This guide provides a quick and easy access to the most use resources in Legal Studies.
Legal Studies at UCB
Legal Studies focuses on the study of law and justice, including legal institutions and the legal process, from a social science perspective. The courses deal with a wide variety of subjects, including philosophy of law, American legal history, non-western legal traditions, politics and law, the criminal justice process, property law, and economic regulation.
The UC Berkeley Library maintains a research-level collection in legal sudies to support not only the department's teaching programs, but many other disciplines, interdisciplinary programs, and professional schools. Many of the Library's social science and humanities collections also inform legal studies researchers.
The Legal Studies collection (Library of Congress Call # range K-KZ) is housed in the Gardner (Main) Stacks. The undergraduate Moffitt Library also maintains a collection of core, high-use English language materials of particular relevance to the undergraduate curriculum. The Reference Center and North Reading Room on the 2nd floor of Doe houses a permanent reference collection in social sciences and government documents. Several subject speciality libraries including Social Welfare, Public Health, Education & Psychology, Ethnic Studies, Institute for Governmental Studies, and Business also possess collections highly relevant to legal studies.
Researching the law involves discovering judicial cases, statutes and codes, executive orders, congressional hearings, legislative history, administrative regulations and much more. Although many resources are available via open access online through government and other portals, the UCB Library has purchased several resources that permit more in-depth and historical research.
Hein Online Provides full text to the early issues of many legal journals and law reviews, the Federal Register (1936-six months ago), US Supreme Court Library (1754-present) and treaties and agreements.
LexisNexis Academic Includes over 6,000 individual titles of international, national and local newspapers and wire services; radio and television transcripts; and business, medical, industry, and legislative magazines, journals, and newsletters. Wide geographic coverage and translations from foreign-language sources, as well as news services like the Associated Press, Agence France Press, El Pais and Xinhua (New China) News Agency.
LegalTrac Indexes journals, law reviews, and magazines related to legal research and commentary on case studies, government regulations, the practice of law, statutes, taxation, and international law.
ProQuest Congressional One stop shopping for U.S. congressional publications. Provides index and abstracts of congressional publications back to 1789, including full text of published Congressional Hearings from 1824-present (unpublished
until 1979), full text Committee Prints from 1830-present, full text Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports from 1916-present, full
text United States Congressional Serial Set (and its various former titles) from 1789-present, and legislative histories from 1970-present.
For more information on how to find hearings, consult the Congressional Tutorials homepage
ProQuest Legislative Insight Provides access to more than 18,000 professionally researched legislative histories of US Law. Histories include the Public Law
itself, all versions of related bills, law-specific Congressional Record
excerpts, committee hearings, reports and prints, Presidential signing statements, and CRS reports. 1929-present
Legal Information Institute (LII) Indexes Supreme Court decisions and opinions under the auspices of Project Hermes, as well as over 500 of the Court's most important historic decisions.
Thomas: Legislative Information on the Internet Provides access to a wide range of legislative information on the Congress, including the full text of the Congressional Record and bills from the 103rd to the present, as well as a directory of congressional committees and members of Congress. Excellent resource for finding quick, online legislative histories and the full-text of Congressional Committee reports.
NCJRS (National Criminal Justice Reference Service) Abstracts Database Indexes over 170,000 criminal justice books, journal articles, and reports published by the US Department of Justice, other local, state, and Federal government agencies, international organizations, and the private sector are indexed. Access is also provided to more than 7,000 full text documents through the NCJRS Virtual Library linked to the database.
Index to Legal Periodicals and Books/Index to Legal Periodicals Retrospective Index to Legal Periodicals and Books (1981 - present) indexes approximately 1000 legal journals, yearbooks, institutes, bar association journals,
university publications and law reviews, and government publications from the United States, Puerto Rico, Great Britain,
Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Also indexes some 1,400 monographs per year. Index to Legal Periodicals Retrospective (1918-1981) indexes over 500 legal periodicals back to 1918.
