Photo of a book-filled bookcase in the Biddle Law Library

Collections

Primary users are the students and faculty of the Law School. However, Biddle is also used by the larger University community and the general legal community of the Philadelphia region.

The Library houses approximately 840,000 volumes. Two-thirds of the collection consists of American primary materials (cases, statutes, regulations, etc.) and secondary sources such as journals, scholarly monographs, loose-leaf services, and federal legislative histories. One third makes up the Foreign and International Collection. Collections are grouped based on age, format or source of publication. For more details please see Electronic Resources, Special Collections, United States Government Documents, or Multimedia Collection.

Materials are located throughout Tanenbaum Hall, including the Segal Reserve Reading Room, the reference desk, the closed reserve stacks (located behind the circulation desk), and the open stacks on floors 3-5. Items in Silverman Hall must be requested at the circulation desk.

THE AMERICAN COLLECTION includes Biddle's historic paper collection of primary materials (cases and statutes for all of the states). Session laws are available for all states up to the 1980s. The Library has current federal and state case reporters, digests, statutes, codes and regulations. Biddle subscribes to both LexisNexis and Westlaw, which provide online access to primary sources plus the standard citators, digests, journals and treatises. The Library also maintains an extensive microfiche and microfilm collection covering session laws, the Code of Federal Regulation, and superceded state codes. Federal legislative materials (including hearings, reports and committee prints) are available in paper, in several CIS microfiche sets and in the LexisNexis Congressional Universe database.

In addition to all the journals available on LexisNexis and Westlaw, the Library subscribes to almost all law school journals published in America. Biddle also has an extensive collection of subject-specific journals and periodicals. Wilson's Index to Legal Periodicals and LegalTrac provide subject indexing of journal articles. Many full texts of journals are on HeinOnline and Biddle's Electronic and Print Journals A-Z list.

The Library maintains standard loose-leaf services for most areas of law. When the Law School promotes a subject-specific journal, a faculty institute (such as Law and Economics or Law and Philosophy) or a particular subject in its curriculum, the Library collects most of the relevant treatises, online journals and databases relevant to these pursuits.

THE ELECTRONIC RESOURCES COLLECTION provides two useful indexes (By Subject and the A-Z list) to selected law and law-related information. Major databases like LexisNexis, LexisNexis Congressional Universe, HeinOnline, Westlaw, and the Wilson's Index to Legal Periodicals are limited to Penn Law students, faculty and staff. Patrons may link to electronic journals through LOLA (the online catalog) or the Electronic and Print Journals page. Members of the Penn Law Community have access from home through the Library's proxy server.

THE FOREIGN AND INTERNATIONAL COLLECTION constitutes one third of Biddle's total holdings. It is the largest collection of its kind between New York and Washington, D.C.

The collection includes legal documents from the European Union, for which Biddle is a partial depository, as well as from GATT/WTO and the United Nations. The Library also has sets of international treaties, decisions of international courts, indexes and digests of international law, and specialized loose-leaf services. Most international law holdings are in English.

The Library's strongest foreign law collections are from the United Kingdom, Canada, India and Australia (common law systems, mostly in English) as well as France and Germany (civil law systems, primarily in French or German). Other countries are covered to a lesser extent.

Foreign books and periodicals are interfiled with American publications, and call numbers determine their location. There is, however, a separate Foreign and International Law Reference Collection located on the west corridor of Tanenbaum's fourth floor. For more information contact Maria I. Smolka-Day, Associate Director for Foreign and International Law (T-412, 215-898-7442, msmolka@law.upenn.edu).

MICROFORMS consist of microfiche and 16 and 35 mm microfilm. They are housed with reader-printers in Room T-216. For assistance or for more information, ask for help at the reference desk.

THE MULTIMEDIA COLLECTION consists of over 1,800 videotapes, DVDs, CDs, and audiotapes that support the law school curriculum. Videographies (bibliographies of videos) can be compiled upon request by subject and might include videos owned by other collections as well as Biddle.

The majority of Biddle's video titles are included in LOLA, the Library's online catalog. However, a more comprehensive online Video Library can be searched by keywords in summary descriptions, subjects and titles.

Penn faculty and students may borrow multimedia materials under special circumstances. For more information regarding usage policies and videography compilation, contact Merle J. Slyhoff, Document Delivery and Auxiliary Services Librarian (Room T-212, 215-898-9013, mslyhoff@law.upenn.edu).

Requests for equipment or classroom support should be directed to the Information Technology Services Department (215-898-9140, itshelp@law.upenn.edu).

PERIODICALS (journals, law reviews, and magazines) include over 3,550 titles in a variety of formats. Current print subscriptions number over 1,650 titles. Recent unbound issues are shelved by title in the Segal Reserve Reading Room on second floor. All bound volumes are shelved alphabetically on the fifth floor. The Electronic and Print Journals database currently links to over 4,000 titles.

SPECIAL COLLECTIONS maintains rare and unique legal research materials.

The holdings of the Special Collections Department are divided into three main categories: rare books, archives, and the Raymond F. Trent Collection. The rare books collection spans the late 15th-mid 19th centuries and includes approximately 10,000 titles. The collection includes English reports, statutes, and treatises; early French legal sources; 16th and 17th century treatises on Roman and Cannon law; and American colonial and early state materials.

The archives preserves, promotes, and provides access to the papers and records of three major legal organizations: The American Law Institute (ALI), the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws (NCCUSL), and the National Bankruptcy Archives. The archives also houses a number of smaller collections, including the personal papers of early Penn Law Dean and ALI co-founder William Draper Lewis, Penn Law graduate and Philadelphia lawyer Bernard G. Segal, and U.S. Court of Appeals Judge David L. Bazelon.

The Raymond F. Trent Collection consists of books, periodicals, articles and audio tapes concerning the education and practice of black lawyers in America from the 19th century to the present.

For more information, visit the Special Collections homepage or contact Jordon Steele (T-251, 215-898-5011, steelej@law.upenn.edu).

THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS COLLECTION is part of Federal Depository Library Program, which Biddle joined in 1974. The Library currently receives approximately 11% of the titles available from the Program with an emphasis on law and law-related government documents available in electronic, print and microfiche formats.

Many documents are cataloged in LOLA (the Library's online catalog) and are linked to government websites. Some titles received in the 1980s and earlier decades, however, are not catalogued and require the assistance of a reference librarian to identify.

Most paper documents are shelved by the Superintendent of Documents (SuDoc) classification number in closed stacks in Silverman Hall. Frequently requested titles, however, are classified by Library of Congress call numbers and are housed in Tanenbaum Hall. Many microforms are filed by SuDoc number in the Microforms Room (T-217). The following sites are useful in citing, identifying, or providing the full text of government documents:

For assistance using government documents, contact Al Dong, Reference/Documents Librarian (T-414, 215-898-6724, adong@law.upenn.edu).