Comparison of Online Tools for Finding Really Old English Cases

I did a presentation a few months ago at my place of work on United Kingdom cases. Part of the session included a quick overview of how to find content from the English Reports, a multivolume series that reproduces old English cases from the 13th century to the late 19th century.

The Stream, the blog published by Courthouse Libraries BC, recently posted The English Reports: A Comparison of HeinOnline and CommonLII on the exact same topic:

"One of my favorite moments on the reference desk is when someone asks for help finding a case from the English Reports. An amazing feat of legal publishing, the English Reports reproduce over 100,000 early English cases from the years 1220 to 1873, many of which continue to be cited in Canadian cases."

"We're lucky in the Vancouver courthouse library, as we have three options for clients: the print English Reports, HeinOnline, and CommonLII (the Commonwealth Legal Information Institute). In the last two years, both HeinOnline and CommonLII have added the full reprint of the English Reports to their mix of databases. Now that those sources have had some time to establish themselves (and for us to use them), I thought a comparison might be helpful."