FINDING TREATISES

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FINDING TREATISES

• Presented by
• Margaret Clark, Reference Librarian
• FSU College of Law Library
• September 15, 2005

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Secondary Sources

• Provide an overview of your research topic
• Offer context for the legal issues involved
• Leads to significant primary sources

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TYPES OF SECONDARY SOURCES

• Legal encyclopedias
• Law review articles
• Treatises
• Restatements
• American Law Report articles

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WHAT ARE TREATISES?

• 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.
• Provides comprehensive and scholarly background
  information.
• Provides abundant citations to primary sources.
• Synthesize law in particular area, with
  commentary and practice tips.
• Although treatises lack legal authority, they
  rank very high among secondary sources.
• Primarily published in book form.

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How useful or credible is the source?

• Has it been cited in a textbook?
• Is this treatise kept on Reserve?
• Has it been cited by the courts?
• Has it been published in multiple editions
• Are they published by reputable publishers
  Aspen, West, Matthew Bender, LexisNexis
  
  
  
  
  

Adapted from Kunz, et al., Process of Legal
Research, 6th ed. (2004)
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• What are some good tools needed to locate books
  and treatises?
• Aleph FSU online catalog
• IndexMaster electronic collection of indexes
  and tables of contents
• WorldCat online catalog of thousands of world
  libraries
• NetLibrary collection of electronic books

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What is Aleph

• Main online catalog for FSU libraries.
• Library catalogs tell you what resources are
  available in your library and where they are
  located.

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Accessing Aleph
FSU Law Library Web site
Off-Campus Proxy
FSUs Strozier Library Web site
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Accessing ALEPH off campus
FSU Law Library www.law.fsu.edu/library
FSU Libraries www.lib.fsu.edu
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How to Search Aleph

• Search Help button
• Basic Searching
• Advanced Searching

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For help.
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Do a Basic keyword search . . .
. . . if you want to conduct a broad search.
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Do a Basic browse search . . .
. . . 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.
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What is Indexmaster

• A compilation of the indices and/or tables of
  content of
• over 10,000 legal titles
• from over 90 legal publishers

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Accessing IndexMaster
Law Library www.law.fsu.edu/library
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Worldcat Searching

• What is WorldCat?
• Online catalog of books, periodicals, and
  electronic materials in libraries worldwide.
• Most comprehensive resource for bibliographic
  information
• offers 52 million bibliographic records.
• spans 4000 years of knowledge
• represents 400 languages

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Why is WorldCat useful in legal research?

• Identifies materials owned
• by other libraries.

Identifies materials researcher may want to
purchase or obtain through Interlibrary Loan.
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How do I access WorldCat?
From FSU Libraries home page _at_
http//www.lib.fsu.edu
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For additional help, follow the FirstSearch
tutorial found on the FSU Libraries homepage.
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What is netLibrary?

• Collection of electronic books from a broad range
  of disciplines including
• reference books
• scholarly and professional books
• popular works
• Digital versions of
• print materials.

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How do I access netLibrary?
Click the URL to go to the digital copy of that
book.
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How do I access netLibrary?
FSU Libraries homepage _at_ http//www.lib.fsu.edu.
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Additional sources or techniques

• Svengalis Legal Information Buyers Guide and
  Reference Manual
• Use Internet for reputable listing
• Harvards Legal Treatises by Subject
• Arizona States Legal Treatises list
• Electronic versions of treatises in
• LexisNexis secondary sources
• Westlaw TOC or TEXTS database
• Subject and Call number locations (library)