Fabulous advice from a U of A Law student

Graham Purse, a 3L writing at the U of A Faculty of Law Blog, has some great advice about looking for specific documents with Google:

I can often phonetically enter a style of cause in Google and return the right case. Best of luck trying that on Westlaw or Quicklaw.

Here is an example:

1) On Google.ca, I type in "Dunsmur" and the first thing I get is “Dunsmuir v. New Brunswick”. Simple!

2) On Westlaw, I type in "Dunsmur" and get the dreaded "Results: 0 Documents". Fail!

3) On Quicklaw, I type in "Dunsmur" and get the equally dreaded "No Documents Found". Fail!

I had some great luck looking for a Texas State Bar CLE paper cited last week by our Supremes in their recent Progressive Homes decision. (Why the SCC is looking to non-peer reviewed papers from Texas as authority for Canadian legal principles is something to think about, even if it is a really great paper). Graham describes this journal search with Google process eloquently:

As long as you've got the author's last name and a couple of words from the title, you can find almost anything. The most technophobic and marginally-intellectually-enfranchised Luddites could surely find almost any source, even if it didn't conform to the rightfully-maligned McGill guide.

Way to go Graham.

Cool Google Gadgets

Today, the Google search page image has a playable Pac Man. To Quote the tweet that came across my feed:

mike_elgan Playable PacMan on http://www.google.com is easily the coolest thing Google has ever done.

Some of the other cool - for work productivity - things that have come out of Google lately:

iGoogle - adding gadget boxes to personalize a Google start page, including tweet streams and my Google Reader RSS feeds:



Searching for US case law with jurisdiction filtering at Google Scholar (advanced search)

The modified Google Accounts page which lets you jump off to things like Buzz and Wave:

And the latest thing that I just noticed (probably old news, but new to me)...Web history

From the page:

All the web sites you visit, at your fingertips.

• View your web activity. You know that great web site you saw online and now can't find? With Web History, you can.
• Search the full text of pages you've visited. Web History allows you to search across the web pages, images, videos and news stories you've viewed.
• Get personalized search results and more. Web History helps deliver search results based on what you've searched for and which sites you've seen.

Web History relies on Google Toolbar to associate the web pages you visit with your Google Account. See the Web History and Toolbar Privacy Policies. Learn more."

Web history could be used by individuals to track research projects, to search across web pages you have visited, and to track your research sources.

Most of these tools require a Google Account, which also lets you deal with privacy settings.