The Law Library has developed a new resource page for a few of the most popular citation managers: RefWorks, Zotero and Mendeley.  These tools can help you collect and manage your research sources, and so, if you’re frustrated with remembering sources and organizing your research, you might look into using one of these tools.

On our resource page, you’ll find a comparison of the tools’ features, information on how well each tool works with the Bluebook, and information on accessing and using each tool.

If you would like more information about citation tools or a personalized training session to determine which tool would be best for you, please contact Jennifer Davitt.

The login process for our catalog system is working again. Access to patron records and off-campus databases has been restored, as well as the ability to request an item.

Thanks again for your patience.

Students, faculty, and staff can get free access to content from the Practical Law Company.  The site offers a number of practical tools organized by topic, including useful overviews; model documents, clauses, and drafting tips; checklists, timelines, and flowcharts; and updates on recent legal developments.  The amount of information available varies by topic.

To sign up for free access, go to PLC for Law Schools and click on “Free PLC Access for Students, Faculty and Staff”.

Members of the Georgetown University Community now have access to Keesing’s World News Archive.

Keesing’s gathers news from around the world each day and synthesizes it into a series of concise articles published each month.  Keesing’s covers a range of significant world events, including “elections and changes of government; wars, treaties, appointments, and diplomacy; terrorism and issues of internal security; legislation, budgets, economic developments and international agreements; actions by the UN and other international organisations; natural disasters, environmental issues, and scientific discoveries.”

Keesing's World News Archive contains Keesing’s Record of World Events (formerly titled Keesing’s Contemporary Archives) from 1931 to present. 

Georgetown's Lauinger Library has recently expanded its access to ProQuest's Digital National Security Archive, adding several new document collections to its subscription.  The archive contains more than 35,000 declassified primary documents that led to U.S. national security policy decisions, and is available to all members of the Georgetown community. The newly added collections include materials related to the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the reorganization of the U.S. intelligence community after September 11, 2011.

With coverage beginning in 1945, Congressional Quarterly Almanac provides narrative accounts of every major piece of legislation that lawmakers considered during a legislative session. Congressional Quarterly is arranged by topic and also has full-text searching.

Please note that Congressional Quarterly consists of narrative articles and editorial analyses. It does not contain the primary sources of legislative history (e.g., text of bills, committee reports), but it is a very useful finding aid for identifying these materials.

Congressional Quarterly makes it possible to easily and quickly trace and follow policies through decades of Congresses in a much more streamlined manner than trying to find the same information by using Westlaw, Lexis, or Proquest Congressional. For example, if you were interested in the history of health insurance policy, you could select “Managed care and health insurance” from the “Policy Tracker”, and you will be presented with the entire history of Congressional initiatives on this subject, whether or not they passed.

You can also browse by Congress or topic. Selecting a Congress will provide you with different subjects of legislation that were considered during that term.

Congressional Quarterly also provides various other tools. For example, you can view annual “Presidential Support” tables to see which senators and representatives tended to vote with or against the President, annual examinations of party unity, and voting records.

Congressional Quarterly Almanac’s coverage is from 1945-2009. For more recent material, please utilize CQ Weekly, which is available electronically through GULLiver.

The library has numerous resources available for legislative history and Congressional research.  For more information, see one of our legislative history research guides or contact a reference librarian.

The Georgetown University Law Library recently subscribed to HeinOnline’s Intellectual Property Law Collection.  This collection brings together many useful materials on patent, trademark, and copyright law, including legislative histories, books, federal statutes, regulations and agency materials, and journal articles.  Of particular note are the historical materials, such as previous editions of the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure. 

The library has numerous resources available for intellectual property law research.  For more information, see one of our intellectual property law research guides or contact a reference librarian.

The Roper Center's iPOLL Databank is a comprehensive resource for public opinion surveys and polls. Members of the Georgetown Law community can search by keyword, topic, organization or date to retrieve surveys by the Gallup Organization, Pew Research Center, Wall Street Journal and many other research centers. The surveys allow researchers to keep a pulse on the public's perception of everything from defense spending to homeland security to health care and more.

This resource and others are featured in our Policy Research Guide. Should you have any questions about iPOLL, feel free to ask a reference librarian for more information.

We now have access to over 1400 foreign laws in English (mostly tax, but also oil, commercial, etc) from the IBFD Tax Research Platform!  IBFD stands for the International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation and it is headquartered in Amsterdam.  More importantly, this organization is known as THE leading provider of cross border taxation research and other information.  Look for the link to National Legislation when accessing the IBFD Research Platform.  This content is provided by and also available on RIA Checkpoint. Now you know where to find the Cambodian law on taxation!

Lexis and Westlaw both restrict student access over the summer, but continuing students and new graduates may request an extension of their passwords if they meet certain conditions.  For continuing students, examples of these conditions include:

• Taking summer law school classes that require access for their course preparation and assignments;
• Doing research associated with law review, law journal, or moot court work over the summer;
• Serving as a research assistant for a faculty member; or
• Working in an unpaid, nonprofit public internship or externship position for school credit or to fulfill a graduation requirement.

Note that this continued access must be for academic purposes only.  Using a Lexis or Westlaw password for a commercial purpose is in direct violation of our academic subscription terms.

The extension of student passwords needs to be done separately with each vendor and can be done directly from the home page of both Westlaw (lawschool.westlaw.com) and Lexis (www.lexisnexis.com/lawschool).  After you log in, there will be a rotating set of headlines in the center “announcements” box on both websites.  Select the “LexisNexis Summer Access” on Lexis and the “Need your Westlaw password this summer?” option on Westlaw and follow the ensuing prompts.

In addition, both Lexis and Westlaw allow graduating students to extend their passwords while they are studying for the bar exam.  Note that this access is limited to only a few hours per month (5 or so) through the end of July, and graduating students must affirmatively request this continued access using the same links referenced above.

Finally, Lexis continues to offer its Aspire program in 2011, which allows continuing access to certain tools and services for both current students and graduates pursuing public interest work.  For more details on the program restrictions and how to register, see the “Will you be part of the solution this summer?” option from the same rotating set of headlines in the center announcements box on the Lexis home page (www.lexisnexis.com/lawschool).

If you have additional questions regarding summer password extensions, please direct them to Jason Spray at Westlaw (Jason.Spray@thomsonreuters.com) and/or Tom Berdan at Lexis (Tom.Berdan@lexisnexis.com).