In the recent District of Columbia v. Heller case, the Supreme Court justices were given the opportunity to interpret the Second Amendment using original documents relating to the Bill of Rights.  These documents are now available to the public thanks to the Constitutional Sources Project, or ConSource.  The project, housed in Washington, D.C, has digitized more than 11,000 documents relating to the founding of the United States.  In addition to the full text of the Constitution and the Amendments, the collection features legislative history documents relating to the Bill of Rights, including personal and public letters of the authors of the original articles and Bill of Rights.

Also available at ConSource are the full text of the constitutional precedents, the Federalist, Anti-Federalist, and Pro-Federalist Papers, James Madison’s notes from the Constitutional Convention and papers of George Washington from 1749-1799.  In addition, transcripts of seven states’ ratification debates, the original charters and constitutions of the thirteen colonies and Vermont are included.  The Constitutional Sources Project is continually adding collections to the repository and anticipate having over 100,000 documents available by the end of the year.

All documents are digital and fully searchable, but many of the documents were also scanned so that users can see an image of the original document.  ConSource is a free resource.

The Downtown Campus Library currently subscribes to 19 EBSCO databases, including large periodical databases such as Academic Search Premier and Business Source Premier.  Recently EBSCO has rolled out a new user interface, EBSCOhost 2.0,  its first update of the interface since 2002.

The search interface is initially more streamlined, allowing the user to display more search options if they desire.  Search results can be manipulated in many ways, including narrowing results by document type, and by adding suggested subject terms to the search.

A date range slide bar allows the user to narrow results to a particular range of years.  Thumbnail images from articles also are displayed in the search results.  When retrieving an article, the interface will also display a list of similar articles.  A new “visual search” function displays search results in a graphical format.

For more details, including other new and improved features, a Flash demonstration is available at http://www.ebscohost.com/flashViewer2.php?marketID=1&topicID=981.  Additional information on each of the new features is available at http://www.ebscohost.com/thisTopic.php?marketID=1&topicID=969.

EBSCO is available at Main Campus, Rice Campus, Downtown Campus, and by remote access.

This is a searchable database of reports of 197,745 criminal trials held in London at the central criminal court building known as the “Old Bailey.” Until 1787, Proceedings of the Old Bailey was a commercially published tabloid aimed at a popular audience that sought the entertainment of true crime stories, especially those that included sex, violence and humorous exchanges. By 1787, public interest in true crime waned, and the City of London began to subsidize publication of the Proceedings as the legal record of trials. The Criminal Appeal Act of 1907 required full shorthand notes of criminal trials, and the Proceedings stopped publishing in 1913 because it was no longer necessary.

Old Bailey can be searched by keywords, names, kinds of punishment, verdicts and offenses, using the advanced search templates on the “Search” page. It is also possible to limit to various subcategories of the Proceedings. Results include readable text and a link to an image of the original document. There are additional specialized search templates for Places and Maps, Statistics, Personal Details, and a more detailed Custom Search template.

Proceedings of the Old Bailey is a free resource.

You can save a lot of time with your research if you can find someone who has already worked on your topic. One of the best places to find citations to important resources is a masters or doctoral thesis. Traditionally, these have been hard to locate, but now many can be found online.

More than 2 million full text PDFs and abstracts of dissertations and theses are available through ProQuest Dissertations & Theses. 60,000 titles are added each year. Search for dissertations and theses by title, subject, author, advisor, and school name. Search results are usually arranged from most recent to oldest. Narrow the search results by adding limits such as language or date.

Many of the documents from 1996 to the present are available as full text PDFs. ProQuest is adding full text for many older documents dating back to the 1890s. Short 15 or 20 page previews of the full text documents are also available so you can get a sense if the dissertation or thesis is relevant before downloading the entire article.

Available on campus and by remote access to DTC students, faculty, and staff

Doing historical research of international law issues?  HeinOnline has a new resource that might be useful.

The Harvard Research in International Law Library includes a reprint of The Harvard Research in International Law, a compilation of draft conventions on international law topics originally published between 1929 and 1939.  Topics include the law of nationality, responsibility of states for injuries to foreigners, territorial waters, diplomatic privileges and immunities, the legal position and functions of consuls, competence of courts in regard to foreign states, piracy, extradition, jurisdiction with respect to crime, the law of treaties, judicial assistance, neutrality, and the rights and duties of states in case of aggression.  Many of these draft conventions were used by the International Law Commission when drafting the Vienna Conventions on Diplomatic Relations in 1961 and on Consular Relations in 1963, and the piracy provisions of the Geneva Convention on the High Seas in 1958. 

In addition, the Harvard International Law Library includes the 2007 Contemporary Analysis and Appraisal, in which legal experts analyze the reasoning behind each of the original draft proposals and discuss their continuing impact on modern international law.  HeinOnline goes one step further by providing links to other journal articles written by contributors to The Harvard Research in International Law.

Available on campus and by remote access to DTC students, faculty, and staff.

Standard & Poor’s NetAdvantage provides comprehensive public company information including industry surveys, company stock and financial reports, company descriptions, security dealers directories, investment news, and resources for mutual fund research. It includes data for both domestic and international companies. Users can download and analyze company financial data with Compustat Excel Analytics.

