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Law FAQs : Which databases should I use to find journal articles?

External law students have access to 4 databases which include the full text of journal articles:

• LexisNexis Butterworths (which includes the full text of journals published by Butterworths, one of the major legal publishers in the UK, e.g. New Law Journal .)
• Westlaw (which includes the full text of journals published by Sweet and Maxwell, another major legal publisher in the UK, e.g. Criminal law review.)
• HeinOnline (which includes many U.S. law journals, but also some important UK titles, e.g. Oxford Journal of Legal Studies. This database is particularly good for historical coverage. Please note, however, that recent issues are not usually included.)
• Academic Search Complete (this is not a specialist legal database. However, it does include the full text of some important law journals, e.g. Harvard law review.)
• Cambridge Journals Online (which includes the current issues of the Cambridge Law Journal).

The question is, which database should you use? This will depend on whether you already have a reference to a specific journal article, or, alternatively, whether you are simply looking for articles on a topic (without having any specific references). These two alternatives are considered in more detail below.

Which database should I use if I already have a reference to a specific article?

The Online Library's Journal Finder allows you to search a catalogue of the journal titles where you can get the full text of articles. You will see a search box for the Journal Finder on the right side of every page in the Online Library. Simply enter the journal title and click on go. If your search finds any journal titles, for each title in the results list there will be a link to the database where you will find the journal. For most journals you will then need to search the database for the journal title - please read our notes on searching databases for journal titles.

More information about the Journal Finder »

If you have any difficulties in finding the full text of a specific article, please do not hesitate to contact the Online Library for help.

Which database should I use to find journal articles on a topic? 

If you are looking for articles on a topic, you are advised to use the Legal Journals Index on the Westlaw database. For more information about using the Legal Journals Index, see out page on finding law articles,

The Legal Journals Index will also be useful if you only have an incomplete reference to a journal article and you require further details (for example, if you only know the author and title of an article but do not know the journal in which the article appears).