In one key phrase we can sum up 2020: unprecedented times. While we were happy to start a fresh new year, 2020 will always be a year to remember. Here are some notable events that happened in the past 12 months:
- The first confirmed case of coronavirus was reported in Wuhan, China.
- Locusts invaded East Africa, posing an additional threat to food security where 19 million people were already experiencing food insecurity.
- Taal, one of the Philippines’ most active volcanos, erupted killing 39 people and spreading ash for up to 9 miles.
- President Donald Trump was acquitted in his first impeachment trial.
- Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, gave up their royal titles.
- 25 year-old Ahmaud Arbery was shot and killed during a jog in Georgia.
- Harvey Weinstein was found guilty of committing a criminal sex act and rape, a turning point for the #metoo movement.
- Persistent heat and drought brought deadly wildfires to Australia.
- The Senate approved a $2 trillion stimulus package, the largest emergency aid package in U.S. history.
- George Floyd was murdered after a police officer kneeled on his neck, sparking worldwide protests to end police violence against African Americans.
- The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal civil rights law protects gay, lesbian, and transgender workers.
- An accidental detonation of ammonium nitrate, created a massive explosion in Beirut, killing more than 200 people and leaving 6,500 injured.
- President Trump announced that the United States was formally withdrawing from the World Health Organization (WHO).
- Former vice president Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the presidential election.
Several iconic entertainers passed away, including actor Chadwick Bosemen, actress Carol Sutton, game show host Alex Trebek, actor Sean Connery, actress Naya Rivera, TV personality Regis Philbin, singer-songwriter Johnny Nash, and renowned guitarist Eddie Van Halen. Other influential people lost in 2020 include feminist icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg, civil rights icon Bruce Boynton, activist and filmmaker James Redford, and anthropologist David Graeber. The sports world also lost NBA legend Kobe Bryant, basketball hall of famer Tommy Heinsohn, baseball hall of famer Joe Morgan, and NFL legend Gale Sayers.
Amidst all this breaking news, HeinOnline continued to expand. Even during lockdowns, we worked diligently from our homes to bring you new and exciting content. And, while you were at home, you were still researching. In 2020 alone, HeinOnline had more than 13 million searches and more than 1 billion hits! Our dedicated Support Team logged 12,500 hours of live support, helping customers during 2,733 chats and 2,624 phone calls! During that time, we also added new databases and content and implemented new search features. Here’s a brief synopsis of what happened with HeinOnline in 2020.
New Databases
1. Current Index to Legal Periodicals
William S. Hein & Co., Inc. & HeinOnline acquired the rights to the University of Washington Gallagher Law Library’s Current Index to Legal Periodicals (CILP). Maintained diligently by an experienced team of editors, the publication indexes the most recent issues of primarily American law journals by subject heading. Through CILP, law professors, lawyers, and law librarians receive timely topical access to more than 650 legal publications organized within 104 relevant subject headings. Also included are complete tables of contents from all journals indexed, as well as Bluebook citations.
2. Bibliography of American Law School Casebooks
The second edition of Bibliography of American Law School Casebooks is available both in print (covering 1870-2018) and as an online database that is current to within the last year, with regular updates. Enhance your legal studies with the second edition of the only comprehensive casebook index, containing nearly 10,000 entries (4,000 more than the first edition!). Users can trace the topical development of legal education with the arrangement of 230 subject headings and utilize multiple browse options, including an extensive author index listing more than 4,200 authors.
3. American Enterprise Institute (AEI)
This database includes publications from the most prominent think tank associated with American neoconservatism, committed to strengthening the free enterprise system in America. Access research fueled by rigorous, data-driven and broad-ranging evidence in more than 1,700 titles covering 20 different policy areas. Unique to this collection is the ability to search by Policy Area, a subject identifier assigned by AEI to each of its publications, which organizes their works into the following: economics, foreign and defense policy, society and culture, health care, politics and public opinion, poverty studies, and education; additional Policy Areas within each of these main categories further organize publications into more specific topics.
4. COVID-19: Pandemics Past and Present
This database empowers its users with information about how COVID-19 has impacted public health, economics, society, and the world. Access hundreds of Congressional Research Service (CRS) and Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports and other government documents relating to COVID-19 and past pandemics. Further your research with a curated list of scholarly articles and external links to supplement your pandemic research.
