Law Testimony and Trauma Library Research Guide

A huge amount of information is published directly to websites and will not be discoverable via academic research tools such as Library Search and the legal and scholarly databases.

It includes organisational websites, research reports, inquiry reports, legal testimony, archives, interviews, analysis and much, much more.

Once you have decided on your research topic, you can run tailored searches in search engines like Google so that you can find the sort of research material you need for different aspects of your project. It can be particularly useful for tracing legal proceedings and societal impact and legal reform.

Use the online search tips to help you generate and combine keywords, then use search techinques to enhance your search by focusing in on the type of content you need.

You can try all sorts of concepts to track the exact sort of information you need – e.g. oral history (survivors speaking about their experiences), reform or repercussions to trace consequences of particular incidents, or you can try searching to see if there are records or transcripts available for particular courts.

These illustrative searches show how you can tailor your searching to the research needs of this project

holocaust AND "oral history"

"soham murders" AND repercussions

"international criminal court" AND (records or transcripts)

"public inquiry" AND "post office"

(transcript or archive or testimony or evidence or proceedings or hearings or documents or video or interview) AND Victoria Climbie

(impact or reform or review or inquiry or environment or lessons or context or critique) AND Grenfell

"sentencing remarks" AND "knife attack"

There will be some trial and error, so try lots of different search strategies and get in touch with your Law Librarian if you need help.

Things to consider when searching the internet

• You may discover information about documents on the web that are not available to you in full text.  Some content is behind paywalls or restricted to particular users

• Not all information you discover on the web will be of good quality. You should evaluate the sources you find and decide if they are appropriate for your project.  

• You may come across sources that are difficult to search or navigate. 
  • For example the National Archives hold a vast amount of archive collections that can be used for research.  You can  explore the archives by topic and also search their discovery catalogue but it can be difficult to pinpoint exactly which records are held and work out what is accessible to view online or in person only.  Online help and live chat are available for support, but do reach out to your Librarian if you need assistance to find your way through sites and content like this.