Google Instant

Wednesday, 6 October 2010

A while ago Google unveiled a enhancement for web search which means you can now return results "instantly" wow fantastic you're possibly thinking...you're probably also thinking, what is this Google Instant you're talking about?

Sadly even though Google Instant is available in the UK if you're not using Chrome, Firefox, Safari or Internet Explorer 8 you're not going to see any changes to Google so no instant results for you!

Don't worry though you can read all about Google Instant on the Google Instant help pages and hope that maybe one day you'll have access to a "modern browser"

If you're lucky enough to be using one of these Internet Browsers then why not have a read of the following blog posts which take a look at Google Instant in more detail.

Posted by James Mullan at 17:08 0 comments  

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The death of the looseleaf?

Monday, 4 October 2010

Ruth Bird BIALL Council Member and Bodleian Law Librarian has written an interesting blog post for SLAW asking whether we're about to see the death of the looseleaf?


In her blog post Ruth looks at this history of looseleafs and of course the advantages for publishers of publishing and selling looseleafs to Law Libraries. Ruth goes on to discuss some of the disadvantages and nightmares experience by Law Librarians who were expected to purchase and update looseleafs which covered almost identical subject areas.

"In the 1990’s at law firms it was often deemed essential by partners that they have at least one or two of the leading looseleaf services in their office . Some would favour one publisher, others another, and all would expect the services to be updated on the day of receipt of the updated part. Librarians despaired. The time it takes to update a service varies on the experience of the updater and the complexity of the update and the number of volumes of the service. The frequency of updates was an issue – some arrived 4 times a year, others monthly, the nightmarish tax and company law as frequently as fortnightly!!!"

Lots of Ruth's article will ring true with many Law Librarians and anybody who has ever been asked to order a missing page or file some looseleaf pages! There is some good news though...

"...the happiest development for me was the discussion I had with one leading publisher the other day as we looked at the totally new approach being taken to looseleafs online. At long last the publishers have stopped trying to convert static paper to static electronic flat content. They now see the information as an organic, interlinking resource that allows a serendipity of approach, hyperlinking and content are divorced from the format. And we now have to wonder how long the publishers will continue to produce the paper updates"

Will Law Librarians the world over be crying into their looseleaf updates with this news, unlikely..."enjoy" those looseleafs whilst you still can!

Posted by James Mullan at 10:30 0 comments  

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Legal Information Management highlights

Friday, 1 October 2010

The latest issue of Legal Information Management (LIM) is out and with it comes a raft of useful articles covering a wide variety of work in the legal sector.

Some highlights for us from the latest issue are:

And last but certainly not least of our picks is Allie Lustigman's article on Web 2.0: How is it being Used? What can it do for Law Firms

Posted by James Mullan at 11:22 0 comments  

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