Abstract

This article reveals an annotated list of resources pertaining to the Supreme Court of the United States (“Supreme Court”). Specifically, this article attempts to compile a list of readily available or unique resources that one may find particularly useful when looking for commonly asked questions about the Supreme Court’s members, work, and history. The authors divide the resources into the following broad categories: (a) the Supreme Court Justices, (b) the Supreme Court and Its Procedures, (c) Supreme Court Opinions, and (d) Supreme Court Architecture and History. The annotations include books, periodicals, indexes, online databases, and other publications that one may find especially helpful when answering questions relating to the Supreme Court. In compiling the resources for this article, the authors made a special effort to draw attention to readily accessible or unique materials for answering commonly asked questions about the Supreme Court. While several of the annotated entries contain reference to online resources, the authors sought to include only official or otherwise well-established Internet sites and databases.

Introduction ~

While many resources detail the places one can look to find information about the Supreme Court, fewer resources draw particular attention to readily accessible resources providing answers to frequently asked questions about the Supreme Court. This paper does not attempt to replace the comprehensive works already existing on researching the Supreme Court. Rather, the goal of this article is to offer a list of accessible resources that individuals may find especially useful for answering commonly asked questions about the Supreme Court, its work, members, and history.

By “available” resources, we mean resources such as the Harvard Law Review or the United States Reports that are commonly available in medium to large sized law libraries. We defined the phrase “commonly asked questions” by speaking with law librarians at various law libraries and by examining Supreme Court questions posted to the law-lib discussion list available through the University of California at Davis archive. [1]

This article identifies a selected list of books, periodicals, indexes, online databases, and other publications that may be particularly helpful when looking for information about the Supreme Court. The resources are broadly grouped by category and short descriptions are provided for each resource. The categories include: (a) the Supreme Court Justices, (b) the Supreme Court and its Procedures, (c) Supreme Court Opinions, and (d) Supreme Court Architecture and History. The resources range from the places where one can find a particular Justice’s manuscripts, to resources for finding a Supreme Court brief, to a Web site that provides a “virtual tour” of the Supreme Court building.

The Supreme Court Justices ~

Although they are public figures, the Supreme Court Justices are relatively unfamiliar to the public in comparison to other federal officials. In this section, we list resources that provide information about, and references to, the lives of the Justices.