This guide is designed to help you start your Library research. Please feel free to email me if you get stuck, have additional research questions, would like to set up an appointment, or have other sources to include in the guide.
Off-Campus Access to Journals, Ebooks, and Databases: Use AnyConnect VPN.
Just learning about a topic? Start with secondary sources like books or law review articles. Law review articles are the scholarly journal of the legal world and often contain citations to relevant cases and legislation on the topic at hand. Reading law review articles on your research topic can save you a lot of time.
Nexis Uni (formerly LexisNexis Academic), WestlawNext, and HeinOnline contain the full text of law review articles. They also all have the full text of federal and state case law (court opinions) as well as other research tools including encyclopedias and other reference books.
For lower-level court transcripts, contact the original court for availability and ordering instructions. (Expect to pay a fee.) See newspapers/media coverage for additional information on cases that never made it to the appellate courts or beyond.
UC Library Search, accessible from the search box on the library's homepage, helps you locate books, film, music, maps, and various other materials at the UC San Diego Library and beyond. It also contains a limited number of online journals and newspaper articles. You may search by keyword, title, and author, and filter your search to what is available online. You can also place an interlibrary loan request through UC Library Search for materials at other UC campuses or libraries worldwide using your Single Sign-On credentials.
UC Library Search does not include all the content to which the Library subscribes. To extend your search, try a database. The database you use depends on the topic or subject you have chosen and the type of information you need to access. You may choose among broad subject areas (e.g., biology, art, political science, etc.), as well as interdisciplinary databases or ones that search across multiple disciplines.
You must also be logged into the VPN to access the information for any database with a blue lock icon. 
