Researching Business Topics

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Locating Treatises
Patricia Bingham-Harper Winter, 2008
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What is a Treatise?

• Jacobstein, Fundamentals of Legal Research
• expositions by legal writers on case law and
  legislation pertaining to a particular subject
  published in book form.
• Cohen and Berring, How to Find the Law
• by restating and synthesizing the myriad of
  decisions and statutestreatises summarize
  historical developments, analyze and explain
  apparent discrepancies and inconsistencies,
  predict future changes, and provide practical
  guides to the conduct of legal business

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How are Treatises Helpful?

• Provide broad scope and in-depth analysis by an
  expert.
• Provide abundant citations to primary sources.
• Synthesize law in a particular area, with
  commentary and practice tips.
• Although treatises lack legal authority, they
  rank very high among secondary sources.

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Tools For Finding Treatises

• ALEPH FSUs online catalog
• Indexmaster electronic collection of treatise
  indices and tables of content
• WorldCat online catalog of thousands of world
  libraries
• Print Bibliography book about books
• Internet advice from the Web
• Electronic Databases e.g. Lexis Westlaw

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What Is ALEPH?

• The online catalog for FSU Libraries
• The tool that tells you what resources are
  available in your library and where they are
  located
• Accessible from both the Law Research Center
  Website and the FSU Libraries Website

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if you want to conduct a BROAD search. or when
you know EXACTLY what youre looking for.
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Do an Advanced search if...

• . . . your search is more specific than general.
• . . . you need to do complex Boolean searches.
• . . . you want to limit your search (library,
  format, language).

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What Is Indexmaster?

• A state-of-the-art mega-index to legal treatises
• A compilation of more than 10,000 titles from
  over 90 large and small legal publishers
• A tool that lets you search by keyword, author,
  title or publisher, then view the actual indices
  and tables of content of the titles in your
  results list
• Accessible from the Law Research Center Website

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What Is WorldCat?

• An online catalog of books, periodicals, and
  electronic materials in libraries worldwide.
• The worlds largest network of library content
  and services, including over 88 million titles in
  more than 400 languages.
• A tool to identify materials owned by other
  libraries, that you may want to purchase, or
  borrow through Interlibrary Loan.
• Accessible from both the Law Research Center
  Website and the FSU Libraries Website.

• books

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Printed Bibliography

• Information on legal information products, both
  print electronic
• Extensive section on Legal Treatises arranged by
  subject
• Scope notes on each, including the intended
  audience, strengths weaknesses, additional
  features, updating, cost

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Information from the Internet

• Must carefully evaluate the credibility of the
  source is it a listing by a respected
  university law school, such as Harvard or
  University of Chicago? Or is it a listing of
  whats available (regardless of quality) such as
  Amazon.com?
• Google legal treatises by subject

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Information from an Electronic Database

• Lexis Area of Law Treatises
• Westlaw Topical Materials by Area of Practice
  then Forms, Treatises and Other Practice
  Material

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In Conclusion, there are a variety of
tools to help you
locate the treatise you need

• ALEPH FSUs Online Catalog
• Indexmaster Treatise mega-index
• WorldCat Whats available in other libraries
• Svengalis Legal Information Buyers Guide
• Free Resources on the Internet
• Electronic treatise collections
• Your Reference Librarian!