 | AustLII Guide to Legal Research on the Web |
| AustLII Guide to Legal Research on the Web |
Butterworths Online, launched in March 1997, provides a vast collection of primary and secondary legal publications by Butterworths. The collection amounts to over 4GB of data, making it the largest commercially published collection of legal information in Australia, and one of the largest in the world.
The sources of the Butterworths Online databases include (i) Butterworths print publications (eg Halsbury's Laws of Australia and Australian Current Law); (ii) databases from the Info-One on line system (formerly CLIRS), purchased by Butterworths / Reed Elsevier in 1995; and (iii) some legislation databases from the Commonwealth Attorney-General’s SCALE service.
Access to Butterworths Online main menus, and subscription information, is at <http://online.butterworths.com.au>. They can also be accessed from the general LexisNexis Butterworths Australia site at <http://www.butterworths.com.au/> or from AustLII’s index under ‘Publishers - Servers’. Access is via clicking on the ‘Online’ button on the main Butterworths page:
Individual databases on Butterworths Online can be accessed directly from internet indexes such as AustLII’s Australian Links. As shown in the example below of a link to Butterworths Online’s Victorian Reports from AustLII’s Victorian Supreme Court index page, only subscribers can access the databases, by use of username/password controls or if through an IP-based site-wide licensing arrangement eg University of Technology, Sydney.
AustLII’s index can therefore be used to make an initial assessment of the range of resources available on a particular subject, including commercial resources such as those on Butterworths Online.
Butterworths Online User Guide is an annexure to this text, and is accessible online from the Butterworths Online web site.
Surendra Dayal LDL Online 1997 - Laying Down the Law - Computer Assisted Legal Research (Butterworths, 1997) Chapter 13 ‘Butterworths Online’. Chapters 5-9 of this book provide detailed coverage of the use of Folio Views CD-ROM publications (particularly by Butterworths and LBC Online), which is very useful because the Folio software used on Butterworths Online is a version of the same software.
Butterworths Online opening screen
The Butterworths Online databases are divided into ‘Libraries’, as set out in the following table extracted from the Butterworths Online contents page. The publications that you have subscribed to are listed under the ‘Publications’ tab. Note that the full range of publications available are listed under ‘Full range of publications’ link.
Halsbury's Laws of Australia
Halsbury's - Tables
Australian Current Law
Aust Current Law - Legislation
Aust Current Law -
Reporter
Aust Current Law - Tables
Table of Quantum of Damages
Table of Sentencing
Decisions
Australian and New Zealand Citator to UK Reports
Australian Legal Words & Phrases
Butterworths Australian Encyclopaedic Legal Dictionary
Dictionary - Tables
Pink Ribbon CaseBase
Statutes Annotations - Index
Federal Statutes
Annotations
New South Wales Statutes
Annotations
Queensland Legislation Case
Annotations
Victorian Statutes Annotations
High Court of Australia - Unreported Judgments
Federal Court of Australia - Unreported Judgments
Australian
Capital Territory - Unreported Judgments
Northern Territory
- Unreported Judgments
New South Wales - Unreported
Judgments
Queensland - Unreported Judgments
South Australia - Unreported Judgments
Tasmania - Unreported
Judgments
Victoria - Unreported Judgments
Western Australia - Unreported Judgments
Administrative Law Decisions (coming soon)
Australian Corporation Law - Reports (ACSR & ACLR)
Australian Law Reports
ALR Comparative Tables
Australian Capital Territory Reports
Northern Territory
Reports
Family Law Reports
Intellectual
Property Reports (coming soon)
New South Wales Law Reports
Queensland Reports
Queensland Crown
Lands Law Reports
Queensland Land Court Reports
Queensland Planning and Environment Law Reports
Victorian
Reports
Commonwealth Constitution
Commonwealth
Consolidated Acts
Commonwealth Consolidated Regulations
Commonwealth Numbered Acts
Commonwealth
Numbered Regulations
(SCALE databases are supplied by the Commonwealth Attorney-General)
Australian Encyclopaedia of Forms and Precedents
Australian Encyclopaedia of Forms and Precedents - Abridged
Australian Administrative Law
Cross on Evidence
Cross - Indexes
Ritchie's Supreme Court Procedure NSW
Ritchie's - Index
Williams Civil Procedure Victoria
Australian Corporation Law - Index and Tables
Australian Corporation Law - Bulletin
Australian Corporation
Law - Legislation
Australian Corporation Law - ASC Releases
Australian Corporation Law - Principles and Practice
Australian Corporation Law - Reports (ACSR & ACLR)
Ford's Principles of Corporations Law
Criminal Law - Federal
Criminal Practice and
Procedure - New South Wales
Criminal Law - Victoria
Cross on Evidence
Cross - Indexes
Cross on Evidence
Cross - Indexes
Australian Family Law
Australian
Family Law Index
Australian Family Law State Legislation
Family Law Reports
Intellectual Property Reports
Local Government Planning and Environment NSW
The Butterworths Online User Guide explains:
The screens (or pages) in Butterworths Online are organised using frames. The object of the frames is to organise the information available to you. Generally the left frame contains buttons which enable you to navigate the online system. The right frame contains the actual information you want to see. Within publications, the right frame is divided into an upper and lower frame, with the upper frame telling you where you are in the publication, and the lower containing the text of the publication.
