RESEARCH GUIDE
As you know, you will be required to complete a number of research projects for Supreme Court Seminar. In an effort to help you begin your research, the library staff has prepared a bibliography of biographical materials on the nine current justices. This listing covers treatises as well as law review articles back to 1980; however, it should not be taken as comprehensive. There are many treatises and law review articles dealing with the philosophy of the Court, or the Court's treatment of various subjects, that were not included. These articles may include discussions of individual justice's treatment of specific subjects or other pertinent information. Also, in the interest of conserving space, we excluded short articles from newspapers. We own several publications (on microform) which you can browse through for relevant news stories. You can also use LegalTrac (Legal Resources Index) to obtain specific cites for relevant articles in these newspapers.
Please note that the Hearings and Reports on Successful and Unsuccessful Nominations of Supreme Court Justices is on Reserve and is inclusive through the hearings of Steven Breyer to be Associate Justice. Also on Reserve in microfiche are transcripts of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings of William Rehnquist to be Chief Justice and Antonin Scalia, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen G. Breyer to be Associate Justices. The transcripts of the Clarence Thomas nomination hearings are in four paperbound volumes and kept on Reserve with the Government Documents. Excerpts from the Senate Judiciary Committee hearings on Stephen G. Breyer's nomination can be found in the July 16, 1994, issue of the Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report and in the BREYER database on Westlaw.
If you prefer something "up close and personal," we have purchased a videotape series entitled In Search of the Constitution, which was featured on PBS several years ago. The series is hosted by Bill Moyers and includes eleven segments on various constitutional topics, including interviews with Justices Blackmun, Brennan, and O'Connor. For the titles of each video in the series, you can refer to the section of this bibliography which lists "Materials on Reserve for the Supreme Court Seminar." If you wish to view one of the video tapes, please check them out at the Circulation Desk.
To help you "spice" up your presentations and aspect papers, the library has, on Reserve, several books that may be of benefit to you:
Also, in our library, the following material is available to help you as you begin your research.
The two most widely used sources are Legal Resources Index (LegalTrac) and Index to Legal Periodicals and Books. You should look under the name of the justice you are researching, or under the general heading of United States Supreme Court.
Index to Legal Periodicals and Books (ILP) is the traditional source for legal periodical indexing. This title and its previous editions cover a wide variety of publications back to the late eighteenth century. In our library it can be found in paper (on the first floor of the library)or on LIAS E-Resources (from 1981-present).
Legal Resources Index (LRI) is a computerized, cumulative index covering periodicals from 1980 to date. It indexes more periodical titles than Index to Legal Periodicals. However, since LRI only began in 1980, any search for law review articles before that year would be limited to the Index to Legal Periodicals. LRI is available in our library from three different sources - LegalTrac (on the DSL Library web page select Legal Research Resources, select Databases & Reference Sources, then select LegalTrac), LEXIS, and WESTLAW.
The most up-to-date periodical indexing can be found in the current Current Index to Legal Periodicals (CILP), published weekly by the University of Washington Law Library. This publication is intended to keep the indexing up-to-date for current periodicals until the printed Index to Legal Periodicals volumes are available. It is available on Westlaw.
At the Dickinson College library, the Readers Guide to Periodical Literature, and the New York Times Index will also give you access to non-legal articles that may contain valuable information.
Tracking Supreme Court Cases: The most up-to-date paper source for tracking U.S. Supreme Court cases is U.S. Law Week, shelved on the second floor of the library on stack 420 near the Supreme Court Reporters. As its name implies, Law Week is updated weekly, however, the current volume is kept in the Reserve Area on the first floor. The library staff tries to file the updates as soon as they are received, but if you are unsure whether we might have received a new packet of update pages, feel free to ask if the latest pages have been filed. Law Week is also available on LEXIS.
Case Finding: Obviously, electronic sources such as LEXIS, WESTLAW, Loislaw, and Findlaw, can make case research quicker, and sometimes more efficient. However if you are unable to sufficiently narrow your electronic research, you may find print resources helpful. All the traditional sources for finding cases are available to you. For general case research the Eleventh Decennial Digest, Part 1 is completed covering 1996 to 2001. For more recent West topics or topics not cumulated in the Eleventh Decennial Digest, you will need to consult West's General Digests, 2001-. If you wish to focus on federal cases only, the Federal Practice Digest 4th and its predecessors provide the most comprehensive coverage. For state appellate cases, you can consult West's regional digests: Atlantic Digest, North Western Digest, Pacific Digest, and South Eastern Digest. However, the Library has state digests for the following states: Florida, Illinois, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia.
