Mariya Badeva-Bright on Legal Research on an LII

25 December 2017 · AfricanLII

My presentation in the legal research session of the workshop focused on, very underused (perhaps very hated too), ful ltext search. Over the years, I have often had to respond to critiques about the utility of LII websites that do not editorialize content. I have come to the conclusion that those are partially fuelled by insufficient knowledge of advanced search techniques. So, after a short presentation on boolean operators and constructing search queries, I demonstrated how easy it is to locate up to date and relevant material on ULII without the aide of an Index.

The session ended in a useful discussion around improving search results through editorial or user intervention. Undoubtedly ideas for projects the LII community in Africa could undertake in the future.

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