HeinOnline, sometimes spelled Hein Online, is an internet service launched in 2000 that is a source of legal information, much like Westlaw

Westlaw

Westlaw is one of the primary online legal research services for lawyers and legal professionals in the United States and is a part of West. In addition, it provides proprietary database services...

 and LexisNexis

LexisNexis

LexisNexis Group is a company providing computer-assisted legal research services. In 2006 it had the world's largest electronic database for legal and public-records related information...

. Like those services, use of HeinOnline requires a subscription, although most law schools provide access to students for free. It is published by William S. Hein & Co.

Overview

There are three major distinctions between this service and other such services in terms of the scope and type of materials offered.

1. HeinOnline provides a narrower scope of materials, excluding newspaper
   Newspaper
   A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
   
    reports, as well as most federal and all state case law and most administrative material.
2. With respect to law reviews, HeinOnline is far more comprehensive, with material that in some cases stretches back to the mid-19th century.
3. HeinOnline's materials are available only as PDF
   Portable Document Format
   Portable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
   
    files, digitized scans of the original journal pages. While HeinOnline does not offer a keyword search per se, it does have a full-text OCR
   Optical character recognition
   Optical character recognition, usually abbreviated to OCR, is the mechanical or electronic translation of scanned images of handwritten, typewritten or printed text into machine-encoded text. It is widely used to convert books and documents into electronic files, to computerize a record-keeping...
   
    search capability.

Contents

The service delivers:

• Law Journal Library
• American Bar Association Journal (1915–1983)
• Core U.S./Most Cited Law Journals
• Criminal Justice Journals
• International & Non-U.S. Law Journals
• Intellectual Property Library
• Most-Cited Law Journals
• American Law Institute Library
• Code of Federal Regulations
  Code of Federal Regulations
  The Code of Federal Regulations is the codification of the general and permanent rules and regulations published in the Federal Register by the executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government of the United States.The CFR is published by the Office of the Federal Register, an agency...
  
  
• English Reports
  English Reports
  The English Reports are a reprint in 178 volumes of nominate reports of judgments of the English Courts reported between 1220 and 1866. They contain most, but not all, of the nominate reports....
  
  , full reprint (1220-1865)
• European Center for Minority Issues
• Federal Register
  Federal Register
  The Federal Register , abbreviated FR, or sometimes Fed. Reg.) is the official journal of the federal government of the United States that contains most routine publications and public notices of government agencies...
  
   Library
• Foreign & International Law Resources Database
• Legal Classics
• New York Court of Appeals Records and Briefs
• Philip C. Jessup Library
• Session Laws
• Treaties and Agreements Library
• United States Code
  United States Code
  The Code of Laws of the United States of America is a compilation and codification of the general and permanent federal laws of the United States...
  
  
• United Nations Law Collection
• U.S. Attorney General Opinions
• U.S. Congressional Documents
• U.S. Federal Legislative History Library
• U.S. Presidential Library
• U.S. Statutes at Large
• U.S. Supreme Court Library
• World Trials

External links

• HeinOnline Wiki