JSTOR and SSRN are two resources often overlooked by students and newly trained attorneys when researching various issues of law. Both JSTOR and SSRN serve to provide inter-related law and social sciences databases for several needed research purposes. JSTOR provides an archive of generally peer-reviewed articles, whereas SSRN often provides leading edge or newly published articles and working papers. However, SSRN continues to add to its database as more articles are added and as time passes since its inception. Although scholarly in nature, the academic law librarian can use both JSTOR and SSRN to help flush out case law and statutory interpretation and find context, meaning, and perspective while satisfying the research needs of its students, faculty, and attorneys. Much of the law is interrelated or woven into the fabric of social science and humanities and both resources can provide the researcher with a rich database of collected works to help in this endeavor.
JSTOR (http://www.jstor.org/) is a not-for-profit organization with a two-fold mission: (1) to create and maintain an archive of scholarly journals, and (2) to provide access to these journals as widely as possible. In JSTOR, researchers can retrieve pdf images of journal issues and pages as they were originally designed, printed, and illustrated. The journals archived in JSTOR span many disciplines. JSTOR is accessible from the website, most academic library pages, and even Facebook (www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2412474777).
JSTOR allows the researcher to obtain articles in disciplines either directly or indirectly related to the law, including business, economics, feminist and women’s studies, health sciences, history, philosophy, political science, and religion. Examples of other disciplines that are interrelated with the law include biological studies, British studies, Jewish studies, public policy, and statistics.
JSTOR gives the user online video tutorials on many aspects of its database and on article research. The tutorials primarily help users learn to (1) construct a basic or an advanced search; (2) differentiate between a primary and secondary source; (3) locate an article with a citation; and (4) research a topic.
One advantage to using an online resource such as JSTOR in addition to a law-focused resource is the broader focus in which the articles database in JSTOR provides the researcher. One good example of this is that of a researcher looking for information regarding specific cases other than the Korematsu v. United States (1944) decision, commonly referred to as the “internment cases.” Most good legal databases or textbooks can provide the answer to this question. Even Wikipedia could provide the answer.
However, JSTOR provides articles that give historical perspective to the researcher’s needs. The three cases, Hirabayashi, Korematsu, and Endo, are discussed in historical context in an article, Edward T. Robinson, The Japanese “Internment” Cases Revisited, 17 OAH Magazine of History 52 (Jan. 2003), available at http://www.jstor.org/stable/25163583. Articles and publications found in JSTOR such as the example above can be helpful to the student in seminar classes or for those doing thorough research wanting greater context or a perspective beyond the pages of the case or the statute before them.
The Social Science Research Network (SSRN) (http://ssrn.com/) was founded in 1994 by Michael Jensen and Wayne Marr to provide an efficient means to distribute scholarly research and expand the interdisciplinary approach to research. Their motto is “Tomorrow’s Research Today.” SSRN provides ongoing access and content and is changing the way research is distributed and is changing the way research is done. SSRN is a closely held, for-profit company. Many of the owners are corporate scholars, and they have never taken any outside money (no investment bankers, venture capitalists, or bank debt). Thus, SSRN has been funded entirely by a small group of scholars, and it is not a subsidiary of a large publishing company.
By viewing the subject areas within the social sciences and humanities, researchers can use the SSRN database for a broader view of the research being produced around the world. SSRN also is accessible from most university library web pages and Facebook (www.facebook.com/pages/Rochester-NY/SSRN/36086731835). The Legal Scholarship Network (LSN) (http://ssrn.com/lsn/index.html/) is one of eighteen research networks. Articles included in the SSRN database include both published and forthcoming articles and those that are part of a university or law school working papers series. Articles about cutting-edge topics often can be found in the SSRN database first because of the time-sensitive nature of the content and the availability of the article in SSRN before its publication in a law journal.
You can search the SSRN database for articles and then download articles of interest. An SSRN download starts with the reader visiting the article or working paper’s abstract page. Readers who want to read the article or paper can then download the full-text of the article in a pdf format. Some articles however are unavailable or are available for a fee. Citation and abstract information is available for all articles found in the SSRN database. The advantage of the SSRN database is the availability of forthcoming articles not yet published anywhere in print or online. Many of these articles are often freely available from SSRN. Another advantage is the availability of articles in subject areas related to the law such as corporate governance, political science, economics, financial economics, health economics, entrepreneurship research and policy, social insurance, and philosophy. The deepening of the social sciences and humanities subject areas within the SSRN database is expected to grow in the future and should add benefit, context, and perspective to the needs of the legal researcher.
Law students and new law graduates often search for case law online without having context. No matter what database they use to retrieve the case law or secondary source they use to help them establish context and perspective, they often overlook JSTOR and SSRN. Many do not they exit unless they have written a thesis or peer review material. The two resources can be used to help them further their research needs especially with complex issues.
