The following from Fred Shapiro satisfied our query. I had sent the message in the first place because West is known to create new products, and it did not seem inconceivable that it would publish a "revised" 7th rather than an 8th. Thank you to Mr. Shapiro.
-----Original Message-----
From: Fred Shapiro [mailto:fred.shapiro@yale.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, December 09, 2003 2:00 PM
To: Defendeifer, Linda M.
Cc: law-lib@ucdavis.edu
Subject: Re: Black's Law Dictionary, 7th Ed. Revised
On Tue, 9 Dec 2003, Defendeifer, Linda M. wrote:
> We have received West's invitation to order a "historic" revision of
> _Black's_, described further as the "[f]irst A-Z revision in a century."
> The brochure includes some endorsements, but these may be from advance
> copies. Has anyone actually used the revised dictionary, and is it
> sufficiently different from the previous 7th to warrant purchase by a
> mid-size law firm?
I would think that they are referring to the 7th ed., published in 1999,
as a historic revision. If they had done a historic revision after that,
they would call it the 8th ed. The 1999 edition was a thorough revision,
of much better quality than the previous editions of Black's, which were
quite amateurish by lexicographical standards. If you don't already have
the 7th ed., it's worth your purchasing it; if you already have the 7th
ed., you are probably OK already.
Fred Shapiro
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fred R. Shapiro Editor
Associate Librarian for Collections and YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
Access and Lecturer in Legal Research Yale University Press,
Yale Law School forthcoming
e-mail: fred.shapiro@yale.edu http://quotationdictionary.com
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