New to Law School? Or have you forgotten where to find government information and documents? The Law Library provides access to free and subscription-based indexes and full-text sources of government publications. These databases are accessed from the Law Library Online Resources web page, grouped under the heading Government Resources.

Here is a quick overview of resources for locating government documents (including bills, hearings, committee reports, debates, statutes, regulations, committee information, agency decisions and treaties). Full Story »

Reporting from the foreign and international desk of the Law Library newsroom, I am happy to inform new and returning law students that the Library added a number of significant and interesting databases over the summer break, related to various aspects of foreign and international law. Subsequent blog entries will describe these databases (and others) in greater detail; the purpose of today’s entry is just to provide a thumbnail overview of these shiny new sources that await your discovery. Full Story »

The Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the United States House of Representatives has created a new online version of the United States Code.  Key features, including a new search engine and an expanding “Table of Contents” style browse of the Code, are described here.

Additionally, the Law Librarians of Congress have blogged about the beta site at In Custodia Legis.  So as not to reinvent the wheel, I’ll link to their blog post about the new version of the USC here.

FYI…note the new Title 51 (National and Commercial Space Programs)!

LexisNexis Congressional has been renamed ProQuest Congressional.

Back in December 2010, ProQuest acquired several products from LexisNexis, including LexisNexis Congressional and LexisNexis Statistical Insight (now renamed ProQuest Statistical Insight).

New Content

We now have access to a new collection of digital content on Proquest Congressional: 

House and Senate Unpublished Hearings Digital Archive, Part A (1973-1979).

Want to know more about Unpublished Hearings?

ProQuest publishes many useful guides on their products and content, including this background information on unpublished hearings:

• Not all congressional hearings are published. Each committee makes its own decision regarding which hearings are to be published. A committee may decide not to publish a hearing because it contains classified or sensitive information, or because it pertains to private or other legislation deemed to be not of great interest to the public at large, or simply because committee budget or workload considerations preclude the publication. The committee does not have to justify its decision not to publish.
• The transcripts of unpublished hearings are transferred to the National Archives. Senate hearings generally remain closed for 20 years, and House hearings remain closed for 30 years. Hearings that contain classified or sensitive material generally remain closed for 50 years.
• When they are released, unpublished hearings are not normally published by the committees, although in unusual circumstances they may be. For example, the transcripts of the Senate Government Operations Committee Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations 1953 hearings to investigate alleged espionage and subversive activities were published as a Government Operations Committee print in 2003.

You can access ProQuest Congressional and ProQuest Statistical Insight from the Law Library’s Online Resources page.  Please see a reference librarian if you need assistance with ProQuest Congressional or any other database!

The Law Library recently added the United Nations Law Collection to its HeinOnline subscription. The Library previously cancelled its subscription to this database and relied on the official web site of the United Nations for the text of treaties. However, problems with the United Nations web site together with the difficulty of using its search software led the Library to reinstate its subscription to United Nations treaties through HeinOnline. In this Library you can search for treaties published in the United Nations Treaty Series (UNTS), the most comprehensive collection of treaties concluded since 1947.  You can also search for earlier treaties published in the League of Nations Treaty Series (LNTS), as well as a variety of important international-law related United Nations sources, such as the Yearbook of the International Law Commission.

The Search interface allows you to search using familiar HeinOnline search types – quick search, field search, and advanced search.  Fields specific to the UNTS and LNTS collections include treaty number, short title, country name, and subject heading.  In addition, there are finding aids unique to the Library, including a search by UNTS citation, LNTS citation, and search by treaty popular name.

One useful feature is the Scholar Check, which links your search results to the law journal library, so that you can link directly to law journal articles that cite the treaty you are interested in.  Another useful feature is the treaty summary screen, which lets you instantly determine a treaty’s current status.

For treaties too recent to be included in the UNTS, don’t forget that HeinOnline also includes a U.S. Treaties and Agreements Library, which provides access to virtually all U.S. treaties.  Therefore, if the treaty you need is too recent to be included in the UNTS collection, but the U.S. is a party, you can still find the treaty text in the Treaties and Agreements Library.

The Law Library recently subscribed to the law subject component of Oxford Scholarship Online (OSO), an electronic database of monographs published by Oxford University Press.  OSO currently contains approximately 4,500 titles, of which 365 are law titles, and about two thirds of them were published from 2008 onwards.  Last year 55 new law titles were added to OSO, and another 28 have been added so far in 2011.  Altogether, OSO adds up to 500 new titles per year. Full Story »

Arizona has a website devoted to the law for kids.  It includes several things aimed at children, such as cartoons, games, and stories, but it also links to the law itself and other legal websites.  It answers serious questions from kids about crimes, custody, and emancipation among other things.  Is this the correct approach to take to educating kids about the law? Should Indiana have a website like this?  For more websites devoted to youth law (though most with a more adult focus) take a look at this research guide from the University of Washington.

Today’s topic is the Common Portal of National Case Law, a free search utility (ignore the log-in box) that provides access to selected case law from courts across the European Union.   This database is intriguing because it provides a way to search for substantively like cases across many jurisdictions at once. Full Story »

The new CALI lesson on Indiana Primary Resources (written by librarians Jennifer Morgan and Cindy Dabney) is now available.

This interactive lesson teaches the basic sources for Indiana law and how to use them.  Using a hypothetical problem, the lesson walks you through case law, statutes, session laws & legislative history, and regulations.

As I mentioned in a previous blog posting, CALI lessons are an excellent tool for refreshing or perfecting your legal research skills.  You should definitely take advantage of this great resource as you prepare for life after graduation or for your summer job.

CALI lessons are an excellent tool that you can use to hone your legal research skills.  The Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction (CALI) publishes a library of online interactive tutorials for anyone interested in legal education.  The lessons cover all legal topics from Administrative Law to Wills and Trusts, and include researching primary and secondary sources of law and federal and state jurisdictions. 

Whether you are graduating in a few weeks or about to finish your first year of law school, you should use CALI lessons if you plan on doing any legal research this summer.  Here are some CALI lessons that you should try out:

• Researching Federal Administrative Regulations
• How to Brief a Case
• Citation Form for Briefs and Legal Memoranda
• Decision Point: State or Federal?
• Finding Statutes
• Hold ‘em, Fold ‘em, Walk Away or Run: When to Stop the Search
• How to Find Case Law Using the Digests
• Introduction to Search Logic and Strategies
• Updating/Validating Case Law Using Citators

CALI also includes lessons on state-specific legal research such as “Colorado Legal Research – Secondary Source Materials“ and “Georgia Legal Research – Primary Source Material.”  Librarians Jennifer Morgan and Cindy Dabney have created a lesson on Indiana legal research, “Indiana Primary Resources.”  Our lesson will be published in a few weeks, so keep an eye on the CALI website (or this blog) for an announcement of this new lesson.

The Library has a subscription to CALI, so you need a password (i.e., student CALI authorization code) to be able to access CALI lessons.  Stop by the reference desk to get your CALI password.