How to search legal journal indexes?

How to search legal journal indexes?

The recommended method for finding law journal articles is to use an index. Indexes allow searching by author, title, subject, and keyword. Many also include abstracts of articles, and online indexes usually link to the full-text of selected articles. Coverage in legal journal indexes is more comprehensive, both in terms of journals covered and dates of coverage, than that of the online full-text journal databases.

The two main legal journal indexes are the Index to Legal Periodicals & Books and LegalTrac, both of which are available under “Databases” on the library’s home page. These indexes include references to many journals not included in Westlaw or Lexis databases and in some cases provide access to the full text electronically. Each of these two online indexes has a parallel print version: the Current Law Index, which provides coverage back to 1980, and the Index to Legal Periodicals, which provides coverage back to 1908. Both are shelved near the print journals on Level 1.

These two indexes are also available on both Lexis and Westlaw. The Legal Resource Index, a slightly different version of LegalTrac, is LAWREV;LGLIND on Lexis and LRI on Westlaw. Coverage for this database extends from 1977 to present on Lexis and 1980 to the present on Westlaw. The Index to Legal Periodicals, covering from 1978 to present on Lexis and 1981 to the present on Westlaw, is available through Lexis at LAWREV;ILP and on Westlaw as ILP.

If you are researching a topic on foreign or international law, you may want to also try the Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals. This index, available electronically under “Databases” on the library’s home page, and in paper, indexes mainly non-English language legal journals, but uses English subject headings. (The main foreign-published English-language journals are covered in LegalTrac and the Index to Legal Periodicals & Books.) The electronic version covers articles indexed since 1984.

The Current Index to Legal Periodicals is produced weekly by the Marion Gould Gallagher Library at the University of Washington School of Law, and contains articles from journal issues received in the library that week, making it more up-to-date than the other indexes.

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Author: international

Mentioned in these Entries

AccessUN, Boolean and Free-text Searching for Legal Research, Cataloging for legal materials, Customary International Law, HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library, KeySearch, Lexis, Lexis’ Case Search, List of International Law Indexes and Databases, List of Legal Databases and Indexes, List of Legal History Broader Databases, Sociological Abstracts, UK Case citators.

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