Improving Accessibility to Research Findings in Law

See, eg, ‘It has been calculated that there were eight law journals in Australia in 1960, nine in 1970, fourteen in 1980 and about 50 in 1994’, Gava John , ‘Scholarship and Community’ (1995) 16 Sydney Law Review 443, 459.

Svantesson Dan , ‘Truisms about the Australian publishing climate for law journal articles, and some strategies to cope; or “A Feminist perspective on the human rights of vegetarian child-soldiers in outerspace”’ (2011) 10(3) Canberra Law Review (Online) 4, 19.

Doyle John , ‘The Law Reviews: Do Their Paths of Glory Lead but to the Grave?’ (2009) 10 Journal of Appellate Practice and Process 179, 180.

Social Science Research Network <http://www.ssrn.com/>.

Australasian Legal Information Institute <http://www.austlii.edu.au/>.

See, eg, Bond University's institutional research repository, <http://epublications.bond.edu.au/>.

Smith Thomas A , ‘The Web of Law’ (2007) 44(2) San Diego Law Review 309, 336.

Edwards Harry T , ‘Reflections (On Law Review, Legal Education, Law Practice, and My Alma Mater)’ (2002) 100(8) Michigan Law Review 1999, 2001

Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education, Assessing the wider benefits arising from university-based research: Discussion paper (June 2013) <http://www.innovation.gov.au/Research/Pages/ResearchImpactAssessment.aspx>.

The fact that the need for human analysis is increasing is demonstrated by the emerging prevalence of Internet content curators. See, further, Rosenbaum Steven , Content Curators are the New Superheros of the Web (16 April 2012) Fast Company <http://www.fastcompany.com/1834177/content-curators-are-new-superheros-web>.

Robertson Tracy Warren Dennis , ‘Online legal indexes: An abstract likeness or a true portrait?’ (2008) 16(4) Australian Law Librarian 271, 274.

See, eg, The Georgetown Law Journal, Articles <http://www.georgetownlawjournal.com/submissions/articles/>. However, the trend in the US seems to go towards somewhat shorter articles. For example, recently 12 leading US law journals adopted a policy ‘to play an active role in moderating the length of law review articles’.

Some of the better examples of head notes are found, eg, in the Commonwealth Law Reports (‘CLRs’) and the Australian Company Law Cases (‘ACLC’).

See, eg, ‘Summon’ (2013) <http://www.bond.edu.au/library-and-online-resources/search/summon/index.htm>.

The Dublin Core Metadata Element Set is a vocabulary of 15 properties to be used in resource description for a wide range of resources. See further: Dublin Core Metadata Initiative, Dublin Core Metadata Element Set, Version 1.1 (14 June 2012) <http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/>.

The impact of tablet computers and e-book readers cannot be ignored, but it will be a long time yet before the office printer becomes obsolete.

For an interesting discussion of current awareness services, see, Marisa Bendeich, Beyond the TOC: Evolving Current Awareness Services through Collaboration (2010) 18(1) Australian Law Librarian 24.

The idea of a fixed online location for journal article metadata is not novel. See, eg, the interesting Doyle, above n 3.

I thank the person I know only as Referee A for this idea.

See, eg, Wikipedia , Flesch-Kincaid readability tests (20 October 2013) <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flesch_Reading_Ease>.

Depending how this issue is resolved, it may be that a field identifying the language in which the article is written ought to be added to the USS.

Initially, this may require a substantial effort, but the burden of this task should decline gradually as authors become familiar with, and start adapting to, the USS system.

Keele Benjamin J. Pearse Michelle , ‘How Librarians Can Help Improve Law Journal Publishing’ (2012) 104(3) Law Library Journal 383, 399.

Again, I thank the person I know only as Referee A for this idea.