Navigating the Knowledge Landscape: A Guide to Case Western Reserve University Library Resources

Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) boasts a rich network of libraries offering extensive resources for students, faculty, and researchers. These libraries provide access to a vast collection of books, journals, databases, digital materials, and specialized services tailored to various academic disciplines. This article aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the library resources available at CWRU, guiding users in effectively navigating this wealth of information.

The Heart of Research: Kelvin Smith Library (KSL)

The Kelvin Smith Library (KSL) serves as a central hub for research and learning at CWRU. KSL provides access to almost 600 major databases that provide access to journals, newspapers, e-books, data, media, etc. Recognizing the evolving needs of researchers, KSL has relaunched the Freedman Center for Digital Scholarship with a completely reimagined experience.

Expert Guidance: Research and Engagement Librarians

KSL employs research and engagement librarians assigned to each academic department in arts and sciences, engineering, and management. These librarians provide personalized assistance in finding resources, collaborating on research projects, and developing tailored research strategies. KSL librarians can also assist faculty with research and scholarship impact metrics and citation management tools. Whether you need assistance connecting with resources, using them effectively, or finding answers to questions, our research and engagement librarians want to hear from you.

Freedman Center for Digital Scholarship

Kelvin Smith Library’s Freedman Center for Digital Scholarship collaborates with faculty, staff, and students to expand and create new digital research using the tools and services of the center. The team works in consultation with researchers to offer hands-on assistance with technology and pedagogy that would creatively develop or enhance any topic of study or instruction. The center also offers annual Freedman Fellowships for both faculty and students, which provides money and support for digital projects.

Preserving the Past: University Archives and Special Collections

University Archives and Special Collections is home to the Kelvin Smith Library’s rare books and manuscripts collections, and the records of Case Western Reserve University. The University Archives maintains the corporate memory of CWRU by preserving and using university records and publications of continuing value. They support and promote the use of these unique and distinctive collections through acquisition, management, preservation, and exhibition of holdings.

Read also: CWRU Tuition and Fees

Study Carrels

Case Western Reserve University graduate students are encouraged to apply for a Kelvin Smith Library study carrel, which offers space to work quietly and conduct research. Each carrel includes two locking upper bins to store materials during the 2025-26 academic year.

Specialized Libraries: Tailored Resources for Specific Disciplines

CWRU's library system extends beyond KSL, encompassing specialized libraries catering to the unique needs of various academic disciplines.

Ben C. Green Law Library

The Judge Ben C. Green Law Library offers ample resources for nearly legal inquiry, including more than 700 electronic services, library catalogs, a wide range of software services and extensive archives of law student faculty works. It provides access to essential legal research platforms such as Westlaw, LexisNexis, and Bloomberg Law.

Westlaw: A comprehensive legal research service providing legal and law-related documents. It provides primary and secondary legal resources. Westlaw passwords are distributed at orientation, & afterwards at the Reference Desk.

LexisNexis: Law School faculty and students are provided individual accounts to Lexis and we are contractually unable to provide broader access. Non-law affiliates should use Nexis Uni, which does provide an interface to many of the Lexis products and tools of most value to academic researchers.

Bloomberg Law: Bloomberg Law is a CALR platform that integrates cases, statutes, regulations, sample transactional documents, and a citator service with Bloomberg's corporate news and analysis of financial markets. Law Week. Also includes selected Wiley treatises and other selected publishers' treatises. Selected Federal filings from PACER are available.

HeinOnline: The HeinOnline platform provides numerous online collections of legal source material, and provides both page-image (as pdf files) copies for retrieval and display of cited works and full-text page images. Use the Comprehensive User's guide to learn about special features such as Scholar Check or retrieving case law from Fastcase by clicking on inline hyperlinks throughout HeinOnline documents.

Index to Legal Periodicals: H.W. This is the premier index of legal periodicals, books, and symposia, with a primary focus on English language resources. Many articles are available in full-text. Some articles may be available via HeinOnline.

Oxford Public International Law: This resource is technically the online edition of a large multi-volume encyclopedia. However, the scope and quality of this resource are sufficiently unique to set it apart as an extremely valuable online starting point for any research in public international law topics and Oxford University Press treats it as a database.

Lillian and Milford Harris Library

Located within the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, the Lillian and Milford Harris Library was founded in 1916 and is the oldest social work library in the country. The Harris Library's collection is closely aligned with our curriculum, and offers robust social work, social welfare, community development and nonprofit management research resources. We have strong collections in the concentrations of aging, direct practice, community practice/social change, children/youth/families, health, mental health and substance/use disorders and recovery.

Read also: Explore Case Western Reserve

Cleveland Health Sciences Library (CHSL)

Cleveland Health Sciences Library (CHSL) serves as the library system for the faculty, staff and students at the schools of medicine, dental medicine, and the Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing. The library operates in two locations: the main branch in Allen Memorial Medical Library and the ancillary branch at the Health Education Campus. Librarians are available to support researchers and stakeholders in finding and organizing information and resources, collaborating on research and with publication support services. The Allen Memorial Medical Library has a broad collection of resources supporting medical education, clinical and basic sciences, nursing and nursing education, dentistry and dental education, and history of the health sciences. The CHSL also has special collections of rare and historical books dating back to 1471. CHSL resources include, in both electronic and print formats: books, journals, databases, audiovisuals and multimedia. The Health Education Campus Library is both a quiet study area and an area where students can check out books or reserve spaces for courses taught in that building and educational space.

Digital Resources: Expanding Access to Information

CWRU Libraries provide access to a wide array of digital resources, enhancing research capabilities and expanding access to information.

JSTOR

Provides electronic, full text access to the back files to hundreds of scholarly periodicals in a variety of disciplines in humanities, arts and sciences, social sciences, and business. Coverage begins with the first issue of the journal. The latest issue available is determined by a moving wall. The moving wall represents the time period between the last issue available in JSTOR and the most recently published issue of a journal.

TLG: The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae

Online searchable editions of a collection of works presenting the entire heritage of Greek and Latin literature. The resource is fully searchable, and presents the ancient texts in their original languages alongside authoritative English translations.

Brill’s New Pauly

New Pauly is the English edition of the authoritative Der Neue Pauly, published by Verlag J.B. Metzler since 1996. The encyclopaedic coverage and high academic standard of the work, the interdisciplinary and contemporary approach and clear and accessible presentation have made the New Pauly the unrivalled modern reference work for the ancient world. The section on Antiquity of Brill´s New Pauly are devoted to Greco-Roman antiquity and cover more than two thousand years of history, ranging from the second millennium BC to early medieval Europe. Special emphasis is given to the interaction between Greco-Roman culture on the one hand, and Semitic, Celtic, Germanic, and Slavonic culture, and ancient Judaism, Christianity, and Islam on the other hand. The section on the Classical Tradition is uniquely concerned with the long and influential aftermath of antiquity and the process of continuous reinterpretation and revaluation of the ancient heritage, including the history of classical scholarship. Brill´s New Pauly presents the current state of traditional and new areas of research and brings together specialist knowledge from leading scholars from all over the world.

Scite

Introducing Scite, an AI-powered research assistant with access to scholarly literature.

Archaeological Resources

A suite of databases produced by the German Archaeological Institute. Chief among them is the Archaeological Bibliography, which provides citations to scholarly writing on classical, early Christian, Byzantine, early Medieval, and ancient Middle Eastern antiquities, art, and archaeology.

L'Annee Philologique

Index for classical literature, philology, and archaeology. L'Annee Philologique indexes modern editions of ancient texts, collections of articles, journal articles, dissertations, book reviews, and summaries.

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