DESCRIPTION

LegalTrac contains more than 515,000 citations with selected abstract and full-text to articles, published in more than 800 key law journals, bar association publications, and legal newspapers from 1980 to the present. It also includes law related feature articles from more than 3000 additional publication and covers law reviews, case notes, biographies, legal professional news, legislative news and analysis, bibliographies, and reviews. LegalTrac topics include legal specialties, and such areas as copyright law, real property, international trade, labor law and criminal justice, civil rights, and law office management. Cases and codes are not available in LegalTrac. The full-text of the articles are available from the Pace University Library Periodicals Department, from the Pace Law Library or from Lexis/Nexis Universe database, please speak to a Reference Librarian if you need assistance obtaining the full-text of an article cited in LegalTrac.

Accessing the Database

1. Go to the Pace University Library homepage at http://www.pace.edu/library/
2. Click on Articles via Databases.
3. From the Complete Database Listing menu, click on the link for LegalTrac. (This will bring you to the Pace University description page.)
4. From the description page, click on Connect to Database or LegalTrac to enter the database.
5. Choose LegalTrac from the list of available Infotrac databases. (You may need to scroll down the page to see this option).

1. Subject Search: Type your search terms in the entry box and click on the Search button. The results may be grouped by subjects and sub-headings, which will limit your search. Click on View next to your chosen subheadings to see the records.
2. Keyword Search: Select Keyword search on the left of the page. Break your topic into keywords and type your search terms in the entry box and click on the Search button.

Advanced Searching

Click on Advanced search on the left of the screen to use advanced searching techniques such as searching by Article title, Keyword or Author..

• Choose a Select index by clicking on the down arrow next to the search entry box.
• Click on an index name from the pull-down menu.
• Type your search terms in the entry box next to the Index abbreviation that pops into the box. Click on the  Search button.
• Try searching more than one index at a time by connecting your search terms with the word and (Example: to find articles by the author Charley Roberts about pornography would look like this: au  Charley Roberts and ke pornography).  Also try combining the search sets created by the system using and as well. (Ex: R1 and R2).

Follow the directions below to view, mark, print. or e-mail your results.

LIMITING (Can be done at the beginning of a search or in the middle)

You can limit a search at the beginning search screen by date or by journal title(s).

 

Or you can limit your search results after you have begun to view your citations by clicking on Limit search on the left of the screen. Searches can by limited by date or by journal title(s).

VIEWING

After your search is performed, you are placed at the top of a list of citations. Citations, some abstracts and selected full text articles are available for viewing.  Click on the word View to see a full citation, abstract or full text article (depending on what the description says is available)

Move through the list of citations using the down arrow button or scroll bar. The database shows you 20 citations at a time. To see the next 20 citations, click the arrow button next to the number of total citations. To move to the end of the list, click the right arrow with the vertical line.

• Mark records by clicking in the Mark box to the left of each citation.
• Or you may "Select all items on this page" by marking the box to the right. This is located above the first citation on each page. 
• When you are through marking your records, click on View mark list on the left of your screen to view your list of marked records.
• From the View mark list, you may print all your marked records by clicking on  Print on the left of  your screen.  See complete printing directions in the next section.
• Note: To save marked records from search to search, view your Marked List, then click Keep checked.

PRINTING and EMAILING  Records

• To print an individual article or citation, click on Print on the left of your screen.
• Then print your selection using the Print command in your browser.
  
• For email, click on  Email or Retrieval on the left of  your screen.
• Enter your entire email address and subject.
• Click on submit E-mail request.
• Remember that this will mail full-text only and you will lose all graphics in doing so. If the item is extended citation or abstract only, that is what you will receive in your email.  
  
  
• To print an article with all the graphics as they appear in the original article, you need to have Adobe Acrobat loaded on your computer.
• Viewing articles this way will take up a great deal of memory and might cause printing problems. 
• If that happens, try printing the article two pages at a time rather than all at once.

• To save a batch of marked records, click on the View mark list on the left of your screen to see your marked records.
• Click on where it say Reformat to see the citations, abstracts of full text of all your marked selections at once.
  
• To save these records (or an individual record), click on File (near the top left of your screen);

• Click on Save as... Select the a:/ drive. Name your file and be sure to select Plain Text (.txt) from the Save File as Type menu. Click OK.

Note: You must perform both these steps or it will save the articles as HTML source code, which your word processing program at home may not be able to open or read.

Click here to see related Law/Criminal Justice databases.  

To begin searching, click here: LegalTrac