Briefs & Records: There are several ways to locate Supreme Court Briefs and Records. As soon as they are released and filmed, we receive the Briefs and Records for each Supreme Court case on microfiche. The microfiche are filed by docket number and are located inside the Microforms Room on the second floor of the library. If the docket number you want is not in the microfiche drawer, you can also access Supreme Court briefs on LEXIS or Westlaw. On Westlaw (SCT-BRIEF) the briefs are available even before the final decision is handed down. You may search by several methods; the most commonly used are docket number, case name, or keyword.
Oral Arguments: The transcripts of oral arguments presented to the U.S. Supreme Court are also available and filed by docket number, within the Briefs and Records microfiche collection. Several web sites provide access to selected oral arguments, either via transcript or audio recording. To lend an air of realism to a presentation or simply for personal enrichment, we have purchased a set of audio tapes entitled, May It Please the Court, edited by Peter Irons and Stephanie Guitton. These tapes are the only commercially available live recordings of 23 landmark cases as argued before the Supreme Court. The accompanying book is a complete transcript of the audio tape set and should be used to determine the specific tape that you wish to listen to. The book and the tapes are kept on Reserve in the Library.
To find which treatises the law library has in a specific subject area, you can conduct a subject or keyword search in the library's online catalog. This bibliography lists only those treatises about one of the nine current justices. There are many more general treatises which discuss the Court. These can be located by looking under the subjects:
For a particular justice, names of current or former justices can also be checked. For your "aspect" or "issue" project you can look under the specific topic that you have chosen, such as:
If you already know the name of the author or the title of the book that you want, look up the name or title with an author or title search of the online catalog, and note the classification number.
To significantly expand your search for treatises, we have ten "LIAS workstations" situated throughout the library. Among other things, the LIAS system provides access to The CAT, Penn State University Libraries online catalog, and access to the other "Big Ten" university library catalogs, as well. Although the primary focus of these library collections is nonlegal, it is likely that they would include some materials relevant to your research. If you are unsure how to use LIAS , one of the librarians will assist you.
ACLCP is a consortium of over twenty Central Pennsylvania college and university libraries. A single database comprising all of their library catalogs is available for searching over the internet at http://aclcp.library.net. If your research encompasses political, social, economic, scientific, or nonlegal issues, this website could be quite useful. A complete list of the member libraries can be found at the ACLCP website. Because some of the libraries are located nearby, you may find relevant items that you can obtain very quickly.
The law school is a selective depository for U.S. federal government documents, which means that we get a small percentage of what the government publishes. For Supreme Court materials, you may be able to find helpful publications by the Senate Judiciary Committee; the Supreme Court, itself; or other government organizations.
We have documents both in bound form and on microfiche. In order to retrieve a document, it is almost always necessary to have a full government document number. If you cannot find what you are looking for, please ask one of the librarians because these documents can be tricky to locate.
Subject access to government documents is available in our library through various sources:
DSL Online Catalog: The Law Library catalogs many, but not all, of the government documents that we receive. You can search for them by author, title, subject, or keyword. Once a title is located youwill need the government document number (sudoc. no.) or library call number to locate the item.
The Cat is the Penn State University Libraries online catalog, which can be accessed via LIAS. The University Libraries is a full U.S. Government document depository and they have cataloged most of the titles they receive from GPO. Once a title is located you will need the government document number (sudoc. no.) or library call number to locate the item in the DSL library or in another location.
Catalog of U.S. Government Publications (Monthly Catalog) is an index which provides access by either, title, subject, or keyword to most government documents published since 1976. It is available in print, cd-rom, or on the Web with each providing different dates of coverage.
CIS Index provides subject access primarily to legislative documents such as bills, reports, hearings, etc. It is located on the second floor of the library. There is an electronic counterpart to CIS Index, entitled Congressional Universe, and it is available through LIAS (Choose E-Resources, then click on Congressional/Legislative Resources.)
GPO Access provides online access to the Congressional Record, the Federal Register, the full text of bills introduced in Congress, the Congressional Record Index, the History of Bills, the U.S. Code, Public Laws of the Congress, and, through the Federal Bulletin Board, more than 6,000 other files from 25 Federal agencies. It is available via the Web at http://www.access.gpo.gov/su_docs.
