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Dictionaries | Handbooks | Periodical Indexes | Law Reviews | Internet Sources

School of Law at Gonzaga University

Dictionaries and Encyclopedias
Reviewing a subject-specific dictionary or encyclopedia which would encompass the topic you are researching is a good way to start a research project.

Black's Law Dictionary.KF 156 B532 1999 Ref
Crime and the Justice System in America: An Encyclopedia.HV 6789 C6884 1997 Ref
Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice.4 vols. HV 6017 E52 2002 Ref
Historic U.S. Court Cases.KF 352 Z9 H572001Ref
Landmark Decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court. KF4549F562003 Ref
U.S. Laws, Acts and Treaties.KF 385 A4 U152 2003 Ref
Violence in America.3 vols. HN 90 V5 v5474 1999 Ref
West's Encyclopedia of American Law.2d ed. 13 vols. KF154 W47 2004Ref
"WWWLIA Legal Dictionary" Online: (www.duhaime.org/diction.htm)

Handbooks and Guides to the Literature
Handbooks will identify and discuss the reference sources, periodical indexes, bibliographies and major publications pertinent to research in that area.

City Crime Rankings.HV 6787 C57 2002 Ref
Crime State Rankings.HV 6787 C77 2003 Ref
Legal Research on the Internet.KF 242 A1 H43 1999
Research Methods in Criminal Justice.HV 6024.5 F58 1994
Research Methods in Criminal Justice and CriminologyHV 6024.5 H33 2003 Ref
Voices from the Field: Readings in Criminal Justice Research. HV 6024.5 V65 2000 Chastek
Teaching Legal Research and Providing Access to Electronic Resources.KF 240 .T4 2001 Chastek

U.S Constitution

Constitutional law is an important area of scholarly discussion and publication with a wide range of resources in reference materials as well as in scholarly journals and monographs.

Complete Bill of Rights.KF 4744 1997 Ref
Constitution of the United States of America.KF 4527 J39 1973 Ref
Encyclopedia of Constitutional Amendments, Proposed Amendments and Amending Issues, 1789-2002. KF 4548 E53 2000 Ref
Encyclopedia of the American Constitution.6 vols. KF4548 E53 2000Ref
Founders' Constitution. 5 vols.KH 4502 F68 1987 Ref
The U.S. Constitution, A to Z. KF 4548 M33 2002 Ref

Periodical Indexes and Abstracts
Indexes and abstracts help you locate articles on specific topics in journals and magazines. Indexes to journal articles are often discipline-oriented in their coverage. Because law and criminal justice topics have many multi-disciplinary aspects, other disciplinary indexes may also be useful, depending upon the research topic. Many periodical indexes are available on the Foley Library homepage (www.foley.gonzaga.edu) under "Indexes and Databases."

Find Law.(www.findlaw.com)
A comprehensive though not exhaustive searchable directory of Internet legal resources.

HeinOnline.
A comprehensive and fully searchable online collection of legal research materials including over 400 law reviews available in full-text

.

Ingenta
Contains tables of contents of more than 25,000 current journals as well as the full-text of many journals.

National Criminal Justice Reference Service
Contains summaries of criminal justice journal articles, books, reports and other documents. Many available in full-text or may be requested through InterLibrary Loan.

ProQuest Newspapers.
Provides access to major national newspapers as well as selected articles from newspapers in Spokane, Seattle and other cities in Washington State.

Primary Sources Online -- Laws and Legislation
Use the following online sources to find state and federal case law, legislation, tax regulations and other primary sources.

RIA Checkpoint.
Provides access to a wide array of primary source materials for accounting and tax law, including the Federal Tax Code and Regulations, Tax Court case law, Internal Revenue rulings, publications and bulletins. Information can be retrieved via keyword searching, as well as by case name, citation and ruling. Includes text of proposed, enacted and confirmed legislation. Productivity tools are available for calculations and comparative analyses for personal, business and investment options

Thomas Legislative Information on the Internet.(Library of Congress: http://thomas.loc.gov)
Provides access to current federal legislation, the Congressional Record, House and Senate bills and resolutions, public laws, roll call votes, treaties, the U.S. Code, appropriations legislation, presidential nominations and more.

Washington State Legislation and Laws.(http://www1.leg.wa.gov/CodeReviser/)
Provides access to the text of the Revised Code (RCW), the Administrative Code (WAC) as well as state legislation session laws (1997-) and the WA state register (1998-).An option for searching the text of bills, the RCW, WAC and the State Register is available.

Law Reviews and Legal Journals
Law reviews and legal journals are found by checking the periodical holdings of both Foley and Chastek, the Law Library atGonzaga. Over 400 full-text law reviews are available in Hein Online and to a limited degree in other databases.Use Periodicals @ Foley on the library's homepage (www.foley.gonzaga.edu) to determine if a journal or law review is available in the library or in an online database.

Government, Law and Public Policy Journals @ Gonzaga
Click here for direct access to a listing of the periodicals available in Foley and in the Chastek Law Library. Remember that most periodicals are available in electronic form in the library's databases in full-text.

Internet Sources
More and more legal resources and statistics are available on the Internet, including numerous federal and state publications, court cases, public laws and other resources. Some important web sites are listed here. For a more complete list of Internet sources, use the guide (http://lib.law.washington.edu/research/research.html) at the Gallagher Law Library at the University of Washington

Bureau of Justice Statistics . (http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/)
Provides statistical documents relating to criminal justice and links to other BJS publications, including "Key Crime and Justice Facts at a Glance."Crime in the United States is available inthe federal documents collection, J 1.14/7.

FBI – Uniform Crime Reports. (www.fbi.gov/ucr/ucr.htm)
A compilation of statistics from the Bureau of Justice which focuses on crime, criminals, judicial processing, corrections, etc.The Sourcebook is also available in the federal documents collection( J 29.9/6).

Federal Bureau of Prisons – Facts and Stats. (www.bop.gov/)
Provides a statistical overview of the federal prison system, including population, age, gender, ethnicity and sentencing statistics.Includes links to weekly population reports.

Federal Sentencing Statistics by State. (www.ussc.gov/index.htm)
Statistics from the U.S. Sentencing Commission are organized by circuit court and state.

Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics. (www.albany.edu/sourcebook/)
A compilation of statistics from the Bureau of Justice which focus on crime, criminals, judicial processing, corrections, etc.at the state and federal levels.

United States Sentencing Commission (www.ussc.gov/index.htm)
Provides general information on the USSC, including guidelines manuals and amendments, reports to congress, hearing transcripts and testimony as well as federal sentencing statistics organized by state and circuit courts.

Guide to Law Online – Library ofCongress.(www.loc.gov/law/guide/)
A site for many aspects of U.S. law, including the U.S. constitution, federal legislation, U.S. Code, public laws, federal and state courts and other types of legal information.

Revised by J. Spencer, 3/05