Electronic access to English Reports (1220-1865)
The other day, I had to look up an old British case from the first half of the 19th century.
A colleague pointed out to me that I should check the name of the reporter in the index of the English Reports. In the first half of the 20th century, some 100,000 English cases spanning the years 1220 to 1865 were reprinted verbatim in 178 volumes of these Reports.
Lo and behold, the name of the reporter was included along with a reference to the appropriate volume numbers in the English Reports where the material had been reprinted. Easy.
A few days later, I discovered that the English Reports, indexes and all, are available on HeinOnline. It was the kind of moment that makes you want to smack yourself in the head (or maybe go ahead and create that research guide on UK legal research I have been promising to eventually get around to).
Which brings me to my main point in this post. There are days when I think law libraries now have access to so many electronic ressources, it is easy to forget (or easy to not even know any more) that we have the material.
A colleague pointed out to me that I should check the name of the reporter in the index of the English Reports. In the first half of the 20th century, some 100,000 English cases spanning the years 1220 to 1865 were reprinted verbatim in 178 volumes of these Reports.
Lo and behold, the name of the reporter was included along with a reference to the appropriate volume numbers in the English Reports where the material had been reprinted. Easy.
A few days later, I discovered that the English Reports, indexes and all, are available on HeinOnline. It was the kind of moment that makes you want to smack yourself in the head (or maybe go ahead and create that research guide on UK legal research I have been promising to eventually get around to).
Which brings me to my main point in this post. There are days when I think law libraries now have access to so many electronic ressources, it is easy to forget (or easy to not even know any more) that we have the material.
Labels: legal research and writing, UK
2 Comments:
Don't feel too bad about not knowing or remembering that HeinOnline now offers access to the English Reports Full Reprint; we've only had the content available since February of 2007. Consider yourself on the cutting edge!
Matthew Best
HeinOnline
Buffalo, NY
This is quite handy when it comes to tracking down nominate reports
http://libweb.lancs.ac.uk/ercite.htm
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