The Congressional Research Service conducts intensive research at the request of Congress. Their reports are published as CRS Major Studies and Issue Briefs and contain extremely valuable information due to the high quality expertise of the CRS researchers. The library regularly receives these reports as part of a microfiche collection of CRS documents. The reports are indexed by subject and author in pamphlets (shelved in the Microforms Room on the second floor) that accompany that set. Selective reports have been placed on various websites, dating back to 1994, and can be accessed by name, number, or subject from the following websites:
Some of the most current, "cutting edge" information is available from specialized research centers, associations and organizations. Most of these groups publish newsletters, newspapers, journals or reports that can be quite valuable. Since the focus of these groups is concentrated in one narrow area, their members usually have a great deal of expertise in that subject. For a comprehensive listing, you can consult the Associations Unlimited (also known as Encyclopedia of Associations), an annual directory of organizations arranged by subject. Each entry provides the organization's name, address, phone, size of membership, activities of the group, and a list of publications. [Available in paper in the Reference collection, or electronically via LIAS or WESTLAW(EOA)]
To enhance and refine your research, the library is constantly expanding your access to computer databases. In addition to the traditional LEXIS service, you also have access to selected files in the NEXIS database. The NEXIS database permits you to conduct searches in a variety of non-legal publications such as newspapers (including the Christian Science Monitor, New York Times, L.A. Times), news wire services, business and financial journals, newsletters, magazines and patents. Via WESTLAW, in addition to traditional legal resources, you can access a wide range of nonlegal databases similar in scope to NEXIS. For example, the Westlaw newspaper database now includes quite a few local and regional newspapers (Harrisburg, Lancaster, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, York, etc.) that might provide a fresh perspective to your research.
When researching current Justices, do not overlook more general sources of information such as NEXIS and DIALOG. Both of these services have databases that index nonlegal magazines, periodicals, and newspapers. On WESTLAW you will find a separate database for each justice (use the specific Justice's last name) which contains opinions written by that Justice while sitting on the bench of any federal or state court. It also includes decisions in which the justice was the attorney of record, articles authored by the Justice, and selected testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
LEXIS and WESTLAW are rapidly expanding to keep pace with events that are unfolding worldwide. They are adding newspapers and periodicals in full text too rapidly to supply you with an accurate listing here. Instead, both services provide an online guide to the titles that are in their databases. So, if we do not own the newspaper or periodical that you need, do not forget to check LEXIS and WESTLAW. For example, the attached bibliography cites many articles in Legal Times, which is only kept in the library for one year. LEXIS has it in full text from 1982 to present, so you would not have to request these articles via interlibrary loan. Also, if your paper topic is in an area that is currently in transition, you should be able to track the latest developments on one of these online services.
The LIAS system also includes access to over 350 electronic databases and resources. Most of the databases are nonlegal, however, they may contain pertinent legal and nonlegal information valuable to your research. You can enhance your research by consulting the list of available resources found on the LIAS website under "E-Resources." The list of databases does increase as new resources are acquired by the University Libraries. Some databases that might be of interest are:
Guide sheets for searching some LIAS databases are located in the library reference area.
There are several reliable websites that provide access to information about the U.S. Supreme Court. Several are listed below:
The library staff is happy to obtain from other libraries those materials that we don't own in our collection. If you find a citation to a book or periodical that we don't have, and that you need, fill out an interlibrary loan request form at the circulation desk. We will try to fill your request as quickly as possible, but if the item can only be borrowed from a distant library, it can sometimes take over two weeks to receive the item in the mail. For this reason, you would be well advised to begin your research early so that we can guarantee that you will get the materials you need in time to write your paper.
As a Penn State graduate student, you have library privileges at all university libraries. The policies may differ somewhat from library to library, however, at most campuses you should be given full borrowing privileges and access to the library collection and LIAS databases. If asked, you must present your law school ID to qualify for university library services.
You are permitted to use the Dickinson College library, the U.S. Army War College library, and any ACLCP member library as long as you are an enrolled student at Dickinson School of Law. In some cases this will include on-the-spot borrowing privileges. Please make sure you have your law school ID card when you arrive at either of these facilities, also.
The nearby Dickinson College library has numerous resources available including periodical indexes and treatises. While the emphasis of their collection would not be legal, they may have material that can help you. If you are working on a topic that has recently been in the news, the College library has back issues of the New York Times, Christian Science Monitor, and Wall Street Journal on microfilm and has indexes for all three newspapers.
The U.S. Army War College library has a comprehensive collection of materials from foreign countries, including foreign newspapers and periodicals from selected areas. They also have back issues of the daily Foreign Broadcast Information Service Reports. Depending on your paper topic, this library could be a valuable repository for relevant materials.
The ACLCP member libraries are all located on college campuses within Central Pennsylvania. Our membership entitles DSL students to borrowing privileges and interlibrary loan services from all other members.
The H. Laddie Montague, Jr. Law Library is staffed with a professional librarian from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Thursday; 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday; and with virtual reference assistance available through the Common Plea Reference Service.