LLMC - Digital Provides access to legal history from the 13th century to the present in jurisdictions all around the world, particularly the legal history of the United States, Haiti, Britain, and the British empire from the 18th century to the late 1900s. This includes runs of law reports from the Indian subcontinent; and reports from Australia, Ireland, and South Africa. In all of these cases, LLMC-Digital’s strength is in historical case reporters; the closer to the present one gets, the weaker the coverage becomes.
Find eBooks Related to Legal Studies
The Library offers over 100 e-book and e-text collections in specific subject areas. E-books in collections marked * are also available through OskiCat and Melvyl. You can limit your search in OskiCat to "Available online," and in Melvyl to "Online resources."
Books. Search the UC Libraries' catalogs to find both e-books and books in print at UCB. The Oskicat catalog searches the UC Berkeley collection. Melvyl searches the UC-wide collections. UC has purchased several e-book collections that can be searched individually. See UCB's e-book collections for links to e-books by publisher/vendor. Each has its own search engine. Most e-book collections are multi-disciplinary. Use UC's excellent Interlibrary Loan service for anything you can't find.
Article Databases for Legal Studies
Academic Search Complete A multidisciplinary index to articles in more than 10,900 journals and other publications in English, Spanish, German, French, Italian and Portuguese; full-text is available for over 5300 journals.
America: History and Life Indexes over 2,000 journals published worldwide on the history of the US and Canada from prehistory to the present. Includes all key English-language historical journals; selected historical journals from major countries, state, and local history journals; and a targeted selection of hundreds of journals in the social sciences and humanities.
LegalTrac Indexes journals, law reviews, and magazines related to legal research and commentary on case studies, government regulations, the practice of law, statutes, taxation, and international law.
Index to Legal Periodicals and Books/Index to Legal Periodicals Retrospective Indexes approximately 1000 legal journals, yearbooks, institutes, bar association journals,
university publications and law reviews, and government publications from the United States, Puerto Rico, Great Britain,
Ireland, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Also indexes some 1,400 monographs per year. Index to Legal Periodicals Retrospective (1918-1981) indexes over 500 legal periodicals back to 1918.
LexisNexis Academic Includes over 6,000 individual titles of international, national and local newspapers and wire services; radio and television transcripts; and business, medical, industry, and legislative magazines, journals, and newsletters. Wide geographic coverage and translations from foreign-language sources, as well as news services like the Associated Press, Agence France Press, El Pais and Xinhua (New China) News Agency.
Historical Abstracts Indexes over 2,000 journals, as well as historical book reviews and dissertations, published worldwide about all aspects of world history (excluding US and Canada) from 1450 to the present. Articles covered were written from 1954 to thepresent
ProQuest Congressional One stop shopping for U.S. congressional publications. Provides index and abstracts of congressional publications back to 1789, including full text Congressional Hearings from 1824-present, full text Committee Prints from 1830-present, full text Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports from 1916-present, full text United States Congressional Serial Set from 1789-1969, and legislative histories from 1970-present. For more information on how to find hearings, consult the Congressional Tutorials homepage
Hein Online Provides full text to the early issues of many legal journals and law reviews, the Federal Register (1936-six months ago), US Supreme Court Library (1754-present) and treaties and agreements.
CQ Researcher Plus Archive A weekly publication covering the most current and controversial issue stopics. Includes complete summaries and bibliographies. Part of the CQ Electronic Library collection.
UC-eLinks
Once you've searched a database to find articles, you may need to use to link to a PDF or html file if the full text is not immediately available. Each database isa bit different, but a good rule of thumb is this: when you see the Uc-eLinks icon click on it to view your article access options, which can range from full text to a call number to an Interlibrary Loan request:
For more information, here's a tutorial on using UC-eLinks.
Citation Linker
Have a citation? Use Citation Linker to go directly to the article.
Get immediate access to journal articles, books and other publications (or request them when they are not available) by entering a title and other citation information.
When a publication is available online: The UC-eLinks window will provide a link to the publisher's web site that should contain the full text of the publication if UC (systemwide or your home campus) subscribes to the electronic version of the publication.
When a publication is not available online: The UC-eLinks window will offer other options such as the ability to check campus library holdings in the Melvyl Catalog (and where you can sometimes find that items ARE available online), or to Request the item via Interlibrary Loan (ILL) if UC (systemwide or your home campus) does not subscribe to the electronic version of the publication.
