Law 

Materials which are referred to for brief or general information. Examples include:

• Background or overview synopses (encyclopedia)
• Definitions (dictionary)
• Synonyms (thesaurus)
• Statistics
• Biographical Details
• Maps (atlas)

Links/Resources to the right are specific to this discipline.  General sources can be found at the libraries Reference Sources page.

Reference resources are organized in an order that aids searching (alphabetically, chronologically, etc).  Most include an index which points users to the appropriate section.  Tips for searching:

1. Decide on your search terms
2. Try searching with them
3. If not satisfied with the results, try searching a synonym or related idea

Things to watch out for:

• Is the computer searching only the title/header of the entries or the full-text of the information?  You will get more results, but more of them will be irrelabent if you are searching the full-text.
• Are you searching for a proper noun (name, place,...)?  Make sure that the spelling is correct and try variations if it originated in a foreign language.
• Searching for something by date?  This is trickier than it sounds.  If possible, search for an event name or topic rather than a date, e.g. civil rights movement or hippies or flower children rather than 1960s.

Search a collection of reference books relating to law.

Or, search individual titles.

• American Justice. (Ref KF 154.A44 1996)
• Deskbook Encyclopedia of American School Law. (Ref KF 4114.D4 1994)
• Encyclopedia of the American Constitution. (Ref KF 4548.E53 1986)
• Encyclopedia of the American Judicial System. (Ref KF 154.E53 1987)
• Guide to the U.S. Supreme Court. (Ref KF 8742.W567 1990)
• West's Encyclopedia of American Law. (Ref KF 154.W47 1998) - a comprehensive general work on U.S. law. Annual supplements
• Religion and American Law. (Ref KF 4783.A68R45 2000)
• American Law Yearbook. (Ref KF 154.W472) annual.