The World Trials Library is available as part of the IALS subscription to HeinOnline. It consists of digitised trial reports and court documents, together with commentary and biographies of famous lawyers.
Access
Available onsite to all IALS Library academic members. Offsite access is available to IALS staff, fellows and students, SAS staff, fellows and students (other than IALS), University of London law staff and postgraduate students, IALS Library academic members.
Content
World Trials Library consists of digitised trial transcripts and court other documents; trial-related resources such as monographs; scholarly articles; and biographies of famous lawyers.
The collection ranges from ancient times (the trial of Socrates) up to the twentieth century. It includes series such as the Nuremberg Trials, Howell's State Trials, American State Trials, Macdonnell's State Trials, Law Reports of Trials of War Criminals and Cox's Reports of Cases in Criminal Law.
Browsing
It is possible to browse alphabetically by title, author or subject. It can also be browsed by date. Click on an individual title to browse the component volumes of a series (if available), or the contents list of a single-volume work.
Note that full titles are used, not popular names. This means that, for example, that the series usually known as Howell's State Trials is listed under its full title, Complete Collection of State Trials and Proceedings for High Treason and Other Crimes and Misdemeanors. If you do not know the full title of the publication that you want, use the search options.
Searching
Start typing search terms, then select the type of search when prompted: keyword search (‘Just search for’), author/ title/citation search, or Catalog search (the Catalog is the contents list of the whole HeinOnline service, not just the World Trials Library).
Search connectors must be in capital letters, for example, employment OR labour OR labor. Click on ‘Search help’ below the search box to see a full list of search syntax that can be used in HeinOnline.
An Advanced Search facility is available below the main search box. Advanced Search allows you to search using additional fields. It is possible to search across the whole collection, or just one title.
Reading
Content is displayed in PDF format as a default. The PDFs are images of text and are not all fully accessible. There is an option to view content as plain text by clicking the ‘Text of this Page’ icon on the menu at the top of the document.
Printing, downloading and emailing
To download an accessible PDF version of a document, click on the ‘Download PDF’ icon on the menu at the top of the document.
There is also a ‘Print/Download options' icon on this menu for further options. This allows downloads as PDF or plain text.
A link to a document can also be sent by email by selecting the ‘Email PDF link’ icon.
TIP: ‘Current Section’ in the Print/Download dialog box means the document that you have displayed, for example, a whole treaty.
Help
HeinOnline has a Help menu with a user guide and other information.
Accessibility
View HeinOnline's accessibility information
HeinOnline is partially compliant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
Content on HeinOnline is provided as images of the material as it originally appeared in print as a default. The images of text are not fully accessible and there are some reported issues with zooming to 200% or beyond. Content is also provided in an accessible format as plain OCR text, which has been converted to text from the image.