The Gazette 1993

GAZETTE

H N

T E C

0 L 0 G Y

0 T E S

JAN/FEB 1993

A Fount of In-House Knowledge?

Information Retrieval Systems

by John Furlong, Solicitor

One of the primary functions in any

legal office is the management of

information. This fundamentally

requires a system to allow for the

collection, interpretation and

dissemination of relevant materials.

The successful management of

information is crucial to the

effectiveness of any practice.

Certain materials are organised in a

structured fashion which facilitates

this management. For example, word

processing documents and precedents

can be collated within libraries and

word searching facilities within the

systems can be used to retrieve

Particular documents. Equally,

published materials in text books or

in volumes of precedents can usually

be easily located using either a table

of contents; a volume index or other

bibliographic reference.

Difficulties arise in all practices with

the retention and subsequent use of

other non-published materials which

are considered worthy of retention

for further use. These include office

memos, letters to clients, counsel's

opinions, lecture notes etc. The

random and unstructured nature of

these materials makes it difficult to

organise them in such a way as to

make them available for easy

reference or retrieval.

Building an Information System

There are clear advantages to a

coordinated and structured system

or the collection and subsequent

retrieval of such materials.

• Valuable materials specifically

relevant to the work of the

Practice are archived and available

for future use.

• Repetition and duplication of

research is avoided.

• Access to information sources is

made more efficient with a

consequent rise in client service

standards.

• Intangible cost savings are made

in terms of fee earner time.

Clearly such systems require

resources for their establishment and

operation. In addition, and of their

nature, such systems need elements

of automation to make them operate

effectively.

Automation

Automated information retrieval

systems allow for the stpfage and

retrieval of text in a random fashion.

They provide the means to structure,

collate and store details of published

and unpublished items relevant to

the work of a practice. Effective use

of these systems requires adequate

identification of a firm's information

needs and the resources to structure

and input the appropriate materials.

They allow for random access to a

varied range of materials and the

compilation of different outputs and

reports suited to particular enquiries.

In addition, searching capabilities of

specialised systems can be

constructed so as to replicate the

human thinking process.

Specialised information retrieval

systems can be operated on anything

from a stand-alone

to networks

or central processors.

Information retrieval systems consist

of three basic functional elements.

• Database design.

• Search facilities.

• Report and output generation.

Database Design

By far the most important aspect is

database design which will either be

preset by the supplier or can be

customised or fully built to the

user's specification. It is important

that the database design feature

should include the following:

• Allowance for modifications to

include future requirements of the

user.

• Capability to include both

indexed and non-indexed text.

• Capability for future modification

and amendment.

The database design should be

structured to provide for access and

searching by reference to a range of

detail such as topic, classification,

author, title, publisher, date etc.

The vital strategic decision to be

made with regard to database design

is whether text is to be incorporated

in full (i.e. the full text of each item

being input either manually or

through OCR) or whether there is to

be a linkage between the system and

imaging or micro-filming systems.

Another option is to provide for

bibliographic reference only; storing

the materials either on their existing

files or in a central source such as

an in-office library.

Search and Retrieval

Searching facilities are usually pre-

ordained by the system itself

although user screens should be

capable of modification to ensure

that they are as simple to use as

possible. It is vital to the successful

acceptance of a searching facility

that users understand how to

construct searches and avoid results

which are imprecise or too broad.

Report generation and output design

in most systems can be adapted and

modified by the user to provide for

screen displays, print-out of search

results and regular current awareness

bulletins for distribution to users.

Most specialised systems operate on

the basis of Boolean and positional