CanLII Introduces Snippets
If you’ve done a CanLII search in the last few days, you’ll have noticed that they’ve introduced contextual snippets into the search results. The searched for term is highlighted and shown with some surrounding text, apparently in a number, if not all, of the instances in which the term appears in the relevant document. The graphic below illustrates:
The snippets apply to both caselaw and legislation results.
This is a welcome (albeit stealthy) addition to a fine service.
It is useful. But it seems to have fouled-up * searches for the moment, though.
For those doing CanLII searches – a heads up
The problem seems to be a search using the /s operator.
I tried one I know what the results should be using /s for a particular case – name /s name. It produced 3 hits. There should be 45 at present. Name /p name produced the correct result.
It isn’t related to the * operator. I tried the /s search with the full version and a trunctuated version of the first name. The result is still 3 its.
I send an email to CanLII a few momements ago using the “contact us” page on the website.
Update – CanLII just told me problem will be fixed on Monday.
the problem is still not fixed. Use /p rather than /s, or some other form of proximity operator.