Accessing Legal Databases
Most of the bibliographic resources used to trace book chapters, articles in periodicals and specialist reports are now web-based. They provide references which you can then:
- Link to in full text if we subscribe to them, or
- Check on Primo to see if a particular book or journal title is available in the library or on another database
Access to online databases is restricted to University of Aberdeen staff and students. Many are accessible with your University username and password (Shibboleth login), though some require access using the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) when working off the campus network. See the IT Service guide to remote access for more details.
Below are details of and links to the main legal databases:
| An important database covering Business, Management and Trade containing scholarly and trade journal articles, dissertations, market reports, industry reports, business cases and global and trade news in The Economist, Financial Times and Wall Street Journal. |
| Lexis+ UK on or off campus |
| Westlaw UK on or off campus. Westlaw UK has recently moved to a new platform. This link takes you to the Primo record for Westlaw UK. Log into Primo and then link out to the resource. |
| HeinOnline on or off campus. Off campus you will use UK Federation login. |
| KluwerArbitration . Off campus you must search Primo while using the VDI to link out to KluwerArbitration. |
| Open Access Scottish Law Reports A searchable database of over 650 key Scottish Cases since 1873 provided by the Scottish Council of Law Reporting. The full report is not available although details of the case and the opinion are. |
| PLEASE NOTE: The first time you select an article to download from OGEL you will be asked to supply your University of Aberdeen email address (in order to identify yourself). A message is sent to your email address containing a link back to OGEL - follow this link to complete the download. You need to do this only once per search session. Off campus you must search Primo via the VDI to link out to OGEL. |
| Occupational Health & Safety Information Service (OHSIS) OHSIS contains health, safety and environmental management materials, and comprehensive up-to-date access to industry and government information covering legislation, guidance, standards and best practice. Login using the UK Federation option. |
| The link above works on campus only. When accessing from off campus you must search Primo via the VDI to link out to OECD iLibrary. |
| European Union e-Justice Portal |
| UN Treaty Collection |
| WorldLII - World Legal Information Institute Free, independent and non-profit access to worldwide law. |
| Viadrina International Law Project Multilingual database for international treaties. |
| Parliamentary Papers from UK, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. |
| Includes more than 200,000 House of Commons sessional papers from 1715 to 2009/10, with supplementary material back to 1688. |