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Paralegal Research |
Recommended Web Sites on Paralegal Research
LEXIS-NEXIS - click here for how to use the Lexis-Nexis service at
Skyline College Library – accessible
only in the library
Lexis Nexis Academic Universe
on campus or
off campus w/ library card
The Virtual Chase - http://www.virtualchase.com/
Articles on specific research issues and
topics, annotated guides (including researching companies and securities, as
well as legal information), and course materials for two workshops: Internet
Skills and Strategies for the Legal Researcher and Government Resources on the
Internet.
Law Library Resource Xchange (LLRX) - http://www.llrx.com/
This "Webzine" has a special
focus on research, management, and technology topics for legal professionals. Contains articles, Web reviews, and columns written by law
librarians, attorneys, and other experts.
What is Lexis-Nexis?
Lexis-Nexis is one of the world's largest
online database services. Online database services are like supermarkets
of databases. These services provide access to many different databases through
a single search interface. Often, other companies--called database
producers--create the databases which are then made available through one or
more database service. All types of databases may be available from database
services, often including many very specialized databases that are not
available from other sources. Generally, users of a database service are
required to have an account with the service before they can do any searches.
Lexis-Nexis contains
thousands of publications which provide extensive sources of information in the
areas of law, news, business, finance, government, medicine, technology and
other subjects. Most publications in Lexis-Nexis are available in full-text,
but very few academic journals are included. The only two subject areas in
which Lexis-Nexis does have extensive coverage of academic journals are law and
medicine. The service includes the full-text of a large number of law review
journals and medical journal article abstracts are available through a version
of the Medline database. (Another online information service--Dialog--has the most
extensive coverage of academic journals in all subject areas.) Dates of
coverage for many of the publications in Lexis-Nexis go back to the 1980's,
with many of the legal documents (state and federal case law, statutes, law
reviews, etc.) dating back earlier. Files are updated continuously.
Research areas
Because it has such an
extensive coverage of full-text publications, Lexis-Nexis provides the
opportunity to do the most detailed searching for research topics related to:
History
Lexis started in 1973
as the first major computer-assisted legal research service. Initially, the
service focused on building a comprehensive selection of legal documents (state
and federal case law, statutes, law reviews, etc.) In 1979, a new service,
called Nexis, was created to include the full-text of
news publications (beginning with the first full-text online version of the New
York Times). Nexis has expanded to include
international, national and regional newspapers, new services, magazines, and
television and radio broadcast transcripts, including CNN and National Public Radio
programs.
Today, Lexis-Nexis is
essentially one combined online database service of thousands of files,
organized into about 150 categories, called libraries. 1.3 million professionals worldwide - lawyers, accountants, financial
analysts, journalists, law enforcement officials, information specialists and
others- subscribe to the Lexis-Nexis services. They perform more than 300,000
searches per day. The combined services contain more than 18,600 sources:
13,800 news and business sources and 4,800 legal sources.
To search for
information in Lexis-Nexis, users must log on to the service and then select a
library and a file to search.
Skyline Library has an
educational account for use by Skyline students, faculty and staff for
course-related research. Students should be in (or have completed training in
the use of Lexis-Nexis in a Skyline course that provides such training (e.g.,
Paralegal or Library Research courses). Only one user at a time may access
Lexis-Nexis. No access from home is available. The college pays a flat monthly
fee for unlimited educational use of Lexis-Nexis,
however businesses that subscribe to the service for their research needs must
pay fees according to the number and type of files accessed, the amount of time
online and/or the number of documents viewed, printed or downloaded.
Click here to access Lexis-Nexis Paralegal Community
Lexis-Nexis online community
offering new, information and resources for paralegal professionals, including
registration for free e-mail Paralegal Update.
FOR DIRECTIONS ON HOW TO USE
LEXIS-NEXIS AT SKYLINE LIBRARY, CLICK HERE.
last
revised: 5-5-08 by
These materials may be used
for educational purposes if you inform and credit the author and cite the
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