Subject Guides: Law and Legal Studies: Books

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Clement Ho

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Subjects:International Studies, Jewish Studies, Statistical Information

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Where to Find Books?

The following are the main sources for finding books in libraries.

American University's Catalog
Books, journals, DVDs in the collections of American University Library, George Mason U., George Washington U., Georgetown U., Catholic U., U. of the District of Columbia, Gallaudet U., Marymount U., and Trinity U.

WorldCat (OCLC FirstSearch)
Publications from before 1000 B.C. to present. Updated: Daily.
The largest library catalog in the world. Includes records from many library collections of books, manuscripts, maps, computer programs, musical scores, films, slides, newspapers, journals, magazines, sound recordings, and videotapes.

Jisc Library Hub Discover
Jisc Library Hub Discover is the merged online catalogues of many major university, specialist, and national libraries in the United Kingdom and Ireland, including the British Library.
The European Library
Search across the catalogues of the national libraries of Europe (except for Belarus) and Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey.

Current Online Books

The following databases of ebooks contain current book titles. Each of the titles in these databases can be found in the American University's ALADIN catalog above.

IMF E-Library
Contains the working papers as well as books, periodicals, and reports published by the International Monetary Fund.
OECD iLibrary
Books, periodicals, statistics and working papers from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
RAND Reports
Over 17,000 books, reports, working papers and other publications dating back to 1948 by the think tank, Rand Corporation. The more recent publications are free online.
World Bank e-Library
Contains over 1,700 World Bank books and reports (1968 to present; all titles from 2000 to present) and over 2,400 Policy Research Working Papers.
Cambridge Companions Complete Collection
Access to hundreds of electronic books, introductions to the major works and figures in the areas of literature, philosophy, religion and the classics.
Cambridge Histories Online
Online version of over 300 volumes of the Cambridge Histories book series published since 1960. Covers the history of the ancient and modern world, literature, language and linguistics, philosophy and religion, political thought, music and theater, science, economic history, and law in America.

Free Older Online Books

The vast majority of books that are free online are published prior to 1923. Their U.S. copyright has expired and they are now in the public domain.

Internet Archive: Ebook and Texts Archive
Has many out-of-copyright books free for download. The Internet Archive Text Archive contains a wide range of fiction, popular books, children's books, historical texts and academic books.
HathiTrust
The HathiTrust Digital Library is a digital preservation repository for a number of large research libraries.
Google Books
Project Gutenberg
Universal Digital Library: Million Book Collection

Older Online Books in WRLC Catalog

The following databases of ebooks contain older book titles. Each of the titles in these databases can be found in the American University's ALADIN catalog above. Access is limited to .

The advantage to searching each databae versus the ALADIN catalog is that one can search full text of every book in each database, not just the book record.

ACLS Humanities E-Books
The American Council of Learned Societies Humanities E-Book Collection contains 5,400 scholarly books from 250 publishers in the subject areas of anthropology, area studies, international history, literature, philosophy, political science, and women's studies.
Early American Imprints, Series I & II: Combined
This interface combines the two databases: Early American Imprints, Series I: Evans, 1639-1800; and Early American Imprints, Series II: Shaw-Shoemaker, 1801-1819.
Early English Books Online
A collection of over 125,000 titles, from the first book published in English, through 1700. Disciplines covered include literature, history, philosophy, theology, music, and the sciences.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online
Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) features the digitized format of 150,000 printed works -- nearly every significant English-language and foreign-language title printed in the United Kingdom, along with thousands of important works from the Americas.
Making of Modern Law: Legal Treatises 1800-1926
Digitized images of 22,000 British and American legal treatises from 1800 to 1926. They include books, casebooks, practice books, pamphlets, letters, speeches, essays and other works about the making of law, but not the transcript of actual laws or actual cases.
Making of the Modern World: Part I: Goldsmith-Kress Collection 1450-1850
Images from 61,000 works of literature on economics and business published from 1450-1850.