeds, but other than FeedDigest, none do a great job of filtering those feed collections down for concepts or subjects.

If we're going to put together RSS Subject Collections, we need to be able to mix together multiple quality sources on a subject, then filter things down to a conceptual level. If HBS Working Knowledge publishes an article on 'Global Economics', we want it in our Economics subject feed. What we don't need is all the other stuff, which is where filters like FeedRinse come in.

Librarians in the room take notice. Want to know where the future of our profession is? Mix together some traditional collection development theory with these tools to combine & filter RSS feeds -- the results are a truly dynamic product (and profession).

Announcing CALL Blog 2006!

I am proud to announce that Connie Crosby, Michael Lines and myself are set to start work on CALL Blog 2006 - released today for public viewing!

This addition of a conference blog is a historical first for CALL (Canadian Association of Law Libraries), and anyone going can take part!

So... Are you going to the CALL conference? Have you ever wanted to try your hand at blogging? I can't imagine a better scenario to 'test the waters'... Conference blogs are a short term commitment, and a great chance to see how easy the process is. Simply send Michael an email to take part.

And, let's say you did like it :-), and wanted to start a blog of your own. Then you can send ME an email. I have an open offer to help any Canadian law librarian (or technician) get their blogging efforts off the ground -- I think our profession has that much to gain from it.

See you in Edmonton!

Social Software and the KM Connection

How closely aligned are social software tools and your KM goals? As noted by Jack Vinson this morning, Mike Gotta's post is an excellent reminder that the two often go hand-in-hand.

I'm currently in Portal construction mode these days (why new posts have been sparse), so both Jack and Mike's comments really hit home. When it comes to delivering on the goals of KM, as Jack points out, it really is about "smoothing bumps in the path of finding, using and creating knowledge".

I've always been a fan of well honed online communities (both public and behind the firewall), and their ability to connect those who wouldn't otherwise be connected. As KM practitioners, we seek new ways to extract the 'tacit' (stuff in people's heads) and make it explicit (get it codified). Why? So we can generate connections - yes, between people and knowledge, but also to enable social connections. Building knowledge based collections is important (and not to be forgotten), but only half the battle. To complete the circle, we must also facilitate the 'social'.

One of the biggest changes for KM in recent years, has been the expanded role of documenting experience and expertise. And perhaps obviously, social software tools (read - forums, blogs, wikis, reading lists & bookmark sharing, etc.) have the potential for a big impact. Why? Two reasons come to my mind:

• First, these software packages are indeed documenting internal expertise, but are also paving the way for physical conversations within your organization. Like-minded practitioners get to know about each other, and those in search of 'someone' who does 'something' won't waste their time - that person will be obvious.
  
  
• The second reason, is that social software can take some informal 'behind closed door' conversations, and make them public. Not all conversations are made to be public, but some are. Think about how many global emails get sent around. Any of them repetitive? any worth saving?

Most corporate environments, law being no different, can become silos when individuals or groups fail to connect. Social software tools are just another channel (the more, the better!) to get people talking - this is good for company culture, internal communications, the cross-selling of practice groups ... and one of the goals of KM.

Lunch with Shannon Emmerson

Before the weekend begins, I want to blog about a great lunch I had this week with Shannon Emmerson from Electronic Arts. Based out of Vancouver, Shannon is the Manager, Worldwide Knowledge at EA, an organization with close to 6000 employees!

I met Shannon a couple weeks ago while attending the Northern Voice Moose Camp. During one of the roundtable discussions, she overheard me mention KM, and thankfully introduced herself. It's always great to meet others doing KM work here in Vancouver -- and honestly, I don't get that opportunity very often.

We had an interesting chat, from which I noted a number of the same culture issues we face in the legal environment. I suppose that shouldn't come as any surprise, but it was a good reminder that I should be branching my reading out (again!) to include KM practices in other industries.

If you're interested in finding out more about the KM efforts at EA, check out this link to a presentation Shannon did last year at SFU. [approved for posting]

New Law.com Law Librarian Page

Ask, and ye shall receive! :-)

Law.com has launched a new Large Law Firm SuperSection, including a page dedicated to law librarians! According to the press release, the law librarian page "provides information on emerging trends in management of digital and print resources, and career resources".

Also, be on the look out for blog posts from Joy London's Excited Utterances. For those wondering what's going on with Joy's blog (& the lack of posts), she's just started a new legal KM position and trying to get herself established. I expect she'll be back blogging shortly!

Justice Rothstein Materials Released by Slaw

Slaw has released an in-depth information package regarding Supreme Court of Canada nominee Justice Marshall Rothstein.

Check out:
http://www.slaw.ca/marshall-rothstein-pages

Slaw has assembled a comprehensive set of links to key news, commentary, government websites, and extensive court decisions by Mr. Justice Rothstein. The materials also include a list of ten qualities the nominee brings to the Supreme Court and a break-down of how some of his decisions at the Federal Court level fared later at the Supreme Court level, whether upheld or overturned.

A lot of work was put into this project by the members of Slaw, with Simon Fodden and Simon Chester leading the way. Yet another tribute to the collaborative power of this group.

BCCLS 'What's New?' Now RSS Enabled!

A hidden gem of the BC legal market is now available for your RSS feed reader!

I just received an email from Mandy Ostick, Virtual Library Manager at the BCCLS, announcing that the What's New blog (& the source for items on the BCCLS homepage) is now available via RSS. While the feed is becoming less and less of the story here (see also UBC's recent announcement), what's more important is the source of this quality content.

Here's the official description: "What's New is a current awareness service from the BC Courthouse Library Society that covers notable cases, BC and federal legislation, recent reports, websites of interest to legal researchers, and our own news, including recent library acquisitions."

And now here's the unofficial scoop: Librarians & Techs at the BCCLS are on the ball, and spend their time watching what most Lawyers in BC wish they had time for. I've blogged a number of items in the past that were found first by the gang over at the BCCLS. Simply put, if you're RSS enabled in the BC legal community, this is a must have. (Subscribed!)