Legal Research

Is it all doom and gloom?

Posted on January 22, 2009
If you've read a newspaper or looked at the Web recently you cant help but have noticed that people keep talking about a "Global Economic Crisis" or "the Downturn" or a "Credit Crisis" or worst of all "Recession" but is it all doom and gloom and what as Information Professionals can we do to ensure we survive the downturn?First of all I'm trying not to worry about it too much, hard to do when job losses in Law Firms are being reported on an almost daily basis and more importantly there are things you can do to demonstrate the value we provide...

What's your social media drug?

Posted on January 16, 2009
The Shifted Librarian has written an interesting post here, in which they describe which Social Media tool they currently use and the reasons for their choice.Deciding which Social Media tool you're going to use and then sticking to it, is actually harder then it might seem, despite the fact that many of them offer very similiar functionality they could potentially all be used for different purposes...

Are you Hot or not?

Posted on January 12, 2009
Anne Welsh at the First Person Narrative blog has pointed me in the direction of this new Website "Hot Stuff 2.0"From the About section of the website:"HotStuff 2.0? is an automatically updated blog developed by Dave Pattern (Library Systems Manager, University of Huddersfield, UK)...

Good news...Bad News...

Posted on January 09, 2009
The Good News first, Jennie Law very kindly sent the following link to me, which included all UK Law Librarian Bloggers in a review entitled Blogs in The Liblog Landscape 2007-2008 great to see that there are so many active Librarian bloggers out there...

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Merry Christmas...almost!

Posted on December 24, 2008
Merry Christmas to everyone who subscribes to/reads the Running Librarian Blog. The Running Librarian is off now until early in the New Year and it looks like 2009 is going to be an exciting year with lots of speaking opportunities.Have a great Christmas and New Year!

The case for collaborative tools

Posted on December 23, 2008
This a href="http://www.aallnet.org/products/pub_sp0812/pub_sp0812_PLL.pdf"article/a from the December 2008 edition of a href="http://www.aallnet.org/products/pub_sp0812.asp"AALL Spectrum/a looks at how Web-based collaborative tools could be used by Law Librarians...

Are we losing out when it comes to Web 2.0?

Posted on December 23, 2008
This is the attention grabbing title of an article* in the December 2008 edition of Inside Knowledge Magazine. In it they report on a White Paper published by Spada Research entitled "The Laity Bytes back? The impact of Web 2.0 on UK Professionals" the report was actually published in September, but I've only just spotted it! The report is broken down into the following sections:Current knowledge and usage levels (with the obligatory explanation of Web 2...

The case for collaborative tools

Posted on December 23, 2008
This article from the December 2008 edition of AALL Spectrum looks at how Web-based collaborative tools could be used by Law Librarians.In it the authors report on how they were asked to speak at the 2008 AALL meeting in Portland and needed to use collaborative tools to prepare their talk, from there they carried out a survey to find out if anyone was currently using collaborative tools within their organisations...

Want to know more about the semantic web?

Posted on December 22, 2008
Then take a look at this a href="http://web.fumsi.com/go/article/manage/3327"article/a on a href="http://web.fumsi.com/"Fumsi/a, which has a brief introduction to the a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semantic_webc"Semantic Web /a(which even I understood) and then some predictions on how the Semantic Web will change Information Management (which I struggled a bit more with!)br /ulliPrediction 1 - A move from the pull to the push search paradigm, or more "context-aware" applications/liliPrediction 2 - the battle of the identifiers or the age of pointing at things/liliPrediction 3 - the changing role of the information professional/li/ulpThis is where it all gets interesting! With the author asking the question em"...

Want to know more about the semantic web?

Posted on December 22, 2008
Then take a look at this article on Fumsi, which has a brief introduction to the Semantic Web (which even I understood) and then some predictions on how the Semantic Web will change Information Management (which I struggled a bit more with!)Prediction 1 - A move from the pull to the push search paradigm, or more "context-aware" applicationsPrediction 2 - the battle of the identifiers or the age of pointing at thingsPrediction 3 - the changing role of the information professionalThis is where it all gets interesting! With the author asking the question "...

Enterprise 2.0 for KM Professionals

Posted on December 19, 2008
I don't usually write about Enterprise 2.0 in this blog, I have another blog where I write more extensively about Enterprise 2.0 but the following a href="http://billives.typepad.com/portals_and_km/2008/12/forrester-on-enterprise-20-for-km-professionals...

Enterprise 2.0 for KM Professionals

Posted on December 19, 2008
I don't usually write about Enterprise 2.0 in this blog, I have another blog where I write more extensively about Enterprise 2.0 but the following post on the Portals and KM Blog caught my eye. Entitled "Forrester on Enterprise 2.0 for KM Professionals" the post describes a recent Forrester report on Enterprise Web 2...

Twitter, the good the bad and the ugly...

Posted on December 17, 2008
I?ve been using a href="http://www.twitter.com/"Twitter/a for a while now?at the last count I had posted 1415 Tweets, am following 110 people and am being followed by 112 people. Recently though I?ve struggled to understand the true value of Twitter (and I don?t mean in US Dollars)...

Twitter, the good the bad and the ugly...

Posted on December 17, 2008
I???ve been using Twitter for a while now???at the last count I had posted 1415 Tweets, am following 110 people and am being followed by 112 people. Recently though I???ve struggled to understand the true value of Twitter (and I don???t mean in US Dollars)...

