We’ll leave the words to them. In essence the background project involves a database to both develop scanning strategies for finding cites in general web page text, and
develop a library of citation target alternative, most of which will themselves be libraries.
This is what they say and if you’d want to bookmark the page the URL is..
http://hula.law.cornell.edu/citer/
Introducing a new feature at the LII – a collection of tools for assisting the process of resolving citations to a useful target document. This is a very early release; please see Current project plan for some ideas about where this is going.
The first user interface we are trying is a “swipe and click” style. You select an area of text that contains the cite you would like to look up, then click a button in the browser bookmark linkbar, and our program on the server will attempt to turn it into a link, and transfer you to that page. If we resolve more than one citation in the selected text, you are sent to the last one. If none matches, you get a debug screen that shows you what we did find – use the back button to recover.
To get started with the “swipe and click” mode, see below for installation using
Internet Explorer. or
Firefox, Opera, Safari or Chrome
Then, any ordinary text you select on a web page can be scanned for citations just by clicking that button.
Try it: After you get a Citer button in your linkbar, select the entire following sentence then click the button.
Rodenticide Act (7 U.S.C. 136a(c)(3)(B)(ii)) is amended–
A few samples…
…extracted from real sources, complete with line breaks and strange characters, are presented for your cite-scanning experiments right here:
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— U.S. Code
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Section 3(c)(3)(B)(ii) of the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (7 U.S.C. 136a(c)(3)(B)(ii)) is amended–
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a small business owned and controlled by an individual or individuals defined under section 4221(9) of title 25, United States Code, shall be
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— U.S.C. with embedded line wrap (select across enough of two lines to include the cite)
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“(F) the Antitrust Civil Process Act (15 U.S.C.1311 et seq.); and
“(G) Acts supplementary to those Acts.
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— U.S. (United States Supreme Court), F.2d (Federal Circuit Court System)
— with some embedded line wraps and separate underlines
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1110, 1113-14 (9th Cir. 1983) (quoting Thornhill v.? Alabama, 310
_________???? _______
U.S.? 88, 102 (1946)), in? effect providing per? se protection to
…
Pickering balance.? Id. (citing O’Donnell v. Yanchulis,? 875 F.2d
_________?????????? ___???????? _________??? _________
1059,? 1061 (3d Cir. 1989)) (“On plaintiff’s side of the balance,
…
out.? See, e.g., Givhan v.? Western Line Consol. Sch. Dist.,? 439
___? ____? ______???? _______________________________
U.S. 410,? 415-16 (1979) (employee retains? personal First Amend-
…
qualified? immunity.?? Harlow? v. Fitzgerald,? 457 U.S.? 800, 818
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— C.F.R. (Code of Federal Regulations), Fed. Reg. (Federal Register)
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A Notice of Hearing on Request to Reduce Pre-Harvest Interval (?PHI?) for EBDC
Fungicides (?EBDCs?) on Potatoes was published in the Federal Register on July 11, 2007, by
the Acting Director of the Special Review and Reregistration Division of the Office of Pesticide
Programs, United States Environmental Protection Agency (?EPA?), under the authority of 40
C.F.R. Part 164 Subpart D (?Subpart D?). 72 Fed. Reg. 37771 (July 11, 2007). The Natural
Resources Defense Counsel (?NRDC?) filed a request for hearing on August 10, 2007.
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A few sample links
Following is a list of links to some sample resources with a variety of citations, from which the samples above were extracted. They illustrate some feature categories still on our to-do list.
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ094.110
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ190.110
http://www.ca1.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/getopn.pl?OPINION=92-2134.01A
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ190.110
The project, as we see it unfolding
The background project involves a database to both
develop scanning strategies for finding cites in general web page text, and
develop a library of citation target alternative, most of which will themselves be libraries.
The current server program behind the Citer button illustrates these concepts, but with a limited repertoire of citation categories (document sources), and linking to target resources through resolvers that were on hand or presented themselves quickly.
Currently, we scan for the following citations types:
U.S. Code, e.g. 12 U.S.C. 1749bbb-10c, or 7 U.S.C. 136a(c)(3), which links to the paragraph level, using the LII internal USC resolver.
United States Supreme Court, e.g. 457 U.S. 800, using the LII resolver that tries to find an LII-local copy, and failing that, gives the user the option of choosing another source.
Federal Circuit Court System, e.g. 875 F.2d 1059, “resolved” by constructing a direct link to the resource.org data set as hosted by lawlibrary.rutgers.edu
Code of Federal Regulations, e.g. 40 C.F.R. Part 164 Subpart D, tries to resolve section references with the get-cfr.cgi file at frwebgate.access.gpo.gov; if no section number is cited, then a resolver at ecfr.gpoaccess.gov is used.
US Statutes at Large, e.g. 118 Stat. 919, resolution currently very speculative, using get-cfr.cgi at frwebgate.access.gpo.gov
US Public Law, e.g. Pub. L. 110-116, fairly stable, using get-cfr.cgi at frwebgate.access.gpo.gov
Federal Register, e.g. 72 Fed. Reg. 37771, uses the getpage.cgi at frwebgate.access.gpo.gov
Expanding scope: The next extension of scope is to the state courts, which must be handled individually. We also might be able to “find” some law journals.
Extending scan syntax: Phrases such as “section 4221(9) of title 25, United States Code” are already routinely handled in the US Code cross-reference processing, so we will gradually work them into Citer as well, as called for. (This particular one already works.) However, in general, especially for judicial cites, we will be starting with scanning for “NNN Abrv. NNNN”.
Target collection constraint tracking: We could maintain a library of constraints for, say, court decision page boundaries, which would allow us to provide some response to pinpoint (“at page”) cites.
Non-html formats: We realize that many of the interesting documents are in PDF format, and are working to provide convenient access to those.
Generic edit box input: We already have a prototype ajax-based tool that takes input from an html form and returns scanned and linked results to the same page. This allows arbitrary copy-paste-edit operations to handle any situation where the cite is available in text form, e.g. in a software EULA.
NB: For the programmers out there – yes, we thought of looking for the OS copy-paste buffer to handle the general case, but this approach is precluded by security concerns.
Other tools in the box: We are working with others interested in the same general question. We will post information from time to time about those activities, and links to other products.
Suggestion Box: Whenever you come across a resource that should be integrated with Citer, especially nicely indexed data resources that we are not already using, please use the LII suggestion box to let us know. Use the Category->Suggestions option on the contact form.
