This is a guide to the beta version of World Law at
http://beta.austlii.edu.au/links/World/
The features and appearance may change when the final version is released.
The beta version runs on a server which is not as fast as the production
server version will be. But you can use it now.
Version - 4 June 1999 (First Draft)
1. Essential points
2. Browsing
3. Searching
1. Essential points
-
The same interface is used for browsing the catalog of links (the bottom
of each page), and searching the full text of (most) sites which are included
in the catalog (the top of each page).
-
The scope of a search is limited by where you search from (the context).
To broaden or narrow your search scope, go to a more appropriate page in
the catalog.
2. Browsing
2.1. The starting points
The starting point for the whole catalog is the 'World' page, which contains
the categories below. You 'drill down' until you find links to sites that
interest you.
There is also an 'Australia' page (http://beta.austlii.edu.au/links/Australia/
)which is the starting point for all of the Australian pages in the catalog.
However, the 'World', 'Australia' and 'Project DIAL' pages are all part
of the one catalog.
2.2. The structure of pages in the catalog
Most catalog pages have a three part structure (as in the example above):
-
The top division is for particularly important sub-categories, and also
for stored searches.
-
The middle division is for other sub-categories (usually most go here).
-
The bottom division is for the links to other sites.
The top and middle division are essentially for navigation around the catalog,
and the bottom division is where the content of the catalog is found.
BetaNote: The current side-by-side two column sorting will be
replaced by down-the-column sorting in the production version.
2.3. 'World' and 'Australia' pages - two important
subcategories
There are two important sub-categories on both the 'World' and 'Australia'
pages:
-
Subject Index - As well as being catalogued under their 'source'
or 'type' (the middle division of the 'Australia' or 'World' pages), almost
all links are also catalogued under their subject matter. AustLII's subject
index is based on a modified form of Butterworths' first level Halsbury
headings.
-
Other Indexes and Search Engines - Links to all other valuable indexes
(not AustLII's) that we have found. Searching from this page will just
search over indexes - very valuable.
2.4. Navigating to other places in the catalog (the
hierarchy)
Every catalog page lists its hierarchical location in the catalog. Click
on any point in the hierarchy to go back to that catalog page.
You can always get back to the start of the catalog by clicking on '>>
World
>>' (or on 'Australia' in the Australian part of the catalog).
If you are in the 'World' part of the catalog and you want to
get to an 'Australia' page, click on '>> Countries >>' and then
select 'Australia@'.
If you are in the 'Australia' part of the catalog, and you want
to get to the 'World' part, click on 'World Law' where it appears below
the AustLII logo, as shown below.
2.5. Cross-references (equivalent to 'see' and 'see
also') - the '@' symbol
Some links to sub-categories have an '@' symbol following them. For example,
on the 'World >> Law Reform' page:
The '@' symbol means that this is a cross-reference to another
part of the category hierarchy. When you go to a cross-reference, you go
to a different part of the hierarchy, and the hierarchy displayed at the
top of the page will change from where you were.
2.6. The button bar
At the top of each catalog page, there is the following button bar:
-
[New] Lists new additions to the catalog, and links which have been
updated
-
[Translate] Translate this and following pages into any of
6 European languages (uses Alta Vista's Systran).
-
[Add a Link] provides a form for users to suggest new links for
the catalog (Beta Note: not implemented until production system
- use 'Feedback' instead for now.)
-
[Feedback] Send an email comment to us. Can be used to send lists
of links.
3. Searching
3.1. Limiting search scope by catalog location
The scope of a search is limited by where you search from (the context).
To search over everything, simply go to the 'World' page and search
from there.
To search over everything in Australia (but not elsewhere), go
to the 'Australia' page and search from there.
To broaden or narrow your search scope, go to a more appropriate
page in the catalog.
No matter where you are in the catalog, you can search everything
('World') by selecting 'All World Law' (from the 'in' option) instead of
the default option limiting the search scope, as shown below:
Beta Note: The 'All World Law' option is by far the fastest
way to search at present. But the more restricted search scopes may
give greater precision. Test for what works best until the restricted scope
searches become faster.
3.2. Search options
World Law uses AustLII's SINO search engine, so all of the search facilites
available for searching over AustLII's Australian databases can be used,
but this is modified by the new interface options.
The following options are available from the 'Find' option:
Important: The default option (Beta Note:
This may change) is 'all of these words'. If you want to do any other type
of search, you must change this default.
-
all of these words - equivalent to a Boolean AND between each separate
word entered will be treated
-
any of these words - equivalent to a Boolean OR between each separate
word entered will be treated
-
this phrase - the words entered will be treated as a literal phrase
even if they contain terms which would normally otherwise be treated as
Boolean connectors (such as 'and', 'or' , 'near'). There is no need to
put inverted commas around the phrase.
-
this document title - only the titles of web pages are searched,
not the text.
-
this Boolean phrase - any Boolean search may be entered, using AustLII's
logical and proximity operators.
3.3. Entering search terms
The important thing to remember is the search terms which can sensibly
be entered are determined by which search option (above) has been selected.
3.4. Display of search results - relevance ranking
Search results are displayed ranked by likely order of relevance of the
items founds, as below.
Where the search option 'the Boolean phrase' is used, the list
of retrieved items must first match the boolean search, and the items found
are only then relevance ranked.
3.5. Modifying searches
It is easy to modify searches, because 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.
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