wah@MAPS.CS.CMU.EDU (Wilson Harvey) (02/22/91)
-- First, I want to publicly thank everyone that responded to my original post. The information and opinions are very much appreciated. The general consensus was that my friend should look for packages that work as "textual databases". At this point, I'd like to re-issue my request for information. If you have any favorite textual database systems that are not included in this list, or if you have experiences (good or bad) with any such system that you'd be willing to share, I'd appreciate the input. I'm planning on posting this request to some other news groups, so please drop me a message if you have a suggestion there. Thanks again. The original request and the summary follows. Original message (posted 11-Feb-1991): > I'm looking for some recommendations concerning a database. A lawyer friend of > mine wants to store testimonies, depositions, etc., in a database. He'd like to > be able to search the database by substring (such as "rear-end collision"), as > well as by keyword (such as last name). Multiple searches to refine a topic > would be useful. > I'm somewhat in the dark in all this, as I don't know all the details of how > he'd like to use database, and I know very little about what is available. I've > heard of Ashton Tate's 'dBase n' (whatever the latest version is). I've also > heard of 'QnA'(?). Can anyone help me out? What are your favorite database > systems for PC's? Are there any lawyers out there who would be willing to share > their solutions to this or similar problems? I appreciate any help you can > offer. ******************************************************************************** General Comments ---------------- All agreed that you should be looking for a "textual database". Common features seem to include indices for fast word searches, knowledge about synonyms (i.e., car = vehicle), and complex topic matching (i.e., "not owned" = "which not now or will never be owned"). One interesting note cited a paper that studied the use of textual databases in a large law firm. This paper indicated that the relative benefit of using such a system for preparing/researching court cases was small. Several people suggested avoiding record oriented databases like dBASE because of the "search structure" that they impose on the data. Others mentioned that they were sure that there were specialized databases out there for lawyers, but didn't (or couldn't) point to a specific package. Each paragraph below describes a different system. In the summaries, I believe the only field that needs to be explained is the 'Hands-on Experience' field. I simply want to indicate if the people who's opinions I've condensed had any direct experience with the software. This was not always obvious, but I've hazarded a guess in most cases. Of course, since I've summarized (in some cases) several person's opinions, I bear any responsibilities for inaccuracies. Packages specifically suggested were: ------------------------------------- Package: Nota Bene Created by: Dragonfly Software Hands-on Experience: probably Comments: It is a "text-base". The program includes software to make index files of one or many text files, and retreive documents or parts of documents based on the index. To make indexing faster, you can exclude any number of common words (a,an, the) or any number of others which are common to your own files, but which you will not want to use as keywords. Nota Bene also has many other features which make it very nice, including a bibliography and citation manager called NB Ibid. Package: PC docs Created by: Software Solutions, Inc., 518-458-1860 Hands-on Experience: probably not Comments: There exists a commercial application pretty much specifically designed as a legal document retriever/sorter/index thing. It's called PC docs, I believe, and works in conjuction with word perfect, I think. Package: AskSam Created by: ??? Hands-on Experience: probably Comments: Dumb name, good software. Package: Agenda Created by: Lotus Hands-on Experience: probably not Comments: It is a free form database that is structured by items and catagories. You could put an abstract of the case as the item and attach a note to the item that contains the actual data. You can then look at items & notes by any catagory you wish to create. Package: ??? Created by: Vortech, Inc. Contact: Dick Griggs @ 508-384-3121. Hands-on Experience: ??? Comments: The package stores depositions, testimony, etc., in addition to an actual image of the document. It runs on PC-based equipment, and depending on the legal case size, can even be put into a portable so the lawyers can take it along with them to hearings, etc. Packages: Q&A Created by: ??? Hands-on Experience: yes Comments: Q&A is supposed to be easier to use than dBase, but not as powerful. Q&A is nice (from a programmer's standpoint). The full version contains a database (not fully relational) and word processor (good, but not as good as a "real" WP, such as WordPerfect). It allows form letters and mailing label generation, and is very robust (able to survive power failures). There is a limitation in that it can handle at most 10 screens (80x23 lines), or approximately 20K of data. Package: dBase Created by: Ashton-Tate Hands-on Experience: yes Comments: dBase is more of a programming enviornment than a user-friendly software environment. As such, it requires a fair amount of knowlege of database components - records, fields, field names, etc. and how they interrelate BEFORE the user puts info into it. Also, there is a finite limit to the number of characters you can put in a field and you can search/sort only on field data. -- W. A. Harvey INTERNET: wah@cs.cmu.edu School of Computer Science CSNET: wah%cs.cmu.edu@relay.cs.net Carnegie Mellon University BITNET: wah%cs.cmu.edu%smtp@interbit Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 UUCP: ...!seismo!cs.cmu.edu!wah 412-268-7552