3.10 Bibliographical Coding Manual

This associated document shows the fields, treatment, valid values (such as document types) and other such standards. This information is not included in this document.

About Bibliographic Coding

The one thing that should always accommodate a coding manual is a list of key words, terms and dates. The more thorough the list the firm provides the vendor, the better the results. There are impressive case fact management tools on the market.

One should code for how they intend to search and retrieve. If it is important to know that "Smith" was the author and not simply a name appearing somewhere in the text, then you need bibliographic coding.

The three types of bibliographic coding include: manual, software and hybrid. Manual coding entails a person who looks at an image of a page and then enters the date, author and other assorted fields into the database. Trust me, this is not a job for the paralegals and associates. Firms pay per document and per page rates for this service. Turnaround times depend on various factors. Ask your vendor.

The second type of coding involves software. The computer will take existing OCR or generate OCR. Using a list of key words and terms (provided by legal team) the computer generates bibliographic coding. Also known as "autocoding" this is a software solution, therefore turnaround time is very short.

The final type of coding is a hybrid approach. Some documents require manual coding. Use autocoding to generate bibliographic coding for the majority of documents. The remaining documents, combined with any electronic discovery that lacked key metadata fields (like author) can then go to the manual coder. Again, certain electronic documents may require bibliographic coding. Otherwise, a search for author="Smith" may omit key documents.