Cambridge University Press law e-books – an update

By | 6 March 2015

In July 2014, the Law Library subscribed to Cambridge Books Online’s Law Collection, a selection of the University Press’ legal scholarly e-publications. You may remember Elizabeth Wells’ blog post at the time, explaining how this type of subscription works; you can view this at https://blogs.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/lawbod/2014/07/18/cambridge-university-press-law-e-books/. This is an update on readers’ reception of the new collection, and an account of my own experience of browsing CBO.

Since July, thousands of readers per month have been using the Law Collection, with the most commonly accessed titles being:

1) Roman Law and Common Law – Buckland & McNair
2) Proportionality and the Rule of Law – Huscroft, Miller & Webber
3) The ICSID Convention: A Commentary – Schreuer, Malintroppi, Reinisch & Sinclair
3a) State Responsibility: The General Part – Crawford

General Screenshot

When I visited the CBO site, I found a user-friendly e-library offering a plethora of helpful features for
research. The link enabling you to find a print version of the book in a library will be of great use to
students who prefer to use a physical copy; and by clicking an icon, you can email yourself a link to the e-book you’ve been reading. If you’re finding a specific book particularly informative or thought-
provoking, you can click on an icon to share a link to it and/or comment on it on the major social media sites, so that your friends and colleagues can benefit from it too.

Share Screenshot

If the author mentions a work that you think you might need to read, but it isn’t published by CUP, you can click on the “References” tab in the main record to search for it immediately via Google Scholar.
Journals load on a different-coloured page with all the same handy options, plus a link on the right that
allows you to access previous volumes in the series at a click.

The References tab

The References tab

My overall impression was of clarity of layout and ease of use, with features that ease the
time-consuming aspects of research; along with an awareness of social media and electronic
methods of supporting scholarship.

The CBO Law Collection is constantly being updated, with titles published in the last two months
including:

• Access to Justice in Iran: Women, Perceptions, and Reality – Maranlou
• Brokering Europe: Euro-Lawyers and the Making of a Transnational Polity – Vauchez
• Law of Contract 1670–1870 – Swain
• The Guardian of the Constitution: Hans Kelsen and Carl Schmitt on the Limits of Constitutional Law – Vinx
• Regulating Business for Peace: the United Nations, the Private Sector and Post-Conflict Recovery – Ford

If you wish to explore the collection, there is a link to http://oxford1-direct.hosted.exlibrisgroup.com/V/JYF2EBB864X3QYTLC2TN7UD1D9SP5U8AVT89R5GD2YQ2J5DD77-06357?FUNC=NATIVE-LINK&RESOURCE=OXF05004&pds_handle=GUEST via OxLIP+; you may also like to refer to Elizabeth’s
instructions and suggestions in her earlier post. If you experience any difficulties accessing or using e-books in the BLL, please ask a librarian for assistance.

Photo by danisabella on Flickr

Photo by danisabella on Flickr