News Resources
Here are some general news and newsmedia databases. For a full listing of the Library's news resources, check this list.
Access World News Provides full-text information and perspectives from over 600 U.S. and over 700 international sources. Offers strong regional coverage, indexing more than California newspapers such as Contra Costa Times (1995-current), Sacramento Bee (1984-current), San Francisco Chronicle (1985-current), and San Jose Mercury News (1985-current). Search categories include: California newspapers (121 titles), Greater Los Angeles (54 titles), major metropolitan titles (13 titles), Spanish-language news sources (48 titles), the World (almost 2000 titles), US (855 titles).
Factiva Provides general and business news and information from more than 9,000 sources in 22 languages, including influential local, national and international newspapers, leading business magazines, trade publications, and news wires. Includes the exclusive combination of The Wall Street Journal (1979-present), the Financial Times, Dow Jones and Reuters newswires and the Associated Press, as well as Reuters Fundamentals, and Bureau van Dijk company profiles.
LexisNexis Academic Includes over 6,000 individual titles of international, national and local newspapers and wire services; radio and television transcripts; and business, medical, industry, and legislative magazines, journals, and newsletters. Wide geographic coverage and translations from foreign-language sources, as well as news services like the Associated Press, Agence France Press, El Pais and Xinhua (New China) News Agency.
ProQuest Newspapers Indexes the New York Times (1999-present), Los Angeles Times (1985-present), Wall Street Journal (1982-present).
These resources will provide a wealth of information by and about the US and foreign governmernts, as well as NGOs. Further resources are available here.
ProQuest Congressional One stop shopping for U.S. congressional publications. Provides index and abstracts of congressional publications back to 1789, including full text Congressional Hearings from 1824-present, full text Committee Prints from 1830-present, full text Congressional Research Service (CRS) Reports from 1916-present, full text United States Congressional Serial Set from 1789-1969, and legislative histories from 1970-present. For more information on how to find hearings, consult the Congressional Tutorials homepage
American Presidency Project Contains all major publications of the U.S. Office of the President, including: Public Papers of the President, Inaugural Addresses, Executive Orders, Signing Statements, and other information such as radio addresses, party platforms, videos of debates, and popularity polling data. This project was developed by two political science professors at UCSB.
GPO U.S. Government Publications Indexes government documents printed by the US Government Printing Office since July 1976; documents include Congressional committee hearings, congressional debates and records, judiciary material, documents issued by departments such as Defense, State, Labor, and the Office of the President. Also includes links to Federal agency online resources.
CQ Electronic Library A reference source on American politics and government that includes the following modules: CQ Congress Collection, CQ Political Handbook of the World, CQ Researcher Plus Archive, CQ Supreme Court, CQ Voting and Elections, CQ Washington Information Directory, CQ Weekly. Access individual modules or search across all CQ collections.
CQ Voting and Elections Collection Offers documents and data, authoritative analyses, background information and definitions, chronology, and historical material related to specific elections (Congressional,presidential, and gubernatorial) and the electoral process in America. A data set of voting/election statistics is available for exporting/downloading. Part of the CQ Electronic Library collection.
CQ MoneyLine Provides tracking of the flow of money in politics at the federal level with some state information from 1980 to the present. Enables tracking of contributions from Political Action Committees (PACs), individual donors to politicians, elected officials, and party committees; follow soft money through 527 groups, and retrieve information on thousands of lobbyists, indexed by client and issue.
DDRS (Declassified Documents Reference System) Over 75,000 documents and almost 500,000 pages of materials declassified via the Freedom of Information Act and regular declassification requests, making broad-based and highly targeted investigation of government documents possible. Nearly every major foreign and domestic event of these years is covered.
Metavid A searchable archive of video from the United States House and Senate Floor Debates captured though C-SPAN, from 2006 to the present. Can be searched by topic/subject keyword or person. Video can also be freely downloaded by anyone.
