Help

Last updated December 2007

How to find resources

Browsing by legal topics and subtopics

There are a variety of ways to find resources on CLEONet. To get the best results, we recommend you first browse the legal topics and subtopics. If you don't find what you're looking for that way, then try doing a keyword search.

Start on the Resources page. There are 14 legal topics to choose from and each leads you to a set of subtopics. If you don't know which legal topic to look in, visit Legal subtopics A-Z for an alphabetical list of all the the subtopics and which legal topic they belong to.

When you click on a legal topic or subtopic, you may see some links to other topics that might be relevant as well. This is to help you understand how we have classified our resources.

Searching by keyword

From the Search and Resources pages, you can do a keyword search. Under the heading "Search for resources" is a box where you type in your search terms. Next, decide whether to narrow your search using the 3 dropdown boxes underneath. Then, click on the "Search" button to go to the search results page. It tells you the number of resources found within the search terms you entered.

In a keyword search, CLEONet's search engine searches for the words you entered and finds matching resources in the following fields:

  • resource title
  • resource description
  • legal subtopic
  • producing organization
  • keywords (hidden words we've added to help people find resources).

The search engine looks for all the words you have entered in any order so if you enter "home care" or "care home", you'll get the same number of results. So to be more exact in your search, choose "Exact phrase" in the dropdown box under where you typed your keywords.

Here are some tips if you don't get any search results:

  • check your spelling
  • don't use too many keywords
  • just put spaces between words, not commas, plus signs (+), minus signs (-), or asterisks (*)
  • don't use partial words, for example, type Canada not Can
  • try doing different searches using the singular and plural versions of your keyword.

Browsing by language

CLEONet has resources in over 50 languages. From both the Search and Resources pages, you can narrow your keyword search by selecting a language from the dropdown menu under the box where you entered your keywords.

From the Search and Resources pages, you can also browse resources by Language, which takes you to a list of all the languages available on CLEONet and the number of resources in each language. If you click on a language, you'll see more details about those resources.

Browsing by producing organization

In each resource listing, the "Produced by" heading identifies the organization that has created the resource. Clicking on this name will take you to information about that organization. From there, you can find out about all the resources and news that the organization has on CLEONet.

From the Search and Resources pages, you can also browse resources by Producing organization, which takes you to a list of all the organizations that have resources and news on CLEONet. This page also has a "Focus on" box where we spotlight different organizations.

Browsing by recent additions

From the Search and Resources pages, you can browse resources by Recent additions, which takes you to a list of the 10 most recently added resources.

Browsing by most visited

From the Search and Resources pages, you can browse resources by Most visited, which takes you to a list of last month's most visited resources.

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How to find news on CLEONet

On the right side of the News page, there is a keyword search box and dropdown list of topics. If you want to look at all news items in a certain topic, leave the keyword box blank and use the dropdown menu to select that topic.

If you want to search all news items by a keyword word or phrase, enter that in the keyword box and leave the dropdown menu as "All topics".

There is also a "Focus on" box on the News page that has a link to Campaigns and law reform news.

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How to find events on CLEONet

On the Events page, you can view all events or from the right side of the page, you can browse events by topic using the dropdown menu.

Events are automatically removed from the site once they've taken place. But if you want information on a past event, contact us.

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How to use our expanded search

We recommend using the expanded search only after you have browsed the topics and subtopics on CLEONet and have tried CLEONet's keyword search. This is because the expanded search results take you to external web sites and documents, which don't have the resource descriptions and summary information our staff have entered into the CLEONet collection.

The expanded search uses the Google search engine to search not only CLEONet but the web sites of all the organizations that have resources and news on our site.

Your search results appear on a separate page in a new browser window. From this page, if you only want to see results from CLEONet, under the words "Refine results for...", there's a link to CLEONet that you can click on.

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How to update your web browser

If you are using an older web browser and are having problems using CLEONet or some features of the site are not available, you might want to upgrade to the latest web browser from Firefox, Microsoft, Safari, or Opera.

To update your browser, click on one of the images below:

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How to change your text size

If you find the size of the text on your screen too small or too large, you can change it using your web browser. If you aren't sure how to do this, you can go to How to change your text size.

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How to deal with PDF files

On CLEONet, we aren't able to provide an HTML equivalent of Portable Document Format (PDF) files. Adobe has an online tool that lets you convert PDF files into more accessible formats. For example, you might need this if you are using a screen reader that doesn't support PDF files. You can find out more about the tool at www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/access_onlinetools.html.

To view PDF files, you have to have Adobe Reader installed on your computer. The software is free. To install it, click on the image below:

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