If 2025 taught us anything, it’s that the world doesn’t slow down. The year delivered no shortage of headline-making moments, from wildfires blazing through California to political shakeups with a second Trump administration, and the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. Add in ongoing wars overseas, debates over immigration and AI regulation, and the question of whether TikTok would actually disappear from our phones (it didn’t), and it was a year that kept everyone paying attention.
Not every moment was heavy, though. 2025 also brought a rare interstellar comet passing through our solar system, and even a fictional K-pop group topping real-world music charts. Through it all, one thing stayed constant: the need for reliable information to help make sense of a fast-moving, complicated world.
That’s where HeinOnline earned its keep. In 2025, you searched, clicked, and explored your way through millions of queries and billions of interactions across our platform. And when research got tricky, our support team was standing by, jumping into chats, hopping on calls, and making sure you were never stuck for long, while we quietly worked on a glow-up of our own.
The HeinOnline Glow-Up
In May, HeinOnline rolled out a fully redesigned welcome page and refreshed interface, our most significant visual and usability update in years. Built for speed and clarity, the new experience helps you get where you’re going faster, while keeping the powerful functionality and deep archives you know and trust. Say goodbye to endless A–Z scrolling and hello to intuitive browsing by subject, database type, and provider, plus quick access to New and Popular databases and your Favorites. With improved readability, stronger contrast, and keyboard-friendly navigation, HeinOnline now looks as good as it works. A shiny new welcome page deserved more than just a fresh coat of paint, so we filled it with new databases and features worth exploring.
New Databases
1. National Defense University Press Publications
The National Defense University Press Publications database joined our Military and Government collection, bringing hundreds of current and historical texts from one of the nation’s leading professional military and academic publishers. Meticulously subject-coded and fully integrated with HeinOnline, the collection covers critical topics including national security, defense strategy, and U.S. foreign policy. Available at no additional cost through select U.S. and Canadian Core subscriptions, it gives researchers, policymakers, and military professionals trusted insight into today’s most pressing global security challenges.
2. Complete Periodical Literature of Law Librarianship
2025 Joseph L. Andrews Legal Literature Award Winner
The Complete Periodical Literature of Law Librarianship brings together more than 5,000 expertly annotated historical and contemporary articles focused exclusively on law librarianship in the United States and Canada. Built over decades by a dedicated father-daughter editorial team who read and evaluated every article, the database reflects an unmatched level of care, expertise, and subject knowledge. Featuring human-applied annotations, custom subject headings, and significance ratings, it helps researchers quickly identify the most relevant and impactful materials. Seamlessly integrated into HeinOnline, this collection allows law librarians to spend less time sorting through results and more time engaging with the research that matters most.
3. Organization of American States (OAS)
The Organization of American States (OAS) database launched in 2025 as the only digital resource to offer comprehensive, structured access to official documents from the world’s oldest regional organization. Drawing from nearly 1,000 publications, including charters, treaties, resolutions, and reports from the OAS and its predecessor, the Pan American Union. The collection brings together foundational materials central to Inter-American law, diplomacy, and regional cooperation.
Carefully organized using the official OAS Classification Manual and enriched with expert curation from the Columbus Memorial Library, the database makes historically significant and hard-to-find materials easier to discover and understand. Fully integrated into HeinOnline, it provides researchers with authoritative insight into the legal and diplomatic history of the Americas.
4. Case Law Premium (Powered by CourtListener)
Case Law (Powered by CourtListener) is one of the most extensive collections of American case law available online, developed by the Free Law Project and covering over 99% of all precedential legal decisions from more than 2,000 courts. Integrated seamlessly into HeinOnline, this resource provides researchers with access to over nine million legal decisions from more than 2,000 courts, continuously updated to reflect the latest court rulings, and backed by CourtListener’s commitment to data quality through machine learning, human verification, and direct court publishing.
New Features
1. Article Summaries (Powered by AI)
Article Summaries (Powered by AI) debuted in 2025 as a new way to help researchers get their bearings faster, without replacing the research itself. These concise, 200–300-word overviews highlight an article’s central thesis, key issues, and significance, making it easier to decide what’s worth a deeper dive in a collection of more than two million law journal articles. Built entirely in-house and trained exclusively on HeinOnline’s own data, the summaries are transparent, non-interactive, and designed with privacy and trust at the forefront. Think of them as the modern equivalent of a study guide: helpful for context, but never a substitute for reading the full text.
2. Customizable Popular Databases
Customizable Popular Databases recently launched, giving libraries the power to make the HeinOnline homepage their own. Instead of a one-size-fits-all view, institutions can now highlight the databases that matter most to their users, whether that’s new subscriptions, core research collections, or faculty favorites. Designed with direct input from the library community, the feature puts control where it belongs and updates instantly for everyone at your institution. The result is a smarter, more personal homepage that reflects your library, your priorities, and your users.
2025 HeinOnline Hits
Let’s dig even deeper. See below for the most accessed articles, databases, blogs, and more!
