Recent Articles

Highlights from SLA 2009: Competitive Intelligence for Law Firms

Steve Matthews
July 09, 2009 19:55

I saved the best for last at SLA 2009. "Incorporating CI into Your Services: Real Life Examples from Legal Info Pros" was my favourite type of session: fast-paced and full of practical, concrete examples.Tim McAllister, Greg Lambert, and J.O. Wallace are all law librarians at BigLaw firms in the US...

Highlights of SLA 2009: Painless Negotiation

Steve Matthews
July 08, 2009 19:55

It's no secret that Mary Ellen Bates is a must-see speaker for me - it's impossible to go to one of her presentations and not come out of it feeling energized and excited about our profession. This year I opted to go to one of her more general sessions, entitled Painless (no, really!)...

New BC Court Rules Include Court Fee Reductions

Steve Matthews
July 08, 2009 17:10

The BC Government announced yesterday a number of changes that should help reduce Court costs in this province, including:the Province picking up the tab for "up to three days of trial time before litigants are required to pay court fees";"court fees for filing or responding to a legal claim will...

Highlights of SLA 2009: Critical Thinking

Steve Matthews
July 07, 2009 22:20

One of the best sessions I attended at the SLA annual conference was "Critical Thinking", presented by Rebecca Jones and Jane Dysart of Dysart & Jones and Deb Wallace of the Harvard Business School Baker Library. With such a short and plain title, this session might have been easy to miss in...

SLA 2009: Alignment Project and a New Name for SLA

Steve Matthews
July 06, 2009 20:33

Alignment was a more formal theme at SLA 2009, and took the form of SLA's Alignment Project:"This alignment project will not only help refine our current positioning in the marketplace, but provide a framework for discussing the inherent value in the profession and the Association in a clear,...

SLA 2009: ROI for Special Libraries

Steve Matthews
July 03, 2009 20:15

In addition to embedded librarianship, another high-profile theme at SLA 2009 was return on investment.There seemed to be more focus than usual this year on ROI; this is not surprising considering the economy. Post-session Q&A almost always yielded at least one question about ROI: how to...

SLA 2009: Embedded Librarianship

Steve Matthews
July 02, 2009 22:09

At its annual conference from June 14-17, the Special Libraries Association celebrated its first 100 years. (Today, July 2nd, is SLA's official 100th birthday!) As usual, the conference offered many top-notch opportunities for learning and networking, and of course, the chance to explore beautiful,...

FriendFeed Live Search

Steve Matthews
July 02, 2009 21:18

Testing friendfeed's new live search. If this works, a widget will be embedded below for a live search of my name.Update: added a boolean 'or' to include my twitter user name.

Emma Wood to Recap SLA 2009

Steve Matthews
July 02, 2009 18:22

I didn't get to attend SLA 2009, but fortunate for VLLB readers, our friend & stemployee Emma Wood did!And... as any evil employer (got the laugh down, working on the costume...) would, I've had her slaving over her thoughts for a series of blog posts. Those will be delivered here on the VLLB...

Quickscribe Manual Updates for June '09

Steve Matthews
June 30, 2009 18:39

The following Quickscribe Manuals were updated in June:BC Motor Vehicle Legislation Manual (Volume Series) CC Motor Vehicle Legislation RCMP Legislation BC Transport Legislation BC Wills & Estates Legislation BC Family LegislationChanges to legislation in British Columbia are regularly posted...