Wisconsin State Law Library

Renewing checked out books and other library materials is easy on our website.

Log in with your library card to read and download premium content from HeinOnline, Index to Legal Periodicals, LegalTrac and more. 

There are a lot of reasons to love your Wisconsin State Law Library card. This week we'll give you an overview of some of the resources and services you have access to when you sign up for a free State Law Library card.


Check out our comprehensive, practice-oriented collection. Popular books include the Wisconsin State Bar "brown books", National Business Institute seminar materials, and the Nolo and Nutshell series. And don't forget our wide general treatise collection, periodicals, and resources for other states.

Books and videos can be checked out at any of our three libraries in Madison and Milwaukee. If you're located outside of one of those cities, no problem! Use our Borrow by Mail service to check out and return books through the mail.

Learn more and sign up on our Get a Library Card page.

Ah, Wisconsin State Law Library Card.  How do I love thee? 

Have you been thinking about signing up for a free library card? In 2010, we talked about some of our services, and how a library card can help during your research. Here's a recap:

• Renewing Books Online Learn how to renew your books online - by signing in with your card
• Interlibrary Loan If we don't have what you need, we'll try to get it for you.
• Saved Catalog Searches Easily replicate successful searches. Plus, email alerts when new materials arrive!
• Borrow by Mail Don't live near Madison or Milwaukee, but still need to check out books? No problem!
• Articles Online Search law reviews, news, and more - only with a library card.
• Checkout Your Library Learn about special collections, and keeping up with new materials.

Sign up for a library card today!

Renewing your books online is easy! 

Step 1: From the library home page, select "Renew Library Materials"





Step 2: Enter your name (last name only, or first and last) and library card number (barcode number on your library card)





Step 3: Check the box next to the items you wish to renew and select the "Renew Selected" button.  If you want to renew all the books you have checked out, simply select the "Renew All" button.




Congratulations, you have renewed your library checkouts online!

Have you checked our catalog and online databases and still not found the book or article you need?  You may want to send us an interlibrary loan request.

Interlibrary loan is a way for the Wisconsin State Law Library to borrow materials from other libraries - for you!  We'll use our extensive interlibrary loan connections to borrow books, journals, or order copies of articles.

Learn more about interlibrary loan and browse FAQs on our website.  If you have a library card, place a request online or call a librarian for more help.

You might already login to the catalog to renew materials, but did you know that you can save your favorite catalog searches, using the "Preferred Search" feature?

With preferred searches, you can log in and rerun any saved search without having to remember and recreate it. Setting up saved searches also allows you to get email updates whenever a new title matching your search gets added to the catalog.

Set Up and Use Preferred Searches

Step 1: Login to catalog
Step 2: Run a search (e.g. keyword search for "civil rico")
Step 3: Choose "Save as Preferred Search"

Choose "Save as Preferred Search" to save your search terms and settings

Viewing and Rerunning Preferred Searches

1. Login to catalog
2. From your account screen, choose the "Preferred Search" button on the right
   
   
3. If you have already created some saved searches, you will see them listed.  Select the "Search" link to the right of each saved search to rerun that search.

Getting Email Updates from Your Search

1. Login to catalog
2. From your account screen, choose the "Preferred Search" button on the right
   
3. Look for the check boxes next to your saved search.  Check the box under the "Mark for Email" column, then click the "Update List" button.
4. Are you unsure if you have an email address on your account?  Contact the Circulation Desk at 608-266-1600 or select the "Modify Personal Info" button on the right to add or change your email address.

Remove Preferred Searches

If you've finished with the project for which you set up saved searches, preferred searches are easy to remove.

1. Login to catalog
2. From your account screen, choose the "Preferred Search" button on the right
   
3. Look for the check boxes next to your saved search.  Check the box under the "Mark to Remove" column, then click the "Update List" button. 

Any questions?  Feel free to ask a librarian for assistance by phone or email.

Are you located outside of Madison, but need to borrow something from our library? If you are a judge or attorney licensed to practice in Wisconsin, you can use our Borrow by Mail service to get library materials shipped directly to you.

Step 1: Check our catalog (or ask us) for the item in question

Step 2: Fill out our online request form (or call us) to place a request. Check our Borrow by Mail guidelines for shipping information and loan times.

Step 3: When you're done with the book, simply ship it back to us! (You may renew online if you need more time.)

Use our Library Catalog to retrieve articles from any of the more than 8,000 electronic full text journals available. Our Articles and Journals page opens up access to even more articles and online books. The best part? Research from your own office, at home, or wherever and whenever you're searching the web!

