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2.1. Document text retrieval and management


In criminal trials, as in most other litigation, it is necessary to access
information contained in three principal types of documents: (i) transcript
of the trial; (ii) documents which will or may become exhibits; and (iii)
statements by potential witnesses and others. Statements have some
characteristics of exhibits, but are like transcript in that it is often
important to be able to search their full text. Complex criminal trials may
involve large quantities of all or only some of these types of documents.

Three inter-related uses are made of information technologies to store and
manage these documents in computerised form, and to retrieve information from
them: (i) 'document control'; (ii) text retrieval of the full text of the
documents; and (iii) retrieval of images of the original documents. Particular
computer programs may only offer one of these facilities, or they may combine
them in various ways. The first two uses are discussed here, and a discussion
of image retrieval follows.


Underlying technologies


The different types of computer programs which may be used to retrieve
documents (either in summary form or full text) are numerous, and there are
few hard and fast divisions between them. However, some explanation of the
main categories of programs may be useful, provided that it is recognised that
hybrids exist, and that new retrieval technologies are
under constant development. We have distinguished principally
between three types of systems: conventional database management
systems (DBMS); free text retrieval systems; and hypertext-enhanced

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