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AustLII's Autosearch and interface

This document outlines features of AustLII’s AutoSearch and other aspects of the AustLII interface.

AutoSearch features

• Automatic detection of search types AutoSearch can usually work out what type of search you are attempting and apply the correct search type. This should be of particular benefit to less experienced searchers, but also help where experienced searchers forget to specify the correct search type.
• Previous searches and connectors still work Most searches previously used on AustLII will still work, with the exceptions of searches for a single phrase, and some unusual title searches (see below). You can also use all the connectors previously used (‘and’, ‘or’, ‘near’, ‘w/10’ etc).
• Recognises searches for any words To do an ‘any of these words’ search, just list your search terms. For example, either of the following searches are the same, and find documents containing any of the search terms: ‘missile bomb weapon’; or ‘missile, bomb, weapon’. This is the default search type unless (as explained below), AutoSearch recognises a search as Boolean, or for a case, or for legislation, or for a phrase.
• Recognises connectors (Boolean searches) If you use any connector in a search (‘and’, ‘or’, ‘near’, ‘w/10’ etc) then AutoSearch will automatically treat the search as a Boolean search. If you don’t want ‘and’ or ‘or’ or ‘near’ to be treated as connectors, you must put the phrase they are part of within double quotes (this is the same as before).
• Searching for Acts and sections This is now much easier. If you search for any of the following you will only get the section specified: ‘section 14 of the Privacy Act 1988’; ‘Privacy Act 1988, s14’, ‘s14 Spam Act 2003’. The year of the Act must be specified.
• Searching for cases It is now much easier to find just the case (or cases) with a particular title. A search which contains ‘v’ or ‘v.’ or ‘vs’ or vs.’ or ‘re’ will be recognised automatically as a search for a case name, and the search results will be restricted to documents (usually cases or casenotes) containing the phrases on either side of the ‘v’ or ‘vs’, or immediately following the ‘re’. So, for example, the following searches all work well: ‘Mabo v Queensland’; ‘Queensland vs Mabo’; ‘Lenah v Australian Broadcasting’; ‘Broadcasting Corporation vs Lenah’; ‘Re Smith’; ‘In re Smith’. Try them.
• Single phrase searches Previously, in order to search for a phrase such as ‘privacy commissioner’ you had to first select ‘Boolean’, but you did not have to put ‘privacy commissioner’ in double quote marks (as you do on Google). This is still the case if you do an AutoSearch that uses any connectors (‘and’, ‘near’, ‘or’ etc). However, if you search for a phrase by itself (or in a list of synonyms), you must now put it in double quotes. For example:
  • “weapon of mass destruction”
  • missile, bomb, “weapon of mass destruction”
  • Autosearch cannot yet handle searching for two phrases in the same search. Please put in a Boolean connector. (eg ‘private affairs or personal information’ will work but ‘ “private affairs” “personal information” ‘ will not)
• Use Advanced Search where needed Where AutoSearch cannot recognise the type of search you want to do, you can use Advanced Search to specify the search type. Advanced Search (previously called ‘Full Search Form’) is also used to specify limited scope searches over only some databases.

This is only the first version of AutoSearch. Other types of assistance to users are under development. This page will be updated as new features are added.

Other new interface changes

• Catalog searches now limited to Australasia AustLII searches previously displayed the top 3 categories from anywhere in the WorldLII Catalog. They will now only display categories referring to Australia or New Zealand. This will make it much easier to find other Australian websites relevant to your search over AustLII.
• Latest Australasian Catalog Additions New additions to the Australasian parts of the Catalog are at the bottom of the front page.
• View by Database [Not yet implemented in full] Instead of viewing search results by relevance ranked order of all results, results can instead be grouped by database and displayed.
• AustLII Toolbar The AustLII Toolbar allows you to search AustLII from any web page, and has a menu listing AustLII databases by jurisdiction.

AustLII’s interface will receive a complete overhaul in the coming months.

Legal Publishers Search facility

The Legal Publishers Search facility on AustLII allows AustLII users to obtain more efficient access to the legal content provided by Australia’s commercial legal publishers who are participating in the development of the service.

• New content in Legal Publishers Search The Legal Publishers Search facility now searches the following databases:
  • the full text of all online publications of CCH Australia, one of Australia’s largest legal publishers.
  • the full text of WorkplaceInfo., an online service for employee relations information, published by Australian Business Limited.
• How to search Legal Publishers Search To search, you can either:
  • simply click on ‘Legal Publishers’ at the head of your page of AustLII search results, and your previous AustLII search will be repeated over all the Legal Publishers databases.
  • select ‘Legal Publishers’ from the front page of AustLII (under ‘Other Databases’, left column), and enter your search terms and (if you wish) a selection of legal publishers to search.
• Display of search results Results of your search are displayed separately for each legal publisher searched.
  • First, the total number of results is displayed (eg ‘Legal Publishers - Documents found: 2974’), then the number of results from each separate legal publisher’s databases (eg CCH Online: 2088 | WorkplaceInfo: 886) is displayed.
  • Next, the most relevant results from the database with the largest number of hits is displayed (10 results in the case of CCH in the example above), followed by the most relevant results
  • If you select ‘More from [name of publisher] ..’ at the end of each display, you will be shown the complete list of results from that publisher.
• Viewing a document on the legal publisher’s website When you go to a search result from the list, you will be taken to the website of the legal publisher (not to AustLII).
  • If you are already a subscriber to that online publication with the relevant legal publisher, you will be taken to the particular document selected. You may have to log in to the publisher’s website.
  • If you are not already a subscriber to that publication, the legal publisher may offer you a trial subscription. You cannot access these subscriber-only documents without some form of subscription.