Kluwer's legal database

The group began the online service in 1979 based on the Kluwer Law and Taxation publications. A description of the group and the Databank is given. The development of the online service is described and the needs of lawyers. There follows a non‐technical description of the dial‐up service based on a Honeywell computer using the STATUS software package. Text input procedures are outlined and particularly the use made of a Kurzweil Data Entry Machine. The databases contain an estimated 180 Megabytes and are growing by some 120 MB annually. 12000 cases and 18000 abstracts of legal literature are stored. The procedure for instructing users is shown with an example of a search and the prompt card. Some 50 terminals are now connected and over 350 users have been trained. Search evaluation revealed that searches for case‐law and literature for research is quite different from a search by a practising lawyer for a specific case or article. Details of costs of using the system are given. No refs.