Absolutely - The NaturalAnyWayLanguageFreestyle has huge loopholes - the
vendors though,downplay that fact. I always have to tell new people that
their "easy" searching can leave out major landmark decisions in their case
searches - they're always surprised - the vendor never mentioned that -
They will never bring it up unless they are specifically pressed on the
issue. IMHO, it's irresponsible & somewhat misrepresentative of the
product/feature .
Karen
At 02:37 PM 11/12/1998 -0600, richard_pravata@bakerbotts.com wrote:
>
> This is also an example of the dangers of the
>
> "formatted searches, user friendly searches, search in a box, fill in
> the blanks and we'll do the rest, it's easy you don't need to ask a
> librarian cause we created a search program which will do the search
> for you even if you don't know what you are doing"
>
> mentality of the "enhancements" designed to make end users think its
> easy to search we've been seeing in our online resources. The search
> in the Texas SoS database on the InfoAmerica gateway on Westlaw is
> done through a template which searches letters left to right on the
> company name, only in the field that you designate. Lexis allows you
> to do a full text search throughout all fields. It's the search
> template that is rancid, not necessarily the database.
>
> Don't construe this to mean that Charles doesn't know how to do a
> search, HE DOES!, but not only can't you trust the database but you
> also can't trust the way they are making you do the search.
>
> Richard Pravata
> Reference Librarian
> Baker & Botts
>
> These opinions are mine
>
>
>
>
>______________________________ Reply Separator
_________________________________
>Subject: Re: big heads up when doing texas dba searches on westlaw
>Author: <tyburski@virtualchase.com > at internet
>Date: 11/12/98 1:58 PM
>
>
>I think the lesson illustrated below speaks to the importance of
>verification. Sometimes we overlook verifying information when we're
>pressed for time, or when money is tight. As good as Westlaw is,
>neither it nor any resource is perfect.
>
>Genie
>
>--
>Genie Tyburski PH: 215-864-8151
>Research Librarian FX: 215-864-8999
>Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll, LLP
tyburski@virtualchase.com
>1735 Market St. Philadelphia, PA
19103
>
>Web Manager: The Virtual Chase at http://www.virtualchase.com/
> SLA, Legal Division at http://www.slalegal.org/
>
>
>gibsonc@liddellsapp.com wrote:
>>
>> The following is msg I sent to the Houston area law lib list on 10/8/98.
>> I wanted to get further clarification from Westlaw before submitting it
>> nationally and to date have heard nothing from them in the way of an
>> explanation. I know that the complaint has been heard because I
>> mentioned to more than one Westlaw person in Minneapolis during the
>> advisory board meeting in oct.
>>
>> I wanted to pass this warning along to the rest of you. I do not want
>> anyone to get burned if your state records on Westlaw are as
>> incomplete and inaccurate as Texas's appear to be.
>>
>> Msg was:
>>
>> Last week did 2 dba's on Westlaw. One on company and one on owner.
>> Found nothing, zippo, none. Reported same to requestor. He was
>> perplexed and asked me to double check.
>>
>> I did using Lexis. to my great horror and surprise I found 19 records
>> under owner, 18 of them were my guy. Found 31 similar names of
>> which 5 were exact and 24 had first 2 words. So now I had even more
>> than bargained for.
>>
>> Atty was delighted. I was upset. It was big deal because it could have
>> gotten me, the atty and possibly the firm in a mess.
>>
>> I double checked on Westlaw and found nothing. Double checked on
>> Info Am and found nothing. Called Westlaw ref atty and he found
>> nothing. He tried couple of other databases like TX-corp and business
>> finder etc and still did not find any.
>>
>> I turned this over to my excellent Westlaw rep who forwarded stuff to
>> HQ and have been told it has rapidly moved up the ladder.
>>
>> I wanted to warn you guys about this, but was too mad to do so last
>> week. I do not plan to use Westlaw as my database of first choice again
>> when doing ANY public records searches. I may even have to forgive
>> CDB and resubscribe. I cannot believe that I was paying over $6 a
>> minute for an obviously corrupted and incomplete database and worse
>> trusted its negative results and believed they were accurate. It was a
>> big enough deal to my atty for him to question me and ask me if there
>> was anything else I could check. was lucky this time because I did
>> double check.
>>
>> Unfortunately, I did not have any other examples to check and see if this
>> was just a fluke. If anyone else does would be interested in hearing
>> about it.
>>
>> Charles Gibson
>> Liddell Sapp
>> 600 Travis, Ste 2500
>> Houston, TX 77002
>> 713-226-1442, fax = 713-223-3717
>>
>>
>>
>>
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