Searching for Journal Articles - Local Government

Search Lexis full-text law reviews AND Westlaw full-text law reviews. Although there is a lot of overlap, you should search both Lexis and Westlaw since their databases include many different articles. [This search will cover most of the law review articles written since the mid-1990s.]

Search Index to Legal Periodicals and Books on Lexis (LAWREV:ILP) OR Westlaw (ILP) OR the Index to Legal Periodicals and Books Internet Database. (Note: This Internet database is only accessible from computers on campus through the library's "subcription database" link.) [This search will cover many more articles than the full-text database search in step one, since this index includes almost every law review article written in the United States since 1980. However, you may retrieve fewer articles than you located in step one since this is not a full-text search.]

Search Legal Resource Index on Lexis (LAWREV:LGLIND) OR Westlaw (LRI) OR the LegalTrac Internet database. (Note: This Internet database is only accessible from computers on campus through the library's "subcription database" link.) [This search will include a few additional journal articles, and articles from bar journals and legal newspapers written since 1980 that were not searched in steps one and two. Like the index in step two, this is not a full-text search; Legal Resource Index and LegalTrac are simply online versions on the print Current Law Index.]

Search Current Index to Legal Periodicals(CILP), an Internet resource that is only accessible from computers on campus, OR search CILP on Westlaw (CILP). This index is published every week, but you only need to search the past two months. If you use Westlaw, you can either browse the most recent issues or you can select "edit query" to search these issues. [This will update your searches in steps one through three. You'll only need to read the most recent eight issues of CILP, because prior issues have already been included in your results from steps two and three.]

If articles on your topic may have been published prior to 1980, then you need to use the print version of Index to Legal Periodicals and Books. This index is located on the Index Wall in the 4th floor stacks; search each volume using the listed subject headings. [This step is necessary if you need to check articles written before 1980.]