New on Google Scholar: Legal Opinions

You'll see this yourselves before too long, but as of this week, Google Scholar now contains legal materials.

Read all about it: Finding the Laws that Govern Us. And here's the coverage note:

Currently, Google Scholar allows you to search and read opinions for US state appellate and supreme court cases since 1950, US federal district, appellate, tax and bankruptcy courts since 1923 and US Supreme Court cases since 1791 (please check back periodically for updates to coverage information). In addition, it includes citations for cases cited by indexed opinions or journal articles which allows you to find influential cases (usually older or international) which are not yet online or publicly available. Legal opinions in Google Scholar are provided for informational purposes only and should not be relied on as a substitute for legal advice from a licensed lawyer. Google does not warrant that the information is complete or accurate.

Reviews from the legal community, including assessments of how Westlaw and LexisNexis might be affected, are linked to the post.

News from the Law School

Just a heads up: in past years, we've had students (and faculty members) who've come to the desk asking for access to Westlaw and the "full" version of Lexis-Nexis.

I learned today that the Law School has acquired one Westlaw terminal that will allow "public" (i.e. Harvard affiliates) searching. The librarians are not doing massive advertising of that fact since some mediation (i.e., training) is required and at the moment, they're swamped with 1Ls learning the ropes of legal research. However, since we've had at least one recent question that requires a search of case law, it's good to know that something more powerful than the LexisNexis Academic legal module is available.

Westlaw and "full" LexisNexis access for undergraduates

Occasionally, as happened yesterday in an instruction session, I've had students ask me if Harvard has Westlaw access (or the "full" version of LexisNexis). Here's what to know:

1. While the Law School Library does subscribe to Westlaw, it does so only for its population. On site Reference questions are sometimes answered with Westlaw, but Law Librarians do not offer any kind of mediated searching for patrons and undergraduates shouldn't be sent there with that expectation.

2. At the Law School Library, the same policies apply for LexisNexis.

3. The KSG Library does have a terminal from which patrons can use the more robust version of LexisNexis. Librarians will help a student get started (since the dot commands take some getting used to), but there is no mediated searching offered.

The KSG terminal dedicated to LexisNexis is not attached to a printer, incidentally, so patrons you direct there should be prepared to email or should bring a memory stick with them.