Research Assistant Resources

This section of the guide is a short introduction to book-based research. A more thorough how-to guide on book and eBook research is available here.

Should you run into questions or concerns with your research, feel free to reach out to the librarian assigned to your faculty member for specialized advice. Please check this list to determine which librarian you should contact. 

Finding Books via the Library Catalog

Discovery and Julius are NYU Law Library's online catalogs. You can use them to search for many of the library's print and online resources, including books, in a variety of ways.

Discovery

• Centralized Search: Find electronic and physical library materials in one search box
• Article-level Search: Includes individual articles, unlike traditional catalog. Caveat: Some legal databases excluded
• Managing Research Projects: Signing in with your NYU ID unlocks various features, including saved items, searches and alerts
• Search Filters: Apply these filters to narrow your search
  • Source type: Academic journal articles, eBooks, physical Books, and more
  • Language
  • Year of Publication
  • Whether the full text of the content is available online
  • Library Location: Full Text Online (includes article-level entries) / Catalog Only (library holdings only) / Both

Julius

• Search Fields: You can search by author, title, author/title, keyword, subject, and more using Julius. Use the drop-down bar under "Find Books & More" or select one of the fields from the top of the page to use search fields. 
• Keyword v. Subject: Keyword searching refers to the kind of searching you are used to on Google, Westlaw, and Lexis: Julius will look for results that have those keywords. Subject searching will search the specific subjects assigned to each resource in the catalog. If you know the subject heading, searching with the subject can be an efficient way to locate materials. One way to find an appropriate subject heading would be to locate a sample text via keyword searching first, and then using its assigned subject headings. Otherwise, stick to the keyword search. 
• Searching by Title: If you know the title of the resource you are trying to locate, be sure to type in the title exactly as appears except for any colons. Even if there is a colon, leave the colon out in your search. 
• Searching by Author: Author searches must be in this order: last name, first name. 

Once you locate a material, you can use the information in the catalog to find the print item in the library. The catalog will include the item's physical location in the library, availability, and call number, among other items. The call number will be necessary to find the material in the library.

Finding Books via Bobcat, the NYU Library's Catalog

In addition to the resources in the law library, as a member of the greater NYU community, you also have access to materials from the Bobst library. Their online catalog is called Bobcat.

Finding Print Books Not Held by NYU

While the law library and Bobst have a lot of print materials within their walls, we cannot carry every book. If you want to know what libraries in the area have a print copy of a particular material, you can search on WorldCat. WorldCat is a combined catalog from thousands of libraries across the globe. You may find materials held by the New York Public Library, for example. Note that your ability to access these materials may be limited based on specific library borrowing policies. Interlibrary Loan services are also available for books outside the NYU collection.

Finding eBooks via the Law Library and Bobcat Catalogs

Links for some, but not all, eBooks will appear in the NYU Law Library's catalogs, Discovery and Julius. Links for some eBooks also appear in NYU Bobst's Bobcat catalog. You should begin your search for eBooks there.

Finding eBooks Using eBook Central

If you cannot locate an eBook version of the resource, you should also check eBook Central, which is a collection of eBooks from many publishers.