LexisNexis provides access to thousands of news, business, legal, and medical publications and information sources, including: newspapers, newsletters, magazines, trade journals, wire services, and broadcast transcripts. The legal component of the database includes comprehensive, current legal information. This consists of federal and state case law, statues, secondary sources such as law reviews, and state legal materials.

1. To use LexisNexis, begin by accessing the main database page from the Library homepage and select the "Articles & Databases" link:

2. Select LexisNexis from the alphabetical list of databases:

3. The opening page for LexisNexis is seen in the screen shot below. Take note of: 1) the tabs in the upper left corner of the screen. It is good practice to select the subject area of LexisNexis that you wish to search. For example, if you are searching legal cases, then select the "Legal" tab (see point #8 below for a discussion of the Legal portion of the database); 2) the "Help" function that provides extensive information on how to use LexisNexis; 3) the search box where keywords are entered, along with several options to limit the types of documents returned in the search and limit the publication date:

4. The following screen shot demonstrates an example search. The keywords "Barack Obama" and "health care reform" (wrapping keywords in quotation marks instructs the database to search them as an exact phrase) will be searched in major U.S. and world publications during the previous three months.

5. The results appear in the next screen shot. On this screen, pay attention to: 1) how the results are sorted. The default is for "relevance," which indicates how many times the keywords appear in the article. Results can also be sorted by publication date to see the most recently published articles at the top of the list; 2) the number of results for the search; and the ability to sort the results by document type, such as 3) by Newspapers or 4) by Magazines & Journals:

6. To access an article, simply click on the blue title:

7. The article itself appears in the next screen shot. The icons in the top right corner can be used to print, e-mail, or save the article. Note how the keywords used in the search will appear bolded in red:

8. To use the legal portion of LexisNexis, click on the "Legal" link on the opening page:

9. Once inside the Legal portion, it is very important to look at the content links on the left hand side of the page seen in circle #1. The default is set to search in "Law Reviews" (note the bold red lettering indicating such). Click on the links to search for particular documents such as "Federal & State Cases" or "Federal & State Codes." Circle #2 shows the search box to enter keywords and circle #3 shows a drop down menu in which the user can specify what kind of law reviews to search or which geographic locations to search for court cases:

10. To find a specific court case, for example, the Supreme Court case for Roe vs. Wade, click on the left link for "Federal & State Cases", set the drop down menu for "Sources" to "U.S. Supreme Court Cases, Lawyers' Edition", and then enter in the terms for "Roe" and "Wade" by "Case name":

11. On the next screen of results, select the appropriate case from the list. Usually it will be the one with the longest entry:

LexisNexis is a large and complicated database and this guide is only meant as a brief overview of the capabilities available. For more information, access LexisNexis's own extensive help section.

As always, please see, call (904-819-6331), or email (library@flagler.edu) a Reference Librarian if you need assistance while using any of the Library's resources. We are always happy to help.