Folio databases are often built with extensive nested tables of contents. Halsbury is a good example of this. Effective browsing requires expanding and collapsing of these tables, using the plus sign (+) to the left of the name of the publication and (at the top of the text frame) the row of buttons numbered 1 to 9, and the button marked '++'.
The plus sign expands the table of contents one level at a time.
Here, it results in a display like this (only part is shown):
Click on the minus at the left of the main heading to collapse the display back to how it was. The sub headings with + symbols mean that those headings can be expanded to further levels of the table of contents. Those with a grey square mean there is text directly below this level, not further tables of contents.
etc The numbered buttons expand the table of contents to the
number of levels indicated by the number on the button. The unshaded button is
the one currently active (‘1’ here). To open or close a table of
contents to a particular level, click on the numbered button for the level.
The '++' button expands the table of contents fully.
A minus (-) sign to the left of a table of contents entry means
the level immediately below that one is open. Click on the minus sign to close
the level. Open further levels by clicking on any new plus signs appearing below
the level with the minus sign.
A grey box to the left of an entry means there are no levels
below this one. This is usually the paragraph level in a commentary, the section
level in legislation or the case level in law reports.
To close the table of contents fully, click on the minus sign beside the name of the publication, or click on the '1' button.
|
Meaning |
|
|
Home |
to go back to the Butterworths Online home page. |
|
Document |
to go to the beginning of the database you are currently browsing. |
|
Contents |
to go to the table of contents of the database you are currently browsing. |
|
Search |
to go to the search template customised for the database you are browsing (see ‘Search interface’ below). Use this to start a new search. |
|
Next Page Previous Page
|
to go to the text frame immediately preceding or following the page you are currently at. The text frame will not change if there are no preceding or following pages. |
|
Help |
to go to the Butterworths Online User Guide. |
Navigation buttons for browsing
The ‘Next Page’ and ‘Previous Page’ buttons do not have the same effect as the Netscape ‘Back’ and ‘Forward’ icons. They only work within the database you are browsing at present, but cannot take you outside that database. They take you ‘back’ not in the sense of ‘the last page I was at’, but rather in the sense that p98 is one page back from p99, even if you have never been to page 98 before.
Although the ‘Next Hit’ and ‘Previous Hit’ navigation buttons (see ‘Navigation buttons during searching’ below) appear when you are browsing text, they do nothing unless you have previously done a search.
