I think I’m suffering from SEF. I’ve now been trained, upskilled, put on publishers focus groups, retrained and re-educated in dos-based legal research databases, the subsequent cd versions & now their online counterparts for the past 15 years and counting. And in turn I’ve trained clients, helped upgrade their skills, taken their concerns back and forth to publishers, and helped retrain them in all the things I’ve been retrained in. Like me they’ve mastered dos commands, keyboard control commands, boolean operators, folio grammar, field searching and the refinements of using butterworths, lexis, lawbook, westlaw, austlii, comlaw, timebase, capitol monitor, OQPC, QLI etc etc etc. We’ve all reminded ourselves daily of the variations from one database to another of truncators and proximity operators . We’ve considered cartwheels; we’ve dreamed of federated searching that actually works. We’ve collectively taken on board the concepts of keywords, subject headings, synonym, taxonomies, and folksonomies. And still, in almost every case the results they (and I) continue to get can be inconsistent, not on point or buried in unhelpful hitlists which don’t make sense until every single record is opened and read anyway. And that’s without even going into the mysteries of downloading or printing (have Thomson software developers ever tried creating a useful document from the results of any complicated research in their own databases?). I’m not knocking the wonderful availability of online materials. But wandering daily in Database-land has grown more, not less, wearisome over the course of time. Every ‘advance’ advocated to us by publishers carries with it some mysterious regression. It also means that our hapless clients must also start all over again when all they want to be able to do is find the area of law that's on point for them and keep doing the same thing when they need to read it again. What I’d like to do is to make video clips of some of our real life lawyers researching their way through CCH or Lawbook or LexisNexis. Then I'd post the results on YouTube. That would be at least as funny as March of the Librarians (not very).
Showing posts with label legal research. Show all posts
Showing posts with label legal research. Show all posts
Saturday, April 07, 2007
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Publishers Liaison Update March 2007
PUBLISHERS LIAISON UPDATE MARCH 2007
Systematics - Quantum online - current only to mid 2005 - contacted 23/01/2007 - by email
RESPONSE - from Kylie Peterson - We are currently reviewing this situation with the content provider and I will come back to you as soon as I have further information about the future of the service. There has been no policy decision at this stage to discontinue the service and we are hopeful that we will indeed be able to return the product to its former level of currency.
OUTCOME : without any further response from Systematics BF emailed again 6/3/07 - nothing further yet
lawbookpublishing.com.au - Annotated Land Title Act - updates are infrequent, publication often lacks currency; there have been comments from members of the list that other titles from this Publisher are not updated often enough and that errors remain uncorrected from one issue to the next - contacted 22/02/07 - by phone
RESPONSE - publisher Devi Alberti reports that the Annotated Land Title Act is updated 2 x per year and that the scale of payment for each update is charged out at about 65c per page. His advice was that the last update was published 30/6/2006 and the next will be approximately 1/7/2007. A year for this publication is is a financial year. He has also requested that the ALLG(Q) approach him in writing and not by phone.
OUTCOME : the Committee is considering writing to this publisher to outline our problems with looseleaf titles which have very long intervals between updates.
Comlaw - ongoing problems with the interface, slowness of response time and inconsistent results ; responses harvested from the Queensland list were emailed 19/2/07 to National Publishers Liaison representativel Petal Kinder
OUTCOME : no response as yet
Thomsons - loss of visible online indexes - TLA and other services; these are available in the print versions, are a valuable resource for online users & we would like to have them; BF emailed as personal request 24/2/07 but received no reply; further emailed a list of responses from the Queensland list 18/3/07
OUTCOME : BF to meet with Thomsons representatives Wed 28/3/07 (updated on original info)
LexisNexis AU - Queensland Planning and Environment Reports online but no pdf version available : BF rang Printacular (the publisher in Moorooka) to see if there might be an impediment at their end 14/03/07 - left message
OUTCOME : no response as yet
Saturday, March 18, 2006
COMLAW - list of problems supplied by the ALLG(Q) list
I agree - Comlaw is extremely slow - something to do with the size of the files which take a long time to load, no matter whether they are in .pdf or html format. Again, it seems to be a problem with the architecture - by contrast, the Crimes Act on the NSW OPC web-site loads quickly, even though it is a very large Act. In fact, I would say all the State legislation web-sites are better than Comlaw.
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To get quickly to the Comlaw legislation, what I always suggest is to go through LAWLEX which is a free database.
http://research.lawlex.com.au/
Its Advanced Search is quick and easy and it links to the authorised versions of all jurisdictions in Australia.
So it links to the Comlaw version for any Commonwealth legislation.
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I'm fortunate that I don't need Cth legislation all that much in my firm, besides a few acts that I have annotated anyway (Corp's, TPA etc). So I cant really say much (digression: same for the Cth Hansard,) except that I never got to like using it. I used to find even browsing COMLAW a bit difficult - it is better now that they have improved it. I did not even try search it for over a year - results always used to look incomprehensive (as in "puzzlingly overcomprehensive"), and you end up not knowing where you are.
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I've just noticed a default setting in the ComLaw standard search page which, if I understand it correctly, is unsatisfactory and confusing. I was searching for a schedule in a commonwealth instrument from the standard search page. In box C. Do you want to find any law or related materials? I selected Current Law AND Instruments Compilations, and entered a phrase to search. This returned zero hits. Upon investigation, I realised that the separate box titled Search Options defaults to Items Only. If I understand this correctly, this means Acts Only. When I changed it to All Documents (includes related materials), I got the results I expected. Suggestions for improvement: 1. The fact that you can select Instrument Compilations in box C suggests that you will be searching Instrument Compilations. This is not the case as an externally set parameter overrides this choice. The relevant search options should be placed inside each of boxes A, B and C instead of being listed at the bottom of the form. In this case, Restrict to Type is not relevant, given the check boxes in C. 2. The labels for the choices in the drop down box Restrict to Type are meaningless - they should be relabelled as Acts, Acts and instruments and All legislative material, in keeping with standard labelling on the website.