Historical stock data is also available, going back one decade. NetAdvantage is available both on campus and by remote access and is updated daily. In addition to detailed profiles of public companies, some private company information is available as well (search for the company’s name on the “Company Research” page, under the publication “Register Private Co.”

The database also includes an extensive glossary of financial terms as well as NYSE, NASDAQ, and AMEX “snapshots” throughout the day, showing the most active stocks, the gainers and losers, and the 52-week highs and lows. Detailed statistics of S&P’s own indices are also, of course, available.

This database requires Internet Explorer. NetAdvantage can only be used for non-commercial, academic research.

The website of the U.S. Supreme Court has many free resources for those wishing to follow the goings-on at the Court. Of course, the Court’s opinions and orders are posted to the site on the day on which they are released. In addition, however, oral argument transcripts are also posted within a few hours of arguments being held. The Court’s docket is also available. While the docket doesn’t provide access to documents filed with the Court, the user can still see when documents were filed, who the attorneys of record are, and when the briefs were distributed to the justices for conference.

Users can also access the “questions presented” for all cases pending on the Court’s oral argument calendar, in order to see exactly which issues are being presented by the cases ebing heard. Case handling guidelines for attorneys appearing before the Court are also available, as are the rules of the Court, and links to resources for finding briefs filed with the Court. Finally, some items of historical interest are included, such as a document giving the dates of opinions for the cases in the first 107 volumes of United States Reports (prior to Volume 108, the opinion date wasn’t included in the reports). Also note that prior Terms’s slip opinions remain posted on the Court’s site until their bound volume of U.S. Reports is published.

During the last presidential contest in which a candidate from Illinois was in serious contention for his party’s nomination, the Republican party was the party without a clear candidate.  According to Harper’s Weekly: A Journal of Civilization, one of the most widely read weekly publications in America at the time, Lincoln was not the strongest candidate and would have difficulty getting support from eastern states. After Lincoln’s nomination, the publication supported another candidate from Illinois, Senator Stephen A. Douglas, a Democrat who had beaten Lincoln in the 1858 Senate race.

HarpWeek, the online version of Harper’s Weekly allows scholars to explore this volatile era in American politics. Published from 1857-1912, the publication was mostly political in nature, though it also contained news, fiction (including serialized novels), essays, advertisements, and cartoons. Before the Civil War, the publication took a moderate editorial stance on slavery, mostly to preserve its Southern readership. During the Civil War, however, the publication supported Lincoln and the Union. Its articles and illustrations of battles provided some of the most important insights into the front.

After the War, the publication used its stature to support the Presidential aspirations of Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Grover Cleveland. In addition, Harper’s Weekly and its political cartoonist Thomas Nast used their resources and talent to expose corruption in New York by political leader William “Boss” Tweed.

HarpWeek allows researchers to search or browse all issues of Harper’s Weekly.  Election-specific material for Presidential contests between 1860-1912 (including candidate biographies, political cartoons, etc.) can be also found at: http://elections.harpweek.com/

Harper’s Weekly is available by remote access and on the Downtown, Main, and Rice campuses to all IIT students, staff, and faculty.

How many people born in China immigrated to the US in the 1950s?
Did the number of institutions offering law degrees increase between 1970 and 1990?
When did the median price of single-family homes in the Western United States first exceed the median price in the Northeast?

The Historical Statistics of the United States quickly answers all of these questions and more. Historical Statistics compiles extensive statistical data from over 1000 sources. These statistics cover five major topics: Population, Work and Welfare, Economic Structure and Performance, Economic Sectors, and Governance and International Relations. Subtopics include the environment, international trade, labor, and education. Some data is available as far back at the 1600s and generally goes up to the mid-1990s or later. The statistics are fully searchable, allowing researchers to find data across tables and topics.

Statistical tables are available in Web versions and in PDF’s. Each table features footnotes to original sources. Data can be saved in Excel or viewed as a graph. Historical Statistics can even create custom tables.

Historical Statistics of the United States is available by remote access through the proxy server and on the Downtown, Main, and Rice campuses.

For more current statistics, try:
US Census Bureau - extensive demographic and economic data about the United States
University of Michigan Statistical Resources on the Web - a portal of the best US and international Internet resources
UNSTATS - demographic and other statistics from the United Nations (a Library resource)

Need an industry report on biofuels or another emerging area? Want to know more about drug approval trends or the future of healthcare policies? Want to know more about e-tailing or online financial services? Business Insights may be able to help!

Business Insights is a database of detailed reports produced by industry experts on topics related to energy, consumer goods, finance, healthcare, and technology. Some of the companies that provide statistics and intelligence for these reports include: Reuters, IMS Healthcare, TNS, and ComputerWire IT Industry Intelligence.

All reports are available to be downloaded in a PDF format. In addition, Business Insights provides interactive iReports that allow students & faculty to customize reports by selecting only the relevant portions, insert presentation-ready tables and graphics in your own documents, or translate reports into nine different languages (French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Korean or Russian).

To find a report, you can either browse by industry or use keywords in the Search box. Reports are dated from 1998-present and are continually updated.

Business Insights is available by remote access through the proxy server and on the Downtown, Main, and Rice campuses.