Butterworths Online is developing extensive hypertext links within and between documents on the Butterworths Online site (but not, as yet, to other sites). Some of the links available at present are:
• From words and phrases used in Halsbury to their definitions in the Australian Encyclopeadic Legal Dictionary;
This table is adapted from the Butterworths Online User Guide:
|
Operator |
Example |
Result |
|
and |
misleading and silence |
'misleading' and 'silence' in a record |
|
or |
misleading or silence |
'misleading' or 'silence' in a record |
|
not |
unjust not enrichment |
'unjust' but not 'enrichment' in a record' |
|
phrase |
"negligent misrepresentation" |
phrase 'negligent misrepresentation' in a record. Quotes must be used. |
|
? wildcard (single character) |
promis?? |
records containing promisee, promisor, promises, promised |
|
* wildcard (multiple character) |
fraud* |
records containing fraud, frauds, fraudulent, fraudster, fraudsters, fraudulently |
|
/n ordered proximity |
"misleading silence"/20 |
records containing 'misleading' followed within 20 words by 'silence' |
|
@n unordered proximity |
"misleading silence"@20 |
records containing 'misleading' and 'silence' within 20 words of each other in either order |
Connectors and operators for Butterworths Online
There are two search interfaces for multiple databases searching: (a) Libraries tab; and (b) Publications tab. In addition, there is a search interface in the navigation menu for specific databases (where it takes you to a customised search form for that particular database, or for a group of smaller databases constituting a Library). This is known as ‘Focus Search’.
To search over multiple libraries click on the ‘Libraries’ tab.
Butterworths Online - Libraries search interface
To search individual publications and customised database selection, click on the ‘Publications’ tab.
The search interface for selection o f multiple publications
The available databases (depending on your subscription) appear in alphabetical order.
The main value of the generic search form is where you wish to ‘mix and match’ databases from different Libraries (eg choose everything to do with Queensland).
Note: You need to select at least one publication or library before conducting a search.
To choose one database ... click on the appropriate checkbox for that database using the ‘Publications’ tab. (A better customised search form may be available from within the database.)
To choose a number of databases ... click on the appropriate checkboxes. (If they are in the same Library, a better customised search form may be available from within the database.)
To choose all databases... you must select them all by clicking on all checkboxes.
In this generic search interface you enter the search terms and connectors into the simple search window below, and press ‘Search’ to start the search.
Other search windows for particular databases or Libraries give more options and a more helpful interface.
Where a database is part of a Library with other databases of an essentially similar form (eg Unreported Judgments, as shown below), there is sometimes a form which applies to what appears to be multiple databases.
Search form for unreported judgements
In other cases of similar databases (eg reported judgments, legislation), each databases has its own customised search form.
In most cases a database has its own customised search form. One example is shown below.
Example of a customised search form - Halsbury’s Laws of Australia
In the Halsbury database, this form allows you to choose which Halsbury titles you wish to search. The method of selection is the same as the method for choosing multiple databases described above.
In other databases,
As in the above example, most customised forms will allow searches over only some part of the documents in the database (such as ‘Title’, ‘Casename’, ‘Catchwords’ etc). Each database has its own set of ‘elements’ by which searches can be so limited.
Search forms include a set of options similar to these:
If ‘Records w/Hits Only’ is chosen then only those records (paragraphs in cases, sections in Acts) which satisfy the search request will be displayed. Otherwise, all records around those that satisfy the search request are also displayed.
A search for ‘"data matching" "assistance agency"’ over two databases produces the following Search Results.
Search Results page for two databases
In order to see the records where the search terms have been found, click on the grey boxes which set out the occurrences of each word. There is little point in clicking on the name of the database or the ‘Contents’ or ‘Document’ buttons, as none of these take you to the ‘hits’.
Results map with break down of results
The ‘Next Hit’ and ‘Previous Hit’ buttons must be used to go back and forth between records containing hits. These buttons only work after a search.
|
Button name |
Meaning |
|
Next Hit |
to go to the next record with occurrences of the search terms. This only works within one database. To go to the next hit in another database, first go back to the Search Results. |
|
Previous hit |
to go back to the previous record with occurrences of the search terms. This only works within one database. To go to a previous hit in another database, first go back to the Search Results. |
It is not possible to use these buttons to jump between occurrences of search terms within the one record. It is necessary to scan the record for words marked with red arrows.
If the ‘Records w/Hits Only’ option
has been selected, the ‘plus’ icon (
) that precedes a
record in the display can be used to cause the surrounding records without hits
to be displayed. In the example below, it will cause the surrounding paragraphs
eg footnotes to be displayed even though they contain no hits.
