Friday, May 18, 2012

Online Access to the International Encyclopaedia of Laws

Earlier this spring, we invited you to test-drive the online version of International Encyclopaedia of Laws, a looseleaf set whose volumes provide a general overview of 25 legal topics, as well as country-specific monographs which describe individual nations’ legislation and case law in those areas. The set is edited by practitioners in the field, making the volumes an excellent introduction to comparative practice on a particular topic.

The library had long received 20 of the available 25 topics in print (catalog record), but their looseleaf format made them cumbersome for researchers. The Goodson Law Library is pleased to announce that the online version of International Encyclopaedia of Laws is now active, and will replace the print set for current information (although the historical volumes will remain on the library shelf, where they are kept in call number order with other materials on the set's topic).

Researchers can access any of the topical sets through a search of the libraries’ online catalog for IEL [topic], e.g. IEL Constitutional Law. The various sections of the looseleaf set for a topic are divided into folders, and individual chapters can be downloaded in PDF.

A link to the online version of IEL has been added to the library's research guide to Foreign & Comparative Law. For assistance with using this online resource, be sure to Ask a Librarian.