Overview
New Books List
Rare Books
Government Documents
Video Materials
Online Databases
Microforms
The library contains over 400,000 volumes and includes resources in paper, microform, video and audio tape, and digital form. The collection, which is national in scope, covers all major areas of American law; includes primary legal materials and finding aids from all fifty states and the federal government; and features a substantial treatise and periodical collection. Electronic journals are listed by title and subject in the Boston College Libraries "Electronic Journals" list, and in Quest, the Boston College Libraries' catalog. In addition, the library contains appellate court reports and other materials from Canada, the United Kingdom, the United Nations, and the European Union. To meet the demands of the curriculum, including clinical programs and student journals, the library features a substantial collection of Massachusetts practice materials and is building its collections of international and comparative law materials.
New Books List
A New Books List featuring recently received law library titles is issued monthly in an online format. It is searchable by 112 broad legal subject areas, and provides a link to the catalog record in Quest for each title.
The library also houses a special collection of old and rare law books and manuscripts in the Daniel R. Coquillette Rare Book Room. Represented in this collection are the books that working English or American lawyers of the sixteenth through nineteenth centuries likely would have owned in their personal libraries. Other highlights include books and manuscripts pertaining to the history of American legal education through the nineteenth century.
Government Documents
The library is a selective depository of the United States government and receives approximately "11%" of available depository materials. These materials are primarily law-related. The Federal Depository Library Program (FDLP) provides online access to several specialized collections of full text information of interest to researchers including a collection of the core documents of US democracy as well as online access to the FDLP electronic collection. Material received through the depository program is available for use by the general public during normal library hours and is listed in Quest.
The library owns a small collection of videotapes, which may be viewed in the library audiovisual resource rooms and group study rooms, or shown in class. These materials are listed in Quest, and may be borrowed at the Information Desk. In addition, the library has a collection of feature films (primarily in DVD format) which deal with law-related themes. These are intended primarily for recreational viewing by members of the law school community, and may be borrowed by BC Law School faculty, students and staff for up to 4 days. Titles in this collection are in Quest.
Access is available from workstations in the library to a variety of electronic databases including several indexes to legal periodicals; Hein Online, LLMC Digital - Law Library Microform Consortium Digital; and the Social Law Library's web site. Databases to which the library subscribes are listed on the "Alphabetical List of Databases" page of the library's webpage, and in Quest, the library catalog. Additional databases available through O'Neill library are linked from their "Online Databases" list, and in Quest. The library also maintains links from its Legal Research web pages to selected free websites.
To provide patrons with better access to older materials, expensive materials, and very large sets, the library holds many materials in microformat. Located on Level 1, the librarys significant collection of materials in microformat includes complete runs of the Congressional Record, the Code of Federal Regulations and the Federal Register, as well as records and briefs for the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and the Massachusetts Appeals Court. UN documents, legal newspapers and historical documents are also available in microformat. Among the special microform sets are a collection of canon law, the Blackstone Collection of the Yale Law Library, the Karl Llewellyn papers, records from the trial of Adolf Eichmann, and Historic American Trials, 1803-1904. A guide to microform materials is available online, in the Microform Room, and at the Information Desk. (Not all of the librarys microform materials are included in the online catalog.) Paper copies can be made from both microfiche and microfilm using a photocopy card. Fiche-to-fiche copying may be arranged by contacting the Interlibrary Loan department or stopping by the Information Desk.
