Academic Universe (LexisNexis) ~ Legal

Contents & Access | Searching | Display | Exporting Results | Further Assistance

Contents and Access

What does this database contain?
Academic Universe (LexisNexis Academic) is one of the leading providers of electronic legal information. This database contains full-text information from federal and state court cases, legislation, statutes, regulations, law reviews and legal news. The legal information in LexisNexis Academic is divided into the following six search segments:

Secondary Literature: Legal news, Law reviews
Case Law: Get a Case, Shepherd's^® for U.S. Supreme Court, Federal Case Law, State Case Law, Area of Law by Topic
Codes & Regulations: Federal Code, Federal Regulations, State Codes, Tax Law
International Legal Materials: Canadian Legislative Materials, Canadian Statutes and Regulations, EU Law (CELEX), Commonwealth and Foreign Nations (including U.S. treaties)
Patents Research: Patents, Patent Class, Patent Manual
Directories: Martindale-Hubbell Law Directory, Martindale-Hubbell Law School Directory

Where do I access this database?
Through the UTSA Library web page (http://www.lib.utsa.edu) under Databases & Article Searching > A - Z

Available off-campus?
Yes, to UTSA faculty, staff and currently enrolled students.

Full Text of articles available online?
All legal materials are full-text.

Language of articles?
All materials indexed are in English.

What is the date coverage of citations?
Varies, depending upon the source. Updated daily.

Where do I find out what my legal citation means?
Use Bieber's Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations (JPL Reference Desk, KF 246 .B46 2001) to find out what your legal citation (abbreviation) is. Also The Bluebook: a uniform system of citation (JPL Reference and Downtown KF245 B58).

List of publications included in this database?
Choose sources from the top of the page to search the "Source List" of publications.

Searching

Basic search terms?

AND (will narrow your search)
OR (will broaden your search)
Atleastn (how many times a term must
appear in the document)

w/n (with n words of the first term)
w/p (within the same paragraph)
w/s (within the same sentence)

How do I limit by Date?
Use the pull-down menu from any of the search screens to select a predefined date range or enter your own custom date range.

Truncation?
Use the Exclamation Mark (!) to automatically retrieve most plural and possessive forms of words. The Asterisk (*) serves as a placeholder for a character within a word and it is possible to use more than one asterisk in a word.

Examples: child! Retrieves child's, children, children's and any word beginning with child (childbearing, childless, or childhood)
child*** retrieves children, children's or childish
wom*n retrieves woman, woman's, women, and women's

Display

How do I display my search results?
Academic Universe lets you display your search results in one of four ways:
Document list (search results list)
Expanded list (list of results with each search word in context surrounded by approximately five words)
KWIC (shows the paragraphs that contain your search term or phrase)
Full (full text displayed one article at a time)

How do I sort my search results?
The default sort order for legal news is reverse chronological order; legal reviews are sorted by title. Either, can also be sorted by relevance.

Printing, Downloading, E-mailing

How do I print?
To print full text, display the document and use the brower's print feature. For a printer-fiendly version of the article, from the Full screen, click the Print tab at the tope right of the screen and then "Display Document". To print a list of citations, from the Document List screen click the Print tab at the top right of the page, then "Display Document" for a printer-friendly version of the article. Then click your browser's print button.

Can I download or save the list?
Follow the directions above for printing, then choose "save as" from the file menu and save your file (if you are using a public workstation, type a:\myfile.txt (saves as a text document and not as HTML).

Can I e-mail an article to myself?
Yes. Click the "Email" button at the top right of the page to email a full text article. You cannot email more than one full-text article at a time. You can also email the list of citations by clicking the "email" button on the Document List page.

Help

Where do I go for more help?
Click on "Help" for more detailed instructions. Or ask at the Reference Desk for assistance: (210) 458-4573 1604 Campus or (210) 458-2440 Downtown Library.