Subject resources

 
 

Help with using the Law Collection

Collection arrangement and access

Text books can be found in the Dewey sequence

  • 340 – 349 for legal topics,
  • 360s including welfare rights and criminology,
  • 320s and 350-355 for politics, government and public administration.

Other resources covering the law and legal system can be found elsewhere in the ground floor reading room, or via the enquiry desk:

  • Directories
  • Journals
  • Law reports, indexes and citators
  • Legislation
  • Legal encyclopaedias and "Current Law"
  • European Union Collection (see link on left)
  • UK Official (parliamentary and government) publications (see link on left)
  • Official Publications indexes
  • Statistics
  • Computer and online resources
Finding books and materials

The resources shelved in the reading room represent only the tip of a huge collection of official publications, law reports, older text books, and journal and directory back files.

Text books can be located using the library catalogue. However, law reports, back issues of journals, legislation and many parliamentary publications cannot be found in this way.

Other finding aids for identifying and requesting materials:

For identifying journals and the length of their back file: Periodicals catalogue

For identifying and requesting government publications: some information is contained on the UK Official Publications information page. However, you will find that for most official/government publications it will be necessary to ask a member of staff.

For identifying cases, whether and where they are reported, amendments to and judicial considerations of legislation etc.:

  • Indexes to Official/Government publications; available upon request
  • Indexes to law reports
  • case and legislation citators
  • Lexis Nexis

Electronic resources for finding publication details:
Available in the library:

Available freely on the web (useful for identifying materials held at Westminster Reference Library):

Other electronic resources
As well as Citizen's Advice Notes Westminster library membership affords you additional free access to some other useful subscription-only websites. All of the following sites can be accessed via the Gateway, just type in your library card number.

  • KnowUK contains useful articles from books such as Which? 450 legal problems solved
  • CredoReference offers some basic legal reference sources.
  • Oxford Reference Online also offers useful legal reference resources such as dictionaries.
  • Encyclopaedia Britannica (and other general encyclopaedias available through the Gateway) provide useful entries and occasional articles on legal subjects.

You can look for articles in newspapers and magazines using:

Or for older stories try: