Yesterday, we looked at how using a research guide could send a researcher to quality secondary sources. Today, let's look at how to find research guides. One great way is to go to a site that you know has lots of great quality research guides.
Professional legal researchers are well aware of the value of a good research guide. That's why we post our own research guides. Here are some of the top research guide sites. Two of them are commercial sites...
- University of Washington, Gallagher Law Library. There are over a hundred research guides posted on this site. In addition to guides on specific legal subjects there is an eclectic collection of guides on such diverse topics as Rubin Carter (The Hurricane) and Themis (the Greek goddess of justice).
- Georgetown Law Library. First, you will want to look at the Research Guides page for subject specific guides. You may recall from yesterday's post that a research guide is good at shwoing a researcher how to do something. For that purpose you will want to look at the "how to" guides and tutorials.
- Harvard Law School Library has a strong research guide and tutorial page. There are not as many subject specific guides but the tutorials are excellent.
- LLRX. This is a truly amazing resource. The main page is here. The subject specific guides are here. This site also supports a daily blog, beSpacific.com that you should follow if you are interested in law and technology.
- Zimmerman's Research Guide. The apt subtitle is "An Online Encyclopedia for Legal Researchers." Although the "encyclopedia" (a series of subject specific research guides) is maintained on a LexisNexis site, Zimmerman often recommends resources found only on Westlaw.
This is just a short list. There are dozens of academic sites that have quality legal research guides - Duke, Cornell, UCLA to mention a few. How do you find those guides? Look for the next post on how to search for legal research guides.
