Jennie Wilson and Catherine Parkin
Academic Librarians for Law
The Library: Advanced
Legal research skills
Today’s Session
• Subject pages
• Finding journal articles
• Advanced search techniques /Boolean searching
• Current awareness
• Using other libraries
• 3 main parts to the session, each with an exercise
attached
• 1. Planning your search
• 2. Conducting your search
• 3. Evaluating your search results
Library Subject Pages
• Library Online > Resources > For Your Subject >
Law
• Acts as subject gateway providing links to useful
websites and legal resources
• Broken down into useful sections, such as Legal
Citation, Legal Research, Non-UK Legal Sources etc
• Constantly updated by the Academic Librarian
http://libguides.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/law
Journal Articles
• Periodicals – academic, practitioner, weeklies
• Give insight into the significance of a case and
relate it to other cases and decisions
• Discuss the issues surrounding a law
• You need to know which journal it was published in
and which volume (and issue) number
• Many available electronically from off-campus
• Printed ones - shelved separately from the books,
within the Law Collection - shelved alphabetically by
journal title
Journal Articles
• Searching for articles in legal databases
• Two main legal databases
• Westlaw – journal index plus around 60 full-text
journals
• Lexis Library - journal index plus around 60 full-text
journals
• Each one has different journals
• Each database has some journals it has full access
to and some where it only has an abstract
•
Define your topic
• Note down keywords/phrases that describe your topic
• Write down any synonyms or related terms
• Note down any variations in spelling or American terms
• Decide on the time span involved. How far back do you need to look for relevant information?
• You may also want to consider whether you want to limit your search to a particular geographical area
• Your final list of keywords and phrases - or search terms - will help you make the best use of the databases
Keywords-example
“What factors affect adolescents’ fear of crime?”
• Break down into concepts or keywords.
• Concept 1. “factors”
• Concept 2. “adolescents”
• Concept 3. “fear of crime”
Synonyms/related terms
• Concept 1. “factors”
causes, reasons
• Concept 2. “adolescents”
youths, young people, teenagers
• Concept 3. “fear of crime”
use specific crimes, such as mugging, robbery,
etc?
Good idea to search for just one of your concepts to begin with
Boolean Logic
Boolean Logic - process of linking
concepts in order to narrow or expand a
search
• AND links two or more terms and
narrows a search, retrieving only
references containing at least one
term from each concept
• OR links two or more terms and
expands or broadens a search
retrieving all references containing at
least one of the search concepts
entered
• NOT narrows a search by removing
all references that contain a
particular word or phrase
• Individual task- 5 mins.
• Using the sheets provided make a note of
your topic and break down into “key words”.
• Consider any synonyms that might help and
write these down also.
• Design your search strategy using the
concepts and synonyms, and Boolean
operators (and, or, not)/truncation
symbols etc.
Task 1: Planning your search strategy
• Don’t just stick to one database
• Westlaw has some journals which Lexis doesn’t
(and vice versa)
• Also lots more relevant information in other
databases, e.g.
• Proquest
• Science Direct
• Academic Search Complete
• ETHOS (good for finding dissertations)
Exploring other resources
Examples
Westlaw
• Journals
• Simple free text search –” Consumer credit agreements”
• Then advanced keyword search –” Consumer credit
agreements
• Proquest Journals
• Do simple search
• “war on terror”
• Limit location to UK
• Limit to scholarly journals
• A Library search engine providing fast, easy access to many Library resources in a single search.
• Some resources; in particular Westlaw and Lexis, are not yet searchable on Discover.
• Click on Geography from the menu on the left side of the results screen to limit your search to the UK
http://libraryonline.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/pages/home
“Human Rights Act” AND defamation
In results use menu on left to limit to Great Britain
Use DISCOVER
• Infotrac Newsstand – over 1,000 newspapers,
including local press. No images. Can create
alerts. Some coverage goes back 20 years.
• Press Display - Over 2700 news titles from 100
countries. You can search and view content and
visual layout of publications. 1 year back issue
coverage. App for Android and IoS.
http://libguides.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/resources/news_resources
Using newspapers
• Individual task- 10 mins.
• Choose one of the databases we have
looked at during the session
• Search the database using the search
strategy you created in the last task
• See if you can find any relevant articles –I’ll
come round to see how you’re getting on
Task 2 : Searching for literature
• Ever found a potentially useful article via a database, but could
only view the abstract?
• DID YOU KNOW we often have access to the article through
another provider!
• Finding an article when you know the name of the journal
• Library Homepage> Resources> Journals > Ejournals A-Z
• Type the title of the journal in the search box e.g. Family Law
• Choose the version of the journal you want
(content is the same from each publisher, just
make sure they have the year you want)
Finding specific journal articles
Search alerts
• Set up an account on Discover to use alerts
• Google Scholar offers email alerts
• Run a search and look for the Create alert
icon to send results to your email account
• ZETOC is a comprehensive research
database. Set up personalised email Zetoc
Alerts or RSS feeds to track the latest articles
or journal titles related to your interests
Citation alerts
• Search for an article with Google Scholar. In the bottom left of the
article's citation will be a Cited by field.
• Once you view the articles that cite your original search you can create
alert. It will confirm your Alert query and email address before you can
create the alert.
• Other options for citation searching are Scopus, and Web of
Knowledge. You can search these databases for articles
that cite a known author or work
• During your research, you need to source, evaluate
and synthesise literature from a variety of sources
• The emphasis should be on using quality information
rather than just a large quantity of information
• You need to decide which literature to include
• So -before using any literature in your research you should
evaluate its worth
• Group Exercise- 5 mins
• Working in pairs, select one of the items you found whilst
searching
• Work through the evaluation checklist provided
Task 3 : Evaluating your literature
Using Other Libraries
• SCONUL Access – access to other university libraries
• Apply online at www.sconul.ac.uk
• Access to approx 100 different university libraries in the UK
• Inter-Library Loan –borrow books and get sent journal
articles posted to you
• Order online via Library tab on MyBeckett
• Get a form from the Library Help Desk and hand in there
• £2 per item
Where to go for Help in the Library
• Library Webpages
• Help and Information Point
• Email or Chat via Library
Webpages > Contact us
Academic Librarians for Law
• Catherine Parkin and Jennie
Wilson