Legal Databases

HeinOnline Law Journal Library: an archive of law reviews, Federal legislation, codes, regulations, and even legal treatises and government documents. HeinOnline boasts a number of additional databases, including Legal Classics, English Reports, and US Attorney General Opinions. 
See our tutorial: Find and Print a Law Review on HeinOnline

LegalTrac: a searchable index of law reviews, bar journals, and legal newspapers, covering articles since around 1980.

We recommend: Search our catalog for the journal or newspaper title to see what is available online and in print.

Journals and News

In partnership with Wisconsin's BadgerLink, we also provide access to a number of other article databases. We highlight the following on our Articles & Journals page:

• Academic, MasterFile, and Business Source Premier
• Newspaper Source Plus and Regional Business News

Check out BadgerLink for much more!

Log In From Home or Work

Use your library card to log into HeinOnline or LegalTrac from home or work. If you have questions, please ask a librarian.

Be sure to watch our tutorial:  Accessing HeinOnline From Your Office or Home Computer

You can also use your library card to access BadgerLink databases, though you might already be able to use them with another Wisconsin public library card, or over a Wisconsin internet service provider's network.

Wisconsin State Law Library cards are unique to our libraries. If you already have a card from your public library or another law library, you'll need one of our cards in order to borrow books from any of our three locations, or to take advantage of remote access to great databases, like LegalTrac and HeinOnline.

If you're eligible for a free library card, visit any one of our three locations to register in person - it takes just a few minutes. Or, to receive your card by mail, simply fill out our online application. To find out if you are eligible for a library card, check our borrower page.

More information is available in recent newsletter articles:

• Click to it: Congressional and U.S. Agency Research
• Click to It: Using LegalTrac for Article Research
• Click to it: Legal Research at Your Fingertips - Using the Library Catalog
• Click to It: Legal Research at Your Fingertips - HeinOnline Legal Classics

I love being able to check out books and other materials. So this Love Your Library Card post is dedicated to exploring our collection.

Check out our comprehensive collection of materials, designed to serve current legal research needs. Popular resources include the Wisconsin State Bar "brown books", National Business Institute seminar materials, and the Nolo and Nutshell series. And don't forget our wide general treatise collection, periodicals, and resources for other states.

These are just a taste of what we have to offer:

Media Collection

The Media Collection has trial practice materials on family law, estate planning, real estate, business law, and other legal areas, in audio and video formats. Check out CLE seminars from the State Bar of Wisconsin and National Business Institute along with instructional materials from the American Bar Association and other legal training sources.

Drug Court Collection @ DCLRC

Designed for pro se litigants, attorneys, advocates, and court staff, the Dane County Legal Resource Center's drug court collection contains both legal and medical books as well as resources on rehabilitation, drug court operation manuals, memoirs, judicial education materials, and medical dictionaries.

Court and Judicial Administration

Check out seminar materials produced by the Wisconsin Court System's Office of Judicial Education. Find State Justice Institute reports on a wide variety of court-related topics. We also collect publications from the National Center for State Courts.

Federal Government Documents

Discover government documents that complement and supplement the library's other collections. We collect annual reports, laws, decisions, regulations, selected handbooks, manuals and general publications of various legislative, judicial and executive branch agencies.

Prose & Cons

Looking for something a little lighter to read? The Library has a collection of donated legal fiction and DVDs relating to courts and the criminal justice system.

Many Ways to Explore

To begin: Search the Catalog. Be sure to check out our monthly New Titles lists and newsletter articles highlighting the collection, like this one on the Prose & Cons and Management collections.

And even if you can't check out everything in the library, it's worth exploring our Rare Books and other archival collections.

Wisconsin State Law Library cards are unique to our libraries. If you already have a card from your public library or another law library, you'll need one of our cards in order to borrow books from any of our three locations, or to take advantage of remote access to great databases, like LegalTrac and HeinOnline.

If you're eligible for a free library card, visit any one of our three locations to register in person - it takes just a few minutes. Or, to receive your card by mail, simply fill out our online application. To find out if you are eligible for a library card, check our borrower page.

Check out what the Wisconsin State Law Library has to offer!

Ah, Wisconsin State Law Library Card.  How do I love thee?  Let me count the ways.

1. One is for checking out books, videos, seminar materials, and more.
2. Two is for getting articles and treatises online from anywhere both I and the internet happen to be.
3. Three is for borrowing materials by mail
4. Four is for saving searches in our catalog
5. Five is for getting my summer thrillers from Prose & Cons
6. Six is for borrowing from other libraries with Interlibrary Loan
7. Seven is for...   Well, you'll just have to wait and see!

This spring and summer we will be running a series of short articles on what your Wisconsin State Law Library card can do for you.  Be sure to tune in - and get a library card now to get in on the fun.