Library Briefings

The Making of Modern Law

Online access to U.S. and U.K. legal treatises from 1800 to 1926

With thanks primarily to the Law Library, more than 22,000 legal treatises on British Commonwealth and American law are now available online to members of the Northwestern community. The Making of Modern Law is a fully searchable, full-text database of almost 10 million pages from works published between 1800 and 1926. The majority of these publications are from the Harvard Law School Library. There are analyses of law as well as secondary sources—as opposed to government documents, trial transcripts, or collections of law—ranging from short pamphlets to multi-volume monographs. Included in the 99 browse-able subject areas are bankruptcy, constitutional law, criminal responsibility, labor and social welfare, legal history, politics and government, regulated utilities, and transportation.

The Making of Modern Law can be accessed at http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/MOML?locID=nwulaw_main . This link will take you to the "Basic Search" page. The level of search power in "Basic" is impressive. Fields normally reserved for advanced searching—limits by publication dates or subjects, for example—can be completed on this first page. You can also browse "Topics" and select up to 10 to search simultaneously.

Additional options include advanced searches using Boolean operators and browsing indexes of authors and works. The interface is very clean, direct, and simple to use.

Lucy Lyons