Law publishing at the crossroads

Posted on December 16, 2008
In this article from the November 2008 edition of a href="http://www.solicitorsjournal.com/story.asp?sectioncode=3amp;storycode=13335"Solicitors Journal/a* Nick Holmes of a href="http://www.binarylaw.co.uk/"Binary Law /aand a href="http://legalweb.wordpress...

Law publishing at the crossroads

Posted on December 16, 2008
In this article from the November 2008 edition of Solicitors Journal* Nick Holmes of Binary Law and Free Legal Web fame looks at how law firms knowledge needs are being met by the law publishers and how the internet is changing the industry.Nick writes frequently about Legal Publishers and the publishing industry on Binary Law, so it is no surprise that this is a very informative article...

Getting started with enterprise social networking

Posted on December 15, 2008
A great post here from the Headshift Blog the post is a summary of Lee Bryant's talk at Online Information where he discussed how Social Networking could be used within an enterprise.Lee's slides cover four main points, but as he says there are many more potential uses for Social Networking within an enterprise, including:"Social reading and writing" - this is about sharing what people are reading about by using RSS"Social search and expertise location" As Lee says Social networks are a great way to find people and can help show "connections and networks" that you might not have been aware of...

My blog template

Posted on December 13, 2008
I've not been happy with my blog template for a while now...so I've decided to change it and get rid of some of the clutter that was on my previous template.I'm pretty pleased with the result although my technical skills have let me down again...(1) The title of the blog "The Running Librarian" isn't clear enough(2) I like the first picture in the header but not the flower...

My *new* blog URL

Posted on December 13, 2008
Finally after umming and ahhing for almost I year I have sat down and changed my custom domain name to http://www.therunninglibrarian.co.uk/It looks like and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my feed will come with me and I wont lose all my existing subscribers...

35 tips for getting started with social media

Posted on December 12, 2008
I love this list of 35 tips for getting started with Social Media. Some of my favourite tips..."Find the top 50 blogs in your space, and subscribe to their RSS feeds in Google Reader. Consistently be on the lookout for new blogs, and the voices behind them...

Third Sector 2.0

Posted on December 12, 2008
Anne Welsh, whom I met at a Web 2.0 event last year and who writes frequently about the use of Web 2.0 in the third sector has published the slides from her talk at Online Information 2008. In them she describes the use of Web 2.0 applications in the Third Sector...

So you think you're doing Enterprise 2.0?

Posted on December 11, 2008
Looking for an introduction to Enterprise 2.0 and some thoughts on what Enterprise 2.0 really is? Then take a look at this post from the Library Clips blog.In in the author asks, whether "you really are doing Enterprise 2.0" since there has been much discussion recently around what the focus of Enterprise 2...

Librarians are recession proof...

Posted on December 03, 2008
...at least according to an article in Men's Health, yes I read Men's Health and not just for the pretty pictures. I do run sometimes you know...Unfortunately they go on to say that a "Specialist Librarians" starting salary is £60k, they are definitely special if they are getting paid that much and that you might end up alphabetically organising everything you come into contact with...

The Three-E strategy

Posted on December 02, 2008
Following on from a recent post during which I asked why more law firms aren't using Web 2.0 I read a very interesting article in the Educase Quarterly on a strategy for overcoming resistance to technological change.This can be a major issue for any organisation trying to implement a new piece of technology and can ultimately lead to failure...

Web 2.0 yes or no no no?

Posted on December 02, 2008
The economic downturn will not spell the end for Web 2.0 firms according to this article from the BBC Website.In fact according to Tim O'Reilly (slightly famous dude who originally coined the term Web 2.0) it might improve the tools that are available to us by "clearing out the clutter" In other words the sensible serious applications will flourish and the frivolous here "catch this sheep" applications will die...

Us Now

Posted on December 01, 2008
The Headshift Blog recently posted about this Film Project they have been involved in. I'd love to be able to see the film, but unfortunately it is too short notice for me to attend the screenings.Anyway the film is about the "power of mass collaboration, government and the internet" Some of the clips are well worth watching, especially the interview with Liam Daish, manager of my local football club Ebbsfleet United...

Email lists v Twitter

Posted on November 28, 2008
I love this post on the 3 Geeks and a Law Blog which discusses whether Twitter has the potential to replace Listservs (email mailing lists). In it they describe some of the problems associated with using email lists, which include;People conducting lazy research (using the list to request items that they could probably find themselves or could find at their local library)There being too many people (if you send an email and you get 200 Out of Office responses you're not going to be posting too much in the future)List bad apples - you know the person who always finds something to vent about at the most inopportune moment...

Want to test your geekiness?

Posted on November 26, 2008
Then check out "The 50 skills every geek should have" I failed this test scoring a measly 1 out of 50!

Web 2.0 resistance from Law Firms

Posted on November 24, 2008
Why are some Law Firms still not using Web 2.0 applications "behind their firewall"? and do you work at one of these firms? If so you might be interested in reading a summary of the Am Law Tech 2008 survey.Penny Edwards from Headshift describes this as disappointing and I'm sure many people who are working with Web 2...

Social Software - is it really worth the effort?

Posted on November 07, 2008
Two posts here from the Headshift Blog which discuss Social Media. The first is a short checklist of questions which organisations should review, at the end of which organisations will wonder why they are currently using Social Media.The second is a much longer post which questions the true value and usefulness of Social Media and whether you can measure its Return on Investment (ROI) and whether you should bother! The author points to a couple of examples where organisations have looked at the benefits or Social Media and these are well worth reviewing...

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