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User Guide to AustLII |
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The Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII)
<http://www.austlii.edu.au/> provides
free access to the following:
• Over 250 full text Databases from all
Australian jurisdictions. They can be searched together, separately, by
jurisdiction, or as individual databases. They include hundreds of thousands of
cases and pieces of legislation, plus treaties, law journals, law reform reports
and other content.
• A Catalog of thousands of Australian
websites and a Websearch which allows searches of the content of many
(but not all) of the websites in the Catalog.
• A ‘Law on Google’
facility which assists users to more easily find legal materials from a
particular jurisdiction, or on a particular topic, using the Google search
engine.
To find all databases for a jurisdiction, select it
from AustLII’s front page to go to the jurisdiction’s page on
AustLII. The databases are listed first on the jurisdiction page, under
‘Databases’. Select the name of a database to go to its home page,
which shows the number of items in the database, the range of years from which
they are derived, the date of the most recent item added and both annual and
alphabetic tables of contents (both may not be available in some
cases).
[Database Search] limits scope of search to
database named at the top of page.
[Name
Search] limits scope of the search to names of legislation in this
database. Search with key words in the title of a known piece of
legislation.
‘Last updated: ...’ most
recent date database was updated on system.
NOTE- does not indicate legislation is consolidated to that date.
[Table] goes to the table of contents,
at the entry for this section.
[Notes] displays associated notes;
amendment histories
etc.
[Noteup] searches automatically for
all materials on AustLII which refer to this section.
[Previous] goes to preceding section;
use for ‘stepping back’ through sections.
[Next] goes to the next section; use to
‘step through’ sections.
[Download] downloads copy of whole
legislation (not single section); choose ASCII or (if available) RTF; if ASCII,
print or save using normal browser
commands
[Related Items] (if available)
lists related items: Explanatory Memorandum, Statement, Notes
etc.
[Database Search] limits search to only the
current database.
[Name Search] limits
scope of search to titles of cases in current database only.
[Recent Decisions] displays most recent
decisions added, by date of the decision.
There are 3 search options: from the front page, a
jurisdiction page, a database front page, or the Advanced Search
page
Operator |
Meaning |
Example |
and |
page contains both terms |
negligen* and defam* |
or |
page contains either of two terms |
weapon or gun or firearm or pistol |
not |
page contains 1st term but not 2nd |
trust not family |
near |
1st term is within 50 words of 2nd |
disclos* near offence |
w/n or
/n/ |
1st term is within n words of 2nd
|
court w/5 jurisdiction |
pre/n |
1st term must precede 2nd term by less than n
words |
contempt pre/3 court |
( ) |
Always use parentheses if search includes two types
of connectors |
contempt near (radio or television) |
n * |
Use * for truncation |
‘negligen*' finds negligent, negligence,
negligently etc |
|
Regular plurals, and singulars, are searched
automatically |
‘firearm’ = ‘firearms’ and
vice-versa |
Searching for phrases – To search for a
phrase, put it in double quotes (eg “freedom of information”). This
is not necessary for a Boolean search (ie if connectors are used) but it is
better to be sure.
Search terms the same as connectors –
If a phrase is searched for which contains a connector, the whole phrase should
be put in double quotes (eg “fit and proper
person”).
Where Databases are searched, four options allow
different displays of search results.
By Relevance – The default results
display is by order of likely relevance to the search request, most relevant
first. The percentage ranking (‘relevance ranking’) next to each
document shows 100% for the first document if it contains all search terms. All
others are ranked pro-rata to that document according to number, frequency and
location of search terms they contained. The ‘Collapse
Multi-sections | Show All Sections’ option makes search results which
contain numerous references to legislation more readable by reducing the number
of sections visible.
By Date – Results are sorted by date
order, most recent date displayed first (ie reverse chronological order).
Legislation is displayed by the date the Act was passed or the Regulation made,
not by the date on which a particular section or clause was amended. The
‘Collapse Multi-sections’ option is available.
By Title – The results are sorted
alphabetically by the title of the document, and displayed from a-z. The
‘Collapse Multi-sections’ option is available. The ‘Collapse
Title’ option groups the results together based on the first alphanumeric
character in the title, that is, ‘A’ to ‘Z’ and then
‘0-9’.
By Database – The search results are
displayed grouped into the databases on which they are located. The databases
are displayed in the order in which they appear in AustLII’s menu
structure (not by number of results found in each). To view the results from
only one database, click on the number of documents next to the name of the
database (Note: to see the results from all databases again, it is necessary to
use the ‘back’ button). The ‘Collapse Listing | Expand
Listing’ option is only available with the ‘By Database’
display.
