10. Storing searches to create a self- maintaining index

http://www.austlii.edu.au/links/DIAL_Index/Development_Law_Subjects/Intellectual_Property/DIAL_Searches_for_intellectual_property_topics/

• Those responsible for developing and maintaining the DIAL Index have expertise in search techniques, and know what types of searches are most effective over DIAL Search. By creating stored searches at sensible locations in the index they make this expertise available to users of the index who are unlikely to have the same level of search expertise. For example, the search for `patent law' above is actually a search for "patent* or brevet*", utilising both the French term and truncation.
• An expert who creates a stored search only has to do so once. When more data is added to the DIAL Search database, the expert does not have to change the stored search, because it will now find relevant new legislation as well as the old legislation (assuming the search was well-constructed in the first place). In contrast, sets of ordinary hypertext links to legislation do have to be updated when legislation changes. This method creates to some extent a `self-maintaining index' of the material in DIAL Search.
• Inclusion of stored search links means that, since the intellectual index is searchable, a search can find other searches. For example, if a user does a DIAL Search for `breach of confidence', 15 items of so will be found. If that search is repeated over DIAL links, only one item is found, the above stored search `DIAL Search for trade secrets or confidential information'. However, if that stored search is then selected, over 150 items are found and ranked, because the stored search was for "trade secret or segredo comercial or breach of confidence or confidential information". The user may not have been aware that in most commercial contexts, `trade secret' is a conceptually the same as `breach of confidence', but the invitation to repeat a search, and the stored search links, will assist the user to `find' this information.