************************************************************************* NEWS FROM AUSTLII http://www.austlii.edu.au/ Thursday 29th May 1997 ************************************************************************* CONTENTS: Introduction AustLII Conference - Law via the Internet '97 AustLII Hits 50 - A New Database Every Fortnight AustLII Praised by UK Court Of Appeal Why No Queensland, Tasmanian And Wa Legislation? Austlii's Two New Staff - Dan Austin And David Irvine NSW Awards High Court Transcripts Australian Industrial Property Organisation (AIPO) Decisions NSW Legislation Updates South Australian Materials Northern Territory Materials Victorian Legislation Other New(Ish) Databases On AustLII Prize-Winning Links - Now over 1,300 CLE@UNSW - Legal Research and Other Courses Legal Expert Systems at ICAIL-97 Statistics ------------------------------ INTRODUCTION Sorry that it has been so long since the last 'News from AustLII'. We have been very busy but hope to restore a more regular updating service from now on. A lot has happened since the last mail ... Regards, Geoff. ------------------------------ AUSTLII CONFERENCE - LAW VIA THE INTERNET '97 http://www.austlii.edu.au/austlii/conference/ AustLII is hosting its first conference - Law via the Internet '97 - on June 25-27 with 40 speakers from Australia and overseas on many issues involving law and the web including automation of law, public policy and public legal information, commercial legal publishers, new legal services, finding and indexing law, courts and litigation on-line, teaching law via internet and the impact of the Internet on legal practice. The Conference proper will take place on 26-27 June and is fully catered, including a conference dinner and yum cha lunch. On 25 June, two half-day 'Legal Research on the Web' sessions will be held, and a full-day tutorial on 'Introduction to building a legal web site'. The Conference will be held at the superb facilities of the new UTS Law Faculty, next to Sydney's Darling Harbour / Chinatown districts. The session-by-session programme is now available at the URL above, as is an online registration form. Places at both the Conference and the Tutorials are limited, so please don't delay if you are interested in attending. ------------------------------ AUSTLII HITS 50 - A NEW DATABASE EVERY FORTNIGHT http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/sinoform.pl Since AustLII launched its web site in June 1995, we have now released over 50 separately searchable databases, a rate of one new database every two weeks. All those Courts, Tribunals and legislatures who would like to help us make the century are welcome to contact graham@austlii.edu.au to discuss how AustLII can assist you to provide the public with free access to your work. ------------------------------ AUSTLII PRAISED BY UK COURT OF APPEAL http://www.open.gov.uk/lcd/order17.htm In the first UK Court of Appeal decision to be published on the internet (Bannister v SGB plc), the Court has praised AustLII's 'pioneering enterprise'. In his opening remarks, Lord Justice Saville commented: If this country was in the same happy position as Australia, where the administration of the law is benefiting greatly from the pioneering enterprise of the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AUSTLII), we would have been able to make this judgment immediately available in a very convenient electronic form to every judge and practitioner in the country without the burdensome costs that the distribution of large numbers of hard copies of the judgment will necessarily impose on public funds. ------------------------------ WHY NO QUEENSLAND, TASMANIAN AND WA LEGISLATION? http://www.austlii.edu.au/austlii/availability.html AustLII has been negotiating with the Queensland, Tasmanian and Western Australian governments for some time to get the rights to publish their legislation. Western Australia has now agreed to provide its legislation and AustLII is in negotiations to achieve this. See the above URL for email addresses and further information if you would like to assist AustLII to convince the Queensland and Tasmanian governments to provide free access to the laws of their States. ------------------------------ AUSTLII'S TWO NEW STAFF - DAN AUSTIN AND DAVID IRVINE http://www.austlii.edu.au/austlii/personnel.html Dan Austin has joined the primary material team. Some of you will already be familiar with his work from his Australian Legal Links page. Dan is finishing the last subject in his Computing Science Law degree at the Australian National University. Dan's position is funded by the Law Foundation of New South Wales. Welcome Dan! David Irvine, a recent law graduate from UNSW Law Faculty is working two days per week on UNSW Law Faculty's web resources (http://www.austlii.edu.au/unsw/), and two days per week on AustLII projects, particularly the Australian Human Rights Information Centre (AHRIC) (http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/ahric/). He fills his day off finishing a politics honours degree. ------------------------------ NSW AWARDS http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/nsw-awards/ AustLII now publishes the full text of all NSW Industrial Awards. Many thanks to the NSW Department of Industrial Relations and to the Australian Business Chamber for making this possible. ------------------------------ HIGH COURT TRANSCRIPTS http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/hca/transcripts/ Transcripts of High Court cases are now available on AustLII. Thanks to the High Court and in particular Tony de la Fosse for providing this material. ------------------------------ AUSTRALIAN INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY ORGANISATION (AIPO) DECISIONS 1981- http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/AIPO/ A database of several thousand AIPO decisions has been added, covering patent and design decisions now, with trade mark decisions