[PDF] results – If a search result has
‘[PDF]’ in front of it then it can not yet be displayed as a HTML
file (a web page), but instead will automatically be downloaded as a PDF
(Portable Document Format) file if the link to the result is selected. PDF files
are in the original format provided by the data source and do not have internal
hypertext links or ‘context’ and other navigation buttons otherwise
found on LII documents.
Modifying searches – The Search Results page
always displays your current search (or stored search) at the top of the page,
allowing it to be modified and another search run.
The ‘Repeat search over:’ box – On
the right side of each display of Database search results, the options in this
box allow the same search as has just been executed to be repeated over any of 4
other broader sets of data: (i) All AustLII databases (valuable if only one
jurisdiction has been searched); (ii) Catalog & Websearch (all countries,
not only in Asia); (iii) WorldLII Databases (all databases in the World legal
Information Institute); and (iv) ‘Law on Google’ (no limitation to
one country or jurisdiction).
‘Context’ - going to the occurrences
of search terms – The ‘Context’
button appears at the top of most documents found in a search. Click on the red
arrow to go to the first search term, then forward (or back) on further red
arrows to go from one occurrence of search terms to the next. Wait until
the whole document has loaded before using the ‘context’
button ie when the status line at the bottom of the screen says ‘Document
done’.
Advanced Search is used principally to choose
special selections of databases, and also to select some special search types
which it may be easier to use here.
The following special selections of databases are
available (the default is ‘All Databases’).
|
Selecting ‘All Legislation’ on
AustLII Remember to change back to ‘All
Databases’ after a search. To change a selection you must return to the
Advanced Search Form. |
The ‘Autosearch’ method used on the
front page and on the country pages of AustLII tries to work out which type of
search the user is conducting and automatically uses that type. The advanced
search page allows the choice of 5 other search types (it is rarely needed,
and only by advanced users):
|
• this Boolean query –
(default option) Assumes logical and proximity connectors (see above)
will be used. Equivalent to including any logical or proximity connector in a
search from the front page or a jurisdiction page. Hint - use reasonably
broad searches (to aid completeness), and rely on the relevance ranking then to
provide more precision. |
On each jurisdiction page, the following search box
appears. The default search scope is ‘Databases’ for that
jurisdiction (if it has no databases, ‘Catalog & Websearch’ is
the default).
The Databases search will then search all of the
databases listed on that jurisdiction page, but no others. To search only one of
the databases, go to that database’s home page and choose the
‘Databases Search’ option (described above). There is at present no
way to search a combination of databases from one jurisdiction on this page (an
enhancement is planned) but you can use the ‘Advanced Search’ page
to do this.
If the ‘Law on Google’ option is chosen
and search terms inserted, then the search is sent to the Google search engine
to be carried out, but it is first transformed in three ways in order to make it
more useful:
• First, the search syntax used by the AustLII
search engine is translated into that required by Google’s search engine
(for example, ‘or’ is translated into ‘OR’; phrases are
put into quotes);
• Second, terms to restrict results to those
relevant to the jurisdiction are added; eg a search from the NSW page will have
‘New South Wales OR site:.nsw.gov.au’ added;
• Third, a list of law-related search terms is
added to reduce the likelihood of sites unrelated to law being found or ranked
highly.
It may sound complicated, but it generally produces
good results.
If ‘Catalog & Websearch’ is selected
and search terms inserted, then two results will be displayed.
The search results will first list ‘WorldLII
Catalog - Categories found:’ and list the number of category pages in the
whole WorldLII catalog (ie not just for the jurisdiction concerned) satisfying
the search request, followed by the first four categories and a link to
‘More categories...’ if there are more. (This is being improved to
limit the search to only display categories relevant to the jurisdiction
concerned.)
The search will also search the full text of web
sites listed in the catalog in any of the categories listed on the jurisdiction
page, or those below them in the catalog. In other words, a search from the
‘India’ jurisdiction page should only find websites from India or
about India. The results are not as good as the other two options but may
sometimes provide additional useful materials. Use this option
last.
The Catalog of websites may be browsed from the categories listed on a jurisdiction page under the heading ‘Catalog and Websearch’. The categories listed relate only to the jurisdiction concerned. Selecting any of the categories will take the user to the relevant part of the WorldLII Catalog.