Oyez Project A multimedia archive devoted to the Supreme Court of the United States and its work. Contains all audio recorded in the Court since the installation of a recording system in October 1955, and summaries of major cases going back to the courts founding. The Project also provides biographical information on all justices and offers a virtual reality 'tour' of portions of the Supreme Court building, including the chambers of some of the justices.
United Nations Official Documents System Full-text of United Nations documents, including legislative documents and official records since 1993, resolutions of the General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council and the Trusteeship Council from 1946 onwards.
UNBISnet: UN Bibliograpic Information System Contains bibliographic files with citations to UN documents indexed by the United Nations Dag Hammarskjd Library in New York and the UN Library in Geneva. Coverage is primarily from 1979 forward, however indexing for resolutions of the General Assembly, Economic and Social Council, Security Council and Trusteeship go back to 1946. Also contains files indexing speeches, voting records, and resolutions.
Data and Statistics
These links will guide you to various sources for statistics and data. If you are interested in manipulating a dataset on your own, please visit the Doe Library's Data Lab in 189 Doe.
Proquest Statistical Datasets Provides fast and easy one-stop shopping to more than 5.3 billion (and growing) data points from licensed and public domain datasets. Sources of data include local, state and international governments and organizations. Allows for customization of the data by selecting subjects, variable of interest, and the ability to view your data in side-by-side tables, charts and even maps. Also provides quick graphs and chats for statistics in the news.
Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) Consortium of 325 institutions working together to acquire and preserve social science data. Maintained at University of Michigan, ICPSR receives, processes, and distributes data on social phenomena in 130 countries. Includes survey data, census records, election returns, economic data, and legislative records.
American Factfinder (U.S. Census Bureau) Interactive, searchable database used to find population, housing, industry and business statistics from the U.S. Census. Data collected in Census 2000, the 1990 Census of Population and Housing, the American Community Survey and the 1997 Economic Census. Allows uses to compile census data into tables, maps and downloadable files, which can be viewed or printed.
RAND State Statistics Statistics include: business & economics; population and demographics; education; community; health & socioeconomic; government finance; census; politics & public opinion. Also includes an online index to RAND public policy and research publications.
Field Poll An independent, non-partisan, media-sponsored public
opinion news service. Each year the poll covers a wide range of political and social topics examining California public opinion.
Roper Center for Public Opinion Research Contains domestic and international survey data. The Center's Public Opinion Location Library (iPOLL) gives online access to a database including poll questions asked in US from 1936 to present.
Bureau of Labor Statistics Presents up-to-date U.S. economic statistical information in areas such as 'Inflation and Spending' and 'International Statistics.' Also available are the latest numbers for the Consumer Price Index, unemployment rate, and the Producer Price. Provides past and current statistics for the U.S. economy as a whole; regional economic data can be obtained by clicking the state on a color-coded map.
California Statistical Abstract Compilation of data on social, economic, and physical aspects of the State. The contributor for each table is given at the bottom of the table and may be contacted for more details or an explanation of the data.
Off-campus Access to Library Resources
Before you can access UCB Library resources from off campus or via your laptop or other mobile devices, make sure you have configured your machine using one of two simple methods (Proxy Server is the quickest and easiest):
VPN (Virtual Private Network) After you install and run the VPN "client" software on your computer, you can log in with a CalNet ID to establish a secure connection with the campus network. NOTE: VPN is necessary if using EndNote.
Research Advisory Service
Research Advisory Service for Cal Undergraduates
Book a 30-minute appointment with a librarian who will help refine and focus research inquiries, identify useful online and print sources, and develop search strategies for humanities and social sciences topics.
Schedule, view, edit or cancel your appointment online (CalNetID required)
This service is for Cal undergraduates only. Graduate students and faculty should contact the library liaison to their department or program for specialized reference consultations.
Campus Library Map
Click on the image below to see a larger interactive version of the campus library map.
You can also view/download a PDF map of library locations. For library contact information and building addresses, visit our directory.
to link to a PDF or html file if the full text is not immediately available. Each database isa bit different, but a good rule of thumb is this: when you see the Uc-eLinks icon click on it to view your article access options, which can range from full text to a call number to an Interlibrary Loan request:
