Collection Overview

The Pritzker Legal Research Center includes among its resources a library of print and electronic collections to serve the research and curricular needs of the faculty and students of Northwestern Law. The Center's collection continues to rank among the best academic law library collections in both breadth and depth.

Principal Collection Areas

The library's collection is oriented toward academic research. The library holds comprehensive collections of primary and secondary Anglo-American legal materials and international law, and selective, historically rich collections of foreign, comparative, and Roman law materials. The library also has many historically significant first editions of classic legal materials. The law library is a federal depository and selects a percentage of available titles. Although the library does not collect practitioner materials for the fifty states, it provides a strong collection of federal and Illinois state research materials to support the Law School's clinics and curricular needs.

Recent Emphases

While continuing to develop its core collection of primary and secondary legal material in its traditional areas of strength (including U.S. constitutional law, the legal profession, legal ethics, and criminology), the library is paying particular attention to expanding its collections in taxation; interdisciplinary fields related to law; private international law (including business law and dispute resolution); public international law (including human rights and criminal law); European Union law; and comparative law. Not surprisingly, the enhancement of electronic collections is a significant focus of the library's acquisitions, including digitized archives of historical materials.