Most accessed articles
1. Mapping the Margins: Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence against Women of Color by Kimberly Crenshaw- accessed 6,698 times
2. Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory and Antiracist Politics by Kimberle Crenshaw – accessed 3,319 times
3. Serial murder in America: case studies of seven offenders by James O. Beasley II – accessed 2,971 times
Most accessed databases
1. Law Journal Library — 121,491,659 hits
2. Legal Classics — 5,086,630 hits
3. Session Laws Library — 4,809,112 hits
Most searched
The words adoption, colorado, and “Parliamentary debates” were among the top search terms and phrases, but here are some additional key searches:
1. Most searched phrase: “compliance” OR “CORSIA” across all of HeinOnline
2. Most searched citation: 491 U.S. 397
3. Most searched author: Albert Choi
Most used facets
1. Collection/Library — used 12,773,917 times
2. Subject — used 2,781,503 times
3. Section Type — used 1,592,738 times
Most accessed LibGuides
1. Law Journal Library – accessed 13,641 times
2. COVID-19: Pandemics Past and Present – accessed 10,861 times
3. Getting Started – accessed 5,633 times
Most accessed blogs
1. 4 Notorious Cults in American History – viewed 187,618 times
2. 12 of the Boldest Executive Orders in U.S. History to Kick Off Your Presidents Day – viewed 23,836 times
3. The 15 Most Inspiring Presidential Speeches in American History – viewed 19,6442 times
Most accessed YouTube videos
Total number of MyHein profiles created
In 2025, you created 5,348 MyHein profiles!
Other Notable Content Additions
Since January 2025, HeinOnline has added:
- 9,221,024 pages, bringing the total page count to 244,525,286
- 80 new journals
- 2,859 Congressional Documents
- 1,647 CRS Reports
- 580 GAO Opinions
- 907 titles to Legal Classics
- 421 titles to the U.S. International Trade Library
- 268 titles to World Constitutions Illustrated
- 211 titles to the U.S. Presidential Library
- 210 titles to Indigenous Peoples of the Americas: History, Culture & Law
- 149 titles to Women and the Law
- 180 titles to Water Rights & Resources
- 125 titles to Immigration Law & Policy in the U.S.
- 119 titles to Animal Studies: Law, Welfare and Rights
New titles and new content for existing titles continue to be added, and milestones continue to be reached, including:
- U.S. State Commitments with Foreign Governments won the 2025 AALL New Product Award and continued to expand with the addition of 500 new commitments, including 200 from the decades preceding 2000!
- Five new Taylor & Francis journals were added to the Law Journal Library, bringing our total to nearly 70 titles.
- We added over 150 new presidential-related books to the U.S. Presidential Library.
- HeinOnline turned 25!
- Sources of Compiled Legislative Histories was updated with over 370 new sources, offering enhanced coverage of recent laws.
For a quick visual summary, check out this infographic.
Webinar Replays
HeinOnline & Altmetric: Tracking Research Attention
This webinar replay features Michelle Herbert, Product Engagement Specialist at Altmetric, and highlights key updates to HeinOnline along with its Altmetric integration. Watch to learn how Altmetric tracks online attention across news, blogs, and social media to help researchers better understand the real-world impact of scholarly work.
A Multigenerational Look at Law Librarianship
Explore the Complete Periodical Literature of Law Librarianship in this webinar replay featuring guest speakers Michael and Sarah Slinger. The father–daughter editorial team shares insight into the creation of this unparalleled resource, which brings together more than 5,000 meticulously annotated articles documenting the evolution of law librarianship in the United States and Canada.
Using the Serial Set for Family History
This webinar replay features guest presenter Judy G. Russell, JD, CG®, CGL℠, The Legal Genealogist®, as she explores how the U.S. Congressional Serial Set in HeinOnline can unlock rich genealogical clues. Learn how this vast collection of House and Senate documents can help family historians and genealogy librarians uncover details about individuals, communities, and events that shaped our ancestors’ lives.
Where in the World Was Hein?
Fueled by carry-ons, conference badges, and a whole lot of swag, our small-but-mighty sales team covered 15 states and 4 countries in 2025, proving that great things (and great conversations) travel far. And wherever we went, one topic kept coming up: AI.
At AALL 2025, we invited librarians to share their thoughts the old-fashioned way: on Post-it notes. No panels, no prompts, just sharpies, sticky notes, and real talk about AI and life beyond it. The responses ranged from thoughtful and curious to cautiously optimistic (with plenty of humor), all pointing to the same priorities: trust, transparency, and tools that work with librarians, not instead of them.
These conversations didn’t end when the conference floor closed. They continue to shape how we think about AI at HeinOnline, reminding us that the most meaningful innovation starts with listening.
Still Growing at 25
If 2025 reminded us of anything, it’s that growth doesn’t stop, even after 25 years. Between a HeinOnline glow-up, new databases, smarter tools, millions of new pages, and conversations happening everywhere from campuses to conferences around the world, it was a year that pushed us forward. As we marked our 25th anniversary, we did what we’ve always done: listened, evolved, and kept building a better way to support the research that matters.
