Law Student 24/7 Swipe Card Access HAS CHANGED

You will now use our main library doors to gain access to the library at all times.

This means to enter the Library after hours, law students MUST USE THE LIBRARY FRONT DOORS ONLY .

The door by the Office of Academic Records will no longer work.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

GAO Reports

If you are looking for reliable sources for your research papers, don't overlook GAO reports. The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress, investigating how the federal government spends its money and working to increase government performance and accountability. The GAO issues about 800 reports each year, either at the request of Congress or as required by federal laws. In the past month alone, the GAO released law-related reports on topics ranging from consumer product safety and health care pricing to the Federal Reserve System's assistance to AIG (American International Group, Inc.) during the recent financial crisis. Available in PDF on the agency's web site, GAO reports are searchable by keyword or report number, and can be browsed under the "Reports and Testimonies" tab by topic and date.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Hein Online: A Research Tip

One can search Hein Online, but as the search functions are different from Google, Lexis and Westlaw one has to learn how to construct search queries for this database. It is not difficult, just different.

Tip: Use a tilde ~ plus a number as a proximity connector. Example, (criminal juvenile justice)~15 means that the words within the parenthesis - "criminal" "juvenile" and "justice" - are to be within 15 words of each other.

If the search is run in the entire database, methods to filter the search results will be to the left of the results list.

Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat

Federal Court Opinions on FDSYS

FDsys is the upgraded free online access system from the U.S. Government Printing Office that aims to provide official federal government publications. Many lawyers and law students use FDsys to access the U.S. Code, CFR and Federal Register. Recently, FDsys has added federal court opinions to its system in a pilot program. Currently FDsys provides PDFs of federal decisions for three courts from 2004 to the present (the number of courts will be expanding). The full text of the cases can be searched by party name, court name, case number, nature of suit and other search options. Read the full announcement here and access the decisions here.
Ernster, the Virtual Library Cat