to come. This has not been updated for a while, but we are now arranging to secure a regular supply of new decisions. ------------------------------ NSW LEGISLATION UPDATES http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/ The NSW Acts and Regulations databases are now being updated every two weeks. ------------------------------ SOUTH AUSTRALIAN MATERIALS http://www.austlii.edu.au/databases.html#sa We have added a number of South Australian databases. These include: South Australian Consolidated Acts South Australian Consolidated Regulations South Australian Supreme Court South Australian District Court South Australian Environment Resources and Development Court ------------------------------ NORTHERN TERRITORY MATERIALS http://www.austlii.edu.au/databases.html#nt We have added databases of Northern Territory Acts and Regulations. These are still in fairly basic format (on Act per page), but we're working on achieving markup similar to our other legislative databases. A database of NT Anti-Discrimination Commission Decisions has also been added. ------------------------------ VICTORIAN LEGISLATION http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/vic/consol_act/ A database of 1996 Victorian legislation has been added to the collection. We wish to thank the Department of Premier and Cabinet, Victoria, and Parliamentary Counsel Victoria for assisting us to obtain this data ------------------------------ OTHER NEW(ISH) DATABASES ON AUSTLII Since the last issue of 'News from AustLII' we have added other databases in addition to those featured above. If you haven't already checked them out, here are some of our additions in the last few months: * Industrial Commission of New South Wales Decisions 1995- http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/nsw/NSWIC/ A small collection of caselaw as yet. * Resource Management and Planning Appeal Tribunal of Tasmania Decisions 1996- http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/tas/TASRMPAT/ * Administrative Appeals Tribunal of Victoria Decisions 1994- http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/vic/aat ------------------------------ PRIZE-WINNING LINKS - NOW OVER 1,1300 http://www.austlii.edu.au/links/Australia/ http://www.austlii.edu.au/links/World/ AustLII's indexes to law on the net now contain over 1,300 links to Australian and world law resources on the internet. Australian Links was runner-up in the Australian Society of Indexers inaugural web indexing award in 1996. Features of the indexes include: (i) they are searchable using SINO, AustLII's search engine; (ii) there is a subject index as well as an author/source index; and (iii) any AustLII user can submit a link to be added, using 'Add a Link'. ------------------------------ CLE@UNSW - LEGAL RESEARCH AND OTHER COURSES http:www.austlii.edu/au/unsw/centres/cle/ The UNSW Continuing Legal Education web site provides news of short courses in Computerised Legal Research (including Advanced Internet Legal Research courses), and other legal and law related areas (e.g. Intellectual Property, Immigration and Estate Planning). For more information contact Cheryl White (c.white@unsw.edu.au or ph. 02 9385 3227). ------------------------------ LEGAL EXPERT SYSTEMS AT ICAIL-97 http://www.cs.latrobe.edu.au/conferences/ICAIL97/ The Sixth International Conference on Artificial Intelligence & Law (ICAIL-97) will be held at the University of Melbourne Law School from June 30 - July 3 1997 (just after AustLII's Law via the Internet '97 Conference). Over 30 papers covering every aspect of AI and law will be delivered by a wide range of international speakers. AustLII is one of the co-sponsors of the Conference, and AustLII staff members will be giving both a paper and a tutorial. ------------------------------ OCTOBER AustLII STATISTICS SUMMARY 862,909 'hits' in October 63,543 'sessions' in October 2,681 peak daily users 124 peak concurrent users 38,703 peak daily requests NOVEMBER AustLII STATISTICS SUMMARY 726,122 'hits' in November 54,257 'sessions' in November 2,368 peak daily users 107 peak concurrent users 34,325 peak daily requests DECEMBER AustLII STATISTICS SUMMARY 556,332 'hits' in December 40,843 'sessions' in December 2,216 peak daily users 114 peak concurrent users 31,181 peak daily requests JANUARY AustLII STATISTICS SUMMARY 714,420 'hits' in January 49,018 'sessions' in January 2,558 peak daily users 116 peak concurrent users 40,059 peak daily requests FEBRUARY AustLII STATISTICS SUMMARY 873,919 'hits' in February 60,153 'sessions' in February 3,079 peak daily users 138 peak concurrent users 46,010 peak daily requests MARCH AustLII STATISTICS SUMMARY 1,185,783 'hits' in March 78,490 'sessions' in March 3,852 peak daily users 165 peak concurrent users 65,227 peak daily requests APRIL AustLII STATISTICS SUMMARY 490,000 pages of HTML (approx.) 13,097,500 hypertext links 3,020 MB of indexed text 1,577,700 'hits' in April 96,678 'sessions' in April 4,687 peak daily users 206 peak concurrent users 87,787 peak daily requests ------------------------------ Please feel free to distribute 'News from AustLII' either electronically or in print form. Please try to avoid unsanctioned cross-postings to news groups or e-mail lists. To subscribe or unsubscribe to AustLII news: http://www.austlii.edu.au/news/ ------------------------------ Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII) http://www.austlii.edu.au/ PO Box 123 Broadway NSW 2007 AUSTRALIA Ph: (02) 9514 3444 (intl +61 2 9514 3444) Fax: (02) 9514 3400 (intl +61 2 9514 3400) Andrew Mowbray (Co-Director UTS) andrew@austlii.edu.au Graham Greenleaf (Co-Director UNSW) graham@austlii.edu.au Geoffrey King (Manager) geoff@austlii.edu.au Philip Chung philip@austlii.edu.au Trina Cairns trina@austlii.edu.au Kirsty Magarey kirsty@austlii.edu.au Simon Cant simon@austlii.edu.au David Irvine david@austlii.edu.au Daniel Austin dan@austlii.edu.au ------------------------------ End of News from AustLII