May 2004 Archives

Internet researchers accustomed to locating information from a variety of sources using search engines such as Google, are demanding a similar single method of access to their company's resources. In "Searching for ROI", (Econtent, May 2004), Robert J. Boeri points out that though the demand for enterprise search engines is increasing, it is also a hard sell in organizations where the routine question is, "What return on investment will search yield for the enterprise?" He discusses justifying enterprise search systems with several vendors including Verity, Autonomy and Tripplehop, but as he also points out, "Nobody asks for an ROI to prove the value of email systems."

Sorry guys, this one isn't available on the web, but it should appear on Westlaw in the DTBS database within 6-8 weeks.

Federated searching sometimes sounds like the researcher's holy grail. But before getting TOO excited about the potential of federated searching, it's important to understand its limitations as well as its advantages. Webfeat, a provider of federated search technology, lists the five most common misconceptions about federated searching in this feature article from Information Today (Oct. 2003), "The Truth About Federated Searching."

According to PC Magazine, "search has become one of the hottest technologies in the computer industry." From products designed to search data on a single PC, to those aimed at small, medium or large companies, there is an ever growing number of vendors promoting full-text search products for document management systems(DMS), litigation support, databases, email, intranets, and some that try to do it all, high-end, enterprise search engines such as Autonomy, Verity and Recommind, just to name a few.

Where does WestKM and the Lexis Total Search products fit into the mix? Lisa Kellar, Practice Automation Manager at Hunton & Williams, explains the difference between these KM products and the enterprise search engines.

Considering how much we use email these days, it's particularly important that we use it effectively. So here's a tip that may save you some grief. The more people you copy on an email, the less likely you are to get a response. Not exactly intuitive, is it? Yet that's exactly what a recent CNET news article claims.

RSS news content is being added by the minute. Those words were no sooner out of my mouth (figuratively speaking) when Time Magazine announced their new RSS feeds. The categories are quite generic, i.e., "Top Stories", but tracking the most viewed or most emailed stories sounds intriguing.

[via the rssweblog]

If you prefer sports to current events, but can't stay glued to the TV all day, try the new RSS feeds from ESPN.

[also via the rssweblog]

A free webinar, "Information and Knowledge Portals - A Practical View", is scheduled for June 2.

The panel members, "leading portal and knowledge management experts", will attempt to answer the question "If portals are the solution, what is the problem they solve?"

Registration is required.

[via NetLawBlog]

Sometimes I blog because I have something to say on a topic, sometimes because I find a useful piece of information that I want to pass along, and sometimes I use this blog as a personal knowledgebase so I can find pertinent articles, blog entries or web pages at a later date. Just so you know, this entry falls into the third category.

Dennis Kennedy recently wrote an an article on PDF for Law Practice Today that contains a nice concise list of web resources relating to the use of PDF that I want to be able to find again in the future!
[via PDF for Lawyers]

The race is to provide a way for email users (and isn't that just about everybody?) to efficiently and effectively search their email. Outlook doesn't do it well, though there are improvements in the 2003 version; so third-parties are having a go at it, including Google who is beta-testing an web-based email product with Google search functionality, Gmail.

Another email search company, X1, is partnering with Newsgator to provide search access to Outlook email AND Newsgator RSS files. This news item, NewsGator, X1 Push RSS-Search Connection, is very interesting in more ways than one.

Roll Call reports that Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) has launched the first blog written by a member of Congress. That's one way to stay in touch with constituents! Thanks to Richard Ramponi for the tip.

Blogs are nice and all, but what really got me hooked on RSS was the ability to monitor commercial news sources, and even better, to receive regularly updated, customized search results automatically via RSS feeds. You can get current news from a particular publication, by subject area, or keyword.

I've been experimenting with RSS news delivery for a while now, so I thought I'd share the information I've found with you. I will continue to add sources to this entry as I find them.

The availability of docket information from court web sites via Pacer is a tremendous boon for legal researchers. But administering a Pacer account for a large law firm can be a pain in the neck. Why? Because Pacer allows only one user name/password per account. As a result, a law librarian has two choices. Create one account with a shared password, and then deal with the inevitable difficulties of tracking down wayward client charges with no hint as to who might have done the research; or create an account for each user, with separate invoices for each account/user resulting in an avalanche of paper at billing time. Obviously, neither choice is ideal.

As a response to this problem, Erik Adams, Electronic Services Librarian at Sheppard, Mullin, Richter and Hampton in Los Angeles, has created a web application that resides on their LawPort portal. The app captures the user and client information which is then passed to Pacer as a client-matter number, and then appears on the invoice. With this system, there is one Pacer password needed for the entire firm.

Eric explains how this application work, and provides links to the actual code. Thanks, Eric!

Information about our library collections is becoming increasingly fragmented. Most libraries have hard copy books and journals that are indexed in an online library catalog or OPAC. Web sources may be included in the OPAC, or in a separate database of web links. Other parts of the collection, such as MCLE video and audio tapes are often inventoried in another database or file. Then there are electronic subscriptions.

Even if electronic resources are included in the library catalog, this non-book information may not fit well into a MARC record. Trying to do so can be labor intensive, and not terribly satisfying.

In case you missed it, Amazon has released a beta version of their new search engine called A9. That's right, Amazon is jumping into the search engine fray by adding their own unique content to the mix. Run a search on A9 and you'll see results from the Google database in addition to relevant extracts from the 120,000 books Amazon has available in full-text. (See Amazon's Amazon.com Opens the Books.) So if a searcher does a web search using A9 he may discover that the best choice is actually a book; and if Amazon sells more books, well that's what I call a win-win situation.

Westlaw Intraclips can now be delivered via RSS!

I've been wondering, okay, sometimes whining, occasionally outright complaining about the lack of RSS from either of the "big two" legal online vendors. So I was very excited to see the RSS option appear on the revamped Intraclips administrative interface.

RSS is not the only enhancement, but rather part of a fairly significant Intraclips overhaul. Another item on my wish list, wire services, is also now available for the first time via Intraclips for those who want REALLY current news.

There are two types of PDF files. One type is a scanned image of a document, simply a picture of it, if you will. You can read the text when viewing it, but the computer can't. The other type contains text that is readable by the computer. These kinds of files are typically created from text files, such as a Word document, rather than scanned. In this case, the text is captured along with the image.

If you're viewing a PDF file such as a court document, and don't know which kind of file it is, use the find feature to locate a word that you know is there to see if Adobe Acrobat can recognize it. If not, you're looking at an image.

What if you have an image-only file and need to search the document, or otherwise want the computer to recognize the text contained in the image? Perhaps you'd like to extract the citations using Checkcite or Westcheck. In order to do that, you need to OCR the document. Lucky for you Dave Fishel has written two tutorials to help you out, OCR Tutorial for Acrobat 4 and 5 and OCR Tutorial for Acrobat 6. I'm sure glad PDF for Lawyers is back!