Print Resources

Despite the increasing popularity of electronic legal resources, the library’s collection of print materials continues to grow. Patrons should be aware that most treatises, practice materials, and loose leaf services and many law reviews and legal periodicals (particularly pre-1980) are available only in print. The library’s collection is national in scope and tries to cover all areas of American law, particularly those areas emphasized in the Law Center’s curriculum. Currently, the library places special emphasis on developing the collection in the areas of Intellectual Property and Education Law.

The first floor of the library contains the basic collection of federal and state primary legal authorities including federal statutes, federal agency regulations, federal case law and treaties to which the United States is a party. The library maintains the print annotated statutes of every state and the print regulations for New Hampshire and several other New England states. The library also has the complete National Reporter System for published state case law. Pre-National Reporter official state reports are available in print for New Hampshire and in microfiche for all other states. The library subscribes to a selection of print West digests and Shepard ’s citators for the federal jurisdictions, the National Reporter System, and the New England states.

Secondary legal authorities are also housed on the first floor. The periodical collection includes over 1,000 major Anglo American legal journals and law reviews shelved alphabetically by most recent title in the compact shelving area. Unbound issues of periodicals are shelved with the bound volumes of the titles. The library staff compiles a handy alphabetical listing of all periodical titles in the collection. This list is available at the Circulation Desk and with the periodical indices. The Index to Legal Periodicals and Books, the Current Law Index, and LegalTrac provide access to journal articles.

In addition to primary legal sources and periodicals, the first floor also holds the treatise collection, arranged according to the Library of Congress classification system. Access to treatises is by author, title, subject, keyword, ISBN/ISSN, LC call number, or GPO Sudoc/ item number in the online catalog. Developed to support the Law Center curriculum as well as serve the practice needs of alumni/ae and attorney members, the treatises include monographs, practice and procedure sets, form books, and loose leaf services.

The library’s collection of government documents is shelved on the first floor. Since 1973 the library is a selective federal depository for U. S. government documents and receives item numbers related to law, intellectual property and education. Government documents are accessed through the online catalog and are assigned a special classification number called a SuDoc#. The government documents collection is available to the public.

A modest general reference collection including legal directories, dictionaries and encyclopedias is located on the main or second floor adjacent to staff offices. The reference materials are also accessed through MELcat, Pierce Law's online catalog.