Category Archives: Legal Research

ProQuest Congressional Publications

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Looking for US Congressional publications? We how have access to ProQuest Congressional, the most comprehensive collection of historic and current US Congressional information available anywhere online. Coverage for many of the included collections begins in 1789 and goes right up to the current Congress. The collection includes the full text of congressional publications, finding aids, a bill tracking service, the full text of public laws and other research materials to enable both novice and experienced researchers to complete many types of research projects using a single, user-friendly interface.

Since Congress is interested in all public policy, social, and economic issues, the database is an effective source for general research in many academic disciplines, in addition to research related to specific legislative proposals and laws.

Collection Overview

  • Access the full text of congressional publications through basic subscription links or digital collection optional modules
  • Read congressional testimony by experts, administration witnesses, and affected parties
  • Discover a law’s intent by tracing its legislative history
  • Use research carried out by congressional committee staffers or Congressional Research Service experts as a source for your own research project
  • Use well-known CIS Index abstracts and controlled vocabulary indexing to locate congressional publication content
  • Retrieve authoritative statistics on a wide range of topics
  • Search the Congressional Record, the U.S. Code, Statutes at Large, Code of Federal Regulations, Federal Register, Rules of Congress, and political news sources
  • Use the Hot Bills & Hot Topics feature to obtain information on the leading legislative and political issues of the day

Expanded Tribunal Coverage on WestlawCanada

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WestlawCanada’s coverage of tribunal decisions continues to expand. A significant recent addition is the collection of decisions of the Discipline Committee of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (the “College”), which hears matters of professional misconduct or incompetence. The comprehensive collection covers decisions of the Committee from January 1, 1992 onwards.

Decision of the Discipline Committee are published on the What’s New page of the College’s website as they become available; unfortunately, this page does not seem to include a comprehensive archive. Further information about decisions can be obtained by using the College’s Doctors Search function on the.

Regulations Added to QuickCITE Citator on Quicklaw

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Now you can note up regulations from 10 jurisdictions with QuickCITE on Quicklaw. This added functionality is available for British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland and Labrador, Yukon and the Northwest Territories. Federal and Nova Scotia regulations will be added by the end of this month.

With the addition of this new functionality, the relevant search form name has been changed from QuickCITE® Statute Citator to QuickCITE® Legislation Citator. To see the new icon that it appears in the title bar of any document online, click here.

For more information on how to note up legislation on QuickLAW, including regulations, click here.

Free eBooks from CALI’s eLangdell Press and the Legal Information Institute

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Sarah Glassmeyer, law librarian and Director of Content Development for CALI (the Center for Computer-Assisted Legal Instruction) reports in recent post on the Law Librarian Blog that CALI’s eLangdell Press has now publsihed the  Federal Rules of Evidence, Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.  The ebooks were compiled by the good folks at the Legal Information Institute at Cornell University Law School.  They include:

  • The complete rules as of December 1, 2010.
  • All notes of the Advisory Committee immediately following each rule.
  • Internal links to rules referenced within the rules.
  • External links to the LII website’s version of the US Code.

Term Frequency Searching on Westlaw Canada

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What is Term Frequency Searching?

You can now limit the results retrieved by search queries on Westlaw Canada to display only those documents that refer to particular search terms extensively, or documents that have one term appear more often than others. You are now able to specify that a term must appear at least a certain number of times within a document before that document is included in your search result list.

How to use the new Term Frequency search functionality

There are two ways to add Term Frequency criteria to your search query. You can add the Term Frequency connector “atleast(term)” directly to the text of your search query – e.g., “grandparent & atleast4(adoption)”. Or you can use the Term Frequency link when doing a Terms and Connectors search.

For more information about and guidance on using Term Frequency to refine your Westlaw searches, click here.

Can’t Get Enough Quicklaw? New QL iPhone App

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Quicklaw subscribers can now download the new Quicklaw app for iPhone free at the Apple App Store.

Retrieve cases from the Quicklaw service right from your iPhone. Get on-the-go access to Quicklaw’s complete, editorially enhanced case law collection and note up Canadian court and tribunal cases with the tap of your finger.

No matter where you are, use the Quicklaw app to quickly and easily:

  • Search for a case by case name or citation number
  • Note up cases with the QuickCITE™ Case Citator
  • View the document
  • Bookmark and email documents.

You can get the Quicklaw app at the Apple App Store by searching for “Quicklaw” — the download is free! To use the app, you must have a current Quicklaw ID and password.

For more information, please contact Customer Support at 1-800-387-0899 or service@lexisnexis.ca.

Envisioning LGBT Human Rights

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York University visual arts Professor Nancy Nicol has been awarded a SSHRCC grant of $1 million over 5 years to lead a major international project on the impact of criminalizing sexual orientation and gender identity. Members of the research team include leading LGBT rights activists from Toronto and developing countries. The Osgoode library is providing research support to the researchers on the team and arranging access for them to both our print collections and our outstanding online resources. There’s more about Prof. Nicol and the project in an article in today’s Y-File.