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Global Legal Resource Room

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In addition to the Law Library Reading Room, the public can also access legal materials in our Global Legal Resource Room.  This space was established to provide a secure area for our 16,250 volume foreign law reference collection.  The Resource Room is located in our administrative offices as the primary users of this collection are the Law Library staff.  Foreign Law Specialists and research support staff use these materials in their work for members of Congress and Federal agency clients.  The material in this room is mainly ready reference and comprises only a fraction of our foreign law collection – the bulk of which is housed in our closed stacks.

Covering over 200 current and former countries and regions, most of the publications here are in the official languages of their respective nations.  Types of material found in the resource room include:

  • Constitutions
  • Acts
  • Statutory instruments
  • Official codes
  • Administrative rules and regulations
  • Commentaries and indexes to laws, rules and regulations
  • Legal dictionaries
  • Unbound legal periodicals in Arabic, Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, and Persian

One popular title in the resource room that is not in the official language of its country is Statutes of the Republic of Korea.   This English translation is a welcome surprise to researchers who are not proficient in reading Korean.

The Global Legal Resource Room is staffed Monday-Friday, 8:30 a.m. – 4:00 p.m. and may be used by members of the public during those hours.  Researchers should first visit our Law Library Reading Room where a reference librarian can offer assistance in identifying material and direct researchers to the Global Legal Resource Room.

Comments (7)

  1. Cool. It’s nice to know we have these kinds of resources available. Thanks.

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