AustLII

AustLII Guide to Legal Research on the Web


1. Introduction

1.1. Approach and structure of this text

This text is principally a guide to research into Australian law on the internet, but also deals with researching international and overseas laws from the perspective of an Australian lawyer.

The Australian coverage includes details of searching and browsing features of the main Australian law sites on the internet, as well as a guide to finding all Australian legal materials, and descriptions of many sites.

The international coverage is more limited, being mainly concerned with identifying the major law sites worldwide, and in particular indexes and search techniques which can be used to locate law sites in particular countries or regions. Details of how to browse and search particular sites are not given.

1.1.1. An AustLII perspective

The authors are the management team of the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII) - <http://www.austlii.edu.au/> one of Australia’s largest websites for law, and one of the world’s largest sites of free access legal materials. This text is therefore written from the perspective we have developed while building and running AustLII, and provides a somewhat more detailed coverage of AustLII than other sites. Whether this book has an ‘AustLII bias’ is for others to judge. We have tried to provide objective descriptions and constructive comments concerning the many other law sites that we discuss.

1.1.2. WorldLII and Related LIIs

A growing number of legal information institutes as well as other good ‘quality’ legal websites are being established around the world. These legal websites include: AustLII (Australasia); BAILII (UK & Ireland); CanLII (Canada); HKLII (Hong Kong); and PacLII (Pacific Islands). The World Legal Information Institute (WorldLII) - <http://www.worldlii.org/> has been developed, in part, to explore possible alternatives of developing a global approach to finding ‘quality’ primary legal materials from around the world using one interface.

Another major component of the WorldLII system is the WorldLII Catalog. All of the law sites, Australian and overseas, mentioned in this book are indexed on the WorldLII Catalog. Screens from that catalogue, and references to specific parts of it, are used throughout the text to illustrate the variety of legal materials on the internet, and a convenient way to access them. The text is therefore intended to be used in conjunction with the AustLII / WorldLII websites.

One reason for this approach is that we attempt to maintain the most comprehensive index to legal materials on the Internet. As explained later, there is as yet no comprehensive worldwide index to law on the Internet, so the WorldLII Catalog has been developed as at least a good starting point to find other indexes and major law sources for countries and regions around the world.

1.2. General principles of internet legal research

1.2.1. Browsing and searching - the two basic techniques

There are two basic methods of finding information on the internet, browsing and searching.

Browsing - hypertext

Browsing is the basis of the internet's world-wide-web (www or 'the web'), and is more technically referred to as hypertext. The basis of hypertext is essentially that the user navigates through connected items of text to find information (‘browsing’). The connections may be hierarchical, such as in a table of contents of a book or an Act, or may be lateral, such as in a ‘jump’ from a defined term in a section of an Act to that definition, or a ‘jump’ from a case to a reference to a section.

Searching - text retrieval

Text retrieval is the more traditional way for lawyers to use computers to find information. The user specifies which combinations of words, if found in a document, are likely to make that document relevant, and a ‘search’ then lists the documents satisfying the request and allows them to be viewed.