3. The default setting should be all legislative material - users should be able to narrow the search if necessary but should not have it narrowed automatically.
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I was looking to get hold of the EM for the Family Law Amendment (Shared Parental Responsibility) Bill 2005 and so Comlaw was my natural first port of call. A quick browse and there it was, easy as that! But then I had a brainwave that there may have been supplementary/revised EM's for such a hefty bill, but they were nowhere to be found. I called Comlaw helpdesk and they said that in this case I should look on the parliament house site. They would not however give me a rock solid answer when I asked if it was policy to only put only the original EM to bills on the site. (I assume this is the case though). So then I checked out parliament house website (http://www.aph.gov.au/). Under bills I found some supplementary/revised EM's for current bills, but nothing from previous years. It was not until I made another call, this time to parliament house, that I discovered all the supplementary/revised EM's for the bill I wanted would probably be located in the old bills section (http://parlinfoweb.aph.gov.au/piweb/browse.aspx?path=legislation%3Eold+bills). This excellent resource also had the 2nd reading speeches, bill digest and text of the bill in one handy spot. The problem is that it was so hard to find. The person at parliament house said she thought that all bills post 1998ish are on that old bills page and will stay there, but I couldn't help but think this might not be the case. Even if it is, then a bit of content management wouldn't go a miss, as it is quite slow and unwieldy at present. All this has made me wonder whether Comlaw is the best place to go to get bills information, and whether a better solution could be arrived at.
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I was just trying to access Comlaw when your email arrived. I had to give up accessing the site as it not respond after a considerable length of time had passed (and I tried several times) and thus I had to use an alternative database.
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I think it is awful but I can't really give you anything specific. I find the site confusing and usually reference material via Lawlex. I had a go at the search engine the other day. The results I got back were confusing. These days I'll even use Austlii in preference but I always check the notes for the currency. I never refer people to ComLaw.
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To get quickly to the Comlaw legislation, what I always suggest is to go through LAWLEX which is a free database.
http://research.lawlex.com.au/
Its Advanced Search is quick and easy and it links to the authorised versions of all jurisdictions in Australia.
So it links to the Comlaw version for any Commonwealth legislation.
******************
I'm fortunate that I don't need Cth legislation all that much in my firm, besides a few acts that I have annotated anyway (Corp's, TPA etc). So I cant really say much (digression: same for the Cth Hansard,) except that I never got to like using it. I used to find even browsing COMLAW a bit difficult - it is better now that they have improved it. I did not even try search it for over a year - results always used to look incomprehensive (as in "puzzlingly overcomprehensive"), and you end up not knowing where you are.
***************************
I've just noticed a default setting in the ComLaw standard search page which, if I understand it correctly, is unsatisfactory and confusing. I was searching for a schedule in a commonwealth instrument from the standard search page. In box C. Do you want to find any law or related materials? I selected Current Law AND Instruments Compilations, and entered a phrase to search. This returned zero hits. Upon investigation, I realised that the separate box titled Search Options defaults to Items Only. If I understand this correctly, this means Acts Only. When I changed it to All Documents (includes related materials), I got the results I expected. Suggestions for improvement: 1. The fact that you can select Instrument Compilations in box C suggests that you will be searching Instrument Compilations. This is not the case as an externally set parameter overrides this choice. The relevant search options should be placed inside each of boxes A, B and C instead of being listed at the bottom of the form. In this case, Restrict to Type is not relevant, given the check boxes in C. 2. The labels for the choices in the drop down box Restrict to Type are meaningless - they should be relabelled as Acts, Acts and instruments and All legislative material, in keeping with standard labelling on the website.
3. The default setting should be all legislative material - users should be able to narrow the search if necessary but should not have it narrowed automatically.
******************************
I was looking to get hold of the EM for the Family Law Amendment (Shared Parental Responsibility) Bill 2005 and so Comlaw was my natural first port of call. A quick browse and there it was, easy as that! But then I had a brainwave that there may have been supplementary/revised EM's for such a hefty bill, but they were nowhere to be found. I called Comlaw helpdesk and they said that in this case I should look on the parliament house site. They would not however give me a rock solid answer when I asked if it was policy to only put only the original EM to bills on the site. (I assume this is the case though). So then I checked out parliament house website (http://www.aph.gov.au/). Under bills I found some supplementary/revised EM's for current bills, but nothing from previous years. It was not until I made another call, this time to parliament house, that I discovered all the supplementary/revised EM's for the bill I wanted would probably be located in the old bills section (http://parlinfoweb.aph.gov.au/piweb/browse.aspx?path=legislation%3Eold+bills). This excellent resource also had the 2nd reading speeches, bill digest and text of the bill in one handy spot. The problem is that it was so hard to find. The person at parliament house said she thought that all bills post 1998ish are on that old bills page and will stay there, but I couldn't help but think this might not be the case. Even if it is, then a bit of content management wouldn't go a miss, as it is quite slow and unwieldy at present. All this has made me wonder whether Comlaw is the best place to go to get bills information, and whether a better solution could be arrived at.
****************************
I was just trying to access Comlaw when your email arrived. I had to give up accessing the site as it not respond after a considerable length of time had passed (and I tried several times) and thus I had to use an alternative database.
************************
I think it is awful but I can't really give you anything specific. I find the site confusing and usually reference material via Lawlex. I had a go at the search engine the other day. The results I got back were confusing. These days I'll even use Austlii in preference but I always check the notes for the currency. I never refer people to ComLaw.
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