5. Executive Privilege
This database is a comprehensive resource for primary and secondary material relating to executive privilege. Peruse congressional hearings, reports, memoranda, and more, as well as law review articles and books that invoke, debate, and explore instances of executive privilege from our country’s founding to the present day. Our extensive metadata indexing allows for unique browsing options and a custom search index.
6. Civil Rights and Social Justice
HeinOnline’s Civil Rights and Social Justice database brings together a diverse offering of publications covering civil rights in the United States, as their legal protections and definitions are expanded to cover more and more Americans. This timely resource contains links to more than 500 scholarly articles, hearings and committee prints, legislative histories on landmark legislation, CRS and GAO reports, briefs from major Supreme Court cases, and publications from the Commission on Civil Rights. It allows users to educate themselves on the ways our civil rights have been strengthened and expanded over time, as well as how these legal protections can go further still.
New Features
We are always looking for ways to improve users’ HeinOnline experience. In the past year the following new features have been added to HeinOnline, many of which came from your suggestions:
Author Profile Page Enhancements
Phase II of the ORCID integration provides authors the ability to display their ORCID records on their author profile page.
Users can receive email alerts when an author has been cited by a case that has been added to HeinOnline.
Authors who have enhanced their profile can edit it via MyHein if using the same email address.
Authors (or administrators) now have the added ability to link to Google Scholar Profiles and SSRN Profiles.
Browsing and Searching Enhancements
Topics are even more intuitive, discoverable, and user friendly with the Law Journal Library’s multi-level taxonomy.
Utilize our citation lookup tool, found on the Serial Set landing page, to quickly retrieve a document.
Refine your search in the Law Journal Library to show only full-text availability of articles or indexed-only content.
Users can search multiple selected databases at once from their HeinOnline welcome page.
MyHein Enhancements
Users can manage and organize their search history for greater efficiency using MyHein.
View a comprehensive listing of author alerts and adjust those alerts at any time with MyHein.
Mark databases as favorites to push them to the top of your HeinOnline welcome page using MyHein.
This essential current awareness tool provides weekly tailored alerts delivered via email as a supplement to CILP.
Other Miscellaneous Enhancements
We’ve integrated with NoodleTools, an online research management platform for any level of research experience.
Australian Guide to Legal Citations
The Australian Guide to Legal Citations (AGLC) has been added to HeinOnline citation formats.
Other Notable Content Additions
Since January 2020, HeinOnline has added:
- 9,950,134 pages, bringing the total page count to 190,980,136
- 143 new journals
- 7,870 congressional documents
- more than 4,000 CRS Reports
- 1,768 legal classics
- 1,296 titles to Taxation and Economic Reform in America: Parts I & II
- 964 titles to the U.S. Presidential Library
- 549 titles to Religion and the Law
- 458 titles to U.S. International Trade Library
- 417 titles to the American Indian Law Collection
- 413 volumes to the U.S. Treaties and Agreements Library
- 394 titles to Immigration Law & Policy in the U.S.
New titles and new content for existing titles continue to be added and milestones continue to be reached, including:
The Law Journal Library surpassed 2,900 journals!
We added more than 2 million pages, revamped, and renamed the Criminal Justice in America database to Criminal Justice & Criminology
We celebrated two major anniversaries for the Hein Company—100 years of William S. Hein & Co., Inc. and 20 years of HeinOnline!
We updated our ScholarRank standings to include each author’s institution or organization.
Our Business and Legal Aspects of Sports and Entertainment (BLASE) database won the 2020 Joseph L. Andrews Award.
We celebrated Kevin Marmion’s 50th anniversary with the Hein Company by taking a look back at his career.
We added the current 8th edition to the National Survey of State Laws database, including new and updated chapters!
Nine new essential Hackney publications titles were added, resulting in new Hackney publication packages.
We enhanced the COVID-19 database to include Past Pandemics to aid users in researching this hot topic.
The U.S. Federal Legislative History Library grew by 91 legislative histories, spanning more than 230,000 pages.
For a quick visual summary, check out this infographic!
Despite the events happening worldwide, we had another great year and would like to thank our loyal customers for their support and feedback. Stay tuned to see what’s new in 2021!
For questions or for help using HeinOnline, contact our dedicated support team at (800) 277-6995, email us, or chat with us!
