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A law library is a library designed to assist law students, attorneys, judges, and their law clerks and anyone else who finds it necessary to correctly determine the state of the law. Their focus on specialized information resources on the law, service to a specialized and limited clientele, and delivery of specialized services to that clientele classify them as a type of special library. Most law schools around the world will also have a law library, or in some universities, at least a section of the university library devoted to law.〔Slinger, M. J. & Slinger, R. M. (2010). "The law librarian's role in the scholarly enterprise: Historical development of the librarian research partnership in American law schools." ''Journal of Law & Education''. 39 (3) 387-410.〕 ==American law libraries== The largest law libraries in the world are found in the United States, due to the unique nature of American federalism and the extraordinarily complex legal system that developed as a result. The world's largest law library is the Law Library of Congress, which holds over 2.65 million volumes. The world's largest academic law library is the library of Harvard Law School, which holds over 2 million volumes. By way of contrast, the largest law library in the United Kingdom is the Bodleian Law Library, whose collection of 450,000 volumes is merely average by U.S. standards. Broadly speaking, there are three categories of law libraries in the United States. Every law school accredited by the American Bar Association houses a law library. Public law libraries are available in many states, often in the local courthouses. Some larger law firms maintain a private library for their own attorneys, but many firms in college towns and larger cities with universities simply dispatch their attorneys to local law schools to do legal research. A typical law library will include in its collection a large number of works not seen in other libraries, including a full set of ''United States Reports'', one or both of the unofficial U.S. Supreme Court reporters, the West National Reporter System, the West American Digest System, official reporters from various states, the ''Federal Register'', volumes of ''American Jurisprudence'', bound volumes containing issues of prominent law reviews from around the country, federal and state statutes and regulations (such as the United States Code and Code of Federal Regulations), and a variety of treatises, encyclopedias, looseleaf services, and practice guides. Large libraries may contain many additional materials covering topics like legal education, research, and writing; the history of the American legal system and profession; the history behind certain high-profile cases; techniques of oral argument; and the legislative history of important federal and state statutes. In contrast, a small law library, at a minimum, may contain only one unofficial Supreme Court reporter, selected West national reporters and digests specific to the state in which the library is located, the United States Code, a few state-specific reporters and statutory compilations (if they exist for a particular state), and several state-specific treatises and practice guides. Most academic law library websites also contain legal research guidelines on numerous legal topics that are available to the public. In recent years, the advent of online legal research outlets such as FindLaw, Westlaw, LexisNexis, Bloomberg Law and HeinOnline (or in Canada, CanLII) has reduced the need for some types of printed volumes like reporters and statutory compilations. A number of law libraries have therefore reduced the availability of printed works that can easily be found on the Internet, and have increased their own Internet availability. On the other hand, some university law libraries retain extensive historical collections going back to the earliest English reports. Many law libraries also participate in the Federal Depository Library Program which provides access to government information and documents to the public at no cost. This is particularly true of law school libraries as the library at any accredited law school is automatically eligible to become a depository library under the Program. The American Association of Law Libraries is a major alliance of American law libraries, to which most of them belong. As of 2010, it has over 5,000 member libraries. Another important association for law libraries is the Special Libraries Association. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Law library」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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