Back in April 2017 we blogged about the Session Laws indexing project and announced that all 50 states were indexed to the chapter or act level from 2000 to current. In August 2017, we released an update to the project, reporting that two states were indexed back to inception. We have been diligently indexing our way through the states and we have some news to share!
Overview of the Project
The following states have been indexed back to inception thus far:
- California (1849-2016)
- New York (1691-2016)
- Maryland (1692-2017)
- Florida (1822-2017)
- Illinois (1809-2015)
- Ohio (1788-2016)
Next up is the state of Georgia.
Let’s take a look at how to utilize this new enhancement!
Users can easily browse through a volume to find the desired chapter or act. For example, open up an older volume in Florida and view the document indexed to the chapter level.
To quickly retrieve a chapter, act, or page, use the Session Laws Quick Locator tool that can be found on the Session Laws Library homepage. Simply select the state and plug in the year and chapter/act information to retrieve the document.
Similarly, users can access this tool within any individual state’s page. Open up the state of Florida as an example. Now, plug in the year 2005 and chapter 275 using the Session Laws Quick Locator tool at the top of the page.
This tool will bring users to the exact page on which the chapter begins.
New Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning Tools!
New to the Session Laws Library is the addition of entity facets in all sections. Using natural language processing and machine learning tools, entities were extracted, including location, person, and organization. Search results are now enhanced to include more relevant documents. For example, open up the state of New York and using the search bar enter “health insurance” AND treatment.
Expand the Location, Person, and Organization facets within search results to view more options to narrow down results.
Entities are currently in beta format, which gives users the opportunity to utilize this new feature and provide feedback on its usability and on areas of potential improvement.
Stay tuned for more upcoming developments with the Session Laws indexing project. Not subscribed to our blog? Click the Subscribe button on our blog homepage and enter your email address.
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