Searching for resources
There are two key library catalogues you may use when studying at Cambridge:
- Girton Library catalogue (Heritage) – search Girton Library’s collection and see if items are available or already on loan. See our eGuide for further information.
- iDiscover – to search across the University’s print and electronic collections (including books, eBooks, journals, newspapers, articles and much more). Most, but not all, of Girton’s collection can be found here. See our iDiscover: eGuide for further information.
You will be able to borrow from Girton’s Main Library and the University Library. Your subject-specific library is the Squire Law Library. However, there may be other libraries within Cambridge which stock useful resources. For a full list of the Cambridge libraries see the directory and check each library for access guidelines.
Subject-specific resources
You can access a number of invaluable law databases and websites. For many of the databases, you will need a password. See Legal databases (Squire Law Library) for information on password and access restrictions. To start your search use the following list of resources:
The Squire Law Library’s list of electronic resources
The Law Faculty’s list of legal resources
The University Library’s list of databases and select Law from the drop-down list
Electronic journals
For information on searching general databases and journals see Beyond books: finding articles and journals. To find links to specific journals and see a full list of the resources available see the eresources & ejournals LibGuide.
Many of the major law journals are available electronically as searchable databases:
Justis.com For access to titles such as Family law, Human rights, Law reports, Law reports digest, The English reports, Times law reports, Weekly law reports
HeinOnline For access to English reports and various American legal publications
LexisNexis Butterworths For access to the All England law reports, Butterworths human rights cases and others
WestLaw For access to US legal databases and journals such as Criminal law review, Company lawyer, European law review, Journal of business law, and Planning & environmental law bulletin
Journals which are freely available over the web include:
Law Society Gazette The official magazine of The Law Society
Web journal of current legal issues
Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals
Finding ebooks
You can find most of the university’s ebooks via iDiscover. To understand what an ebook is, and what ebooks are available – read Introduction to ebooks. For help with searching for ebooks read Finding and using ebooks.
Other websites
For information on searching for websites, see eGuides: Effective internet searching. An excellent introduction to using the web is available from the Virtual Training Suite at Virtual Training Suite.
One of the easiest ways to discover information of academic value on the internet is to use one of the many subject-related hubs or gateways:
British and Irish Legal Information Institute
CURIA The Court of Justice of the European Union
Eagle-i internet portal for law From the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies
EUR-Lex The portal to European Union law and new.eur-lex.europa.eu/homepage.html?locale=en
Lawbore From City University Law School
Lawlinks From the University of Kent
Legal resources in the UK and Ireland Maintained by Delia Venables
Squire Law Library’s lists of links for:
World Legal Information Institute
Institute of Advanced Legal Studies via the catalogue of the University of London Research Library Services