My apologies for the delay in forwarding the collated responses, I was a
bit overwhelmed with the number of replies, the phone calls and the
actual collation to send back to all of you. Thanks for empathizing with
my frustration. I am copying my CRIV email, in which I posted all the
comments (anonymous authors).
Tracy Thompson
Executive Director
New England Law Library Consortium, Inc.
9 Drummer Rd.
Keene, NH 03431
RE: CRIV involvement request
Dear Tracy:
I believe one or two of my law librarian colleagues may have already
asked for CRIV's assistance in this matter, but I'd like to follow up
with the comments of my Law-Lib colleagues on the recent decision by
Lexis to cease printing the Law Digests.
In addition to the comments below, gathered in response to my posting on
August 7, I received phone calls of similar opinions, and phone calls
which expressed concern at Lexis' decision to pull the updating of the
digest away from the law schools and state-by-state researchers they had
previously contracted with for the annual updating, and to bring that
research in-house. This decision was apparently not due to any quality
control issues, but because they had extra personnel to keep employed. I
am hoping this means the quality is still as trustworthy, but thought it
also might be another factor to consider as the law librarian community
decides whether to purchase future versions in any format of the Law
Digests.
Below are the comments of the librarians who responded to me as a result
of my Law-lib posting. I have tried to keep the senders anonymous.
<<
I don't have a good explanation for you on why MH will no longer have
the indispensable Law Digests in print. Did you see their publicity in
April this year, where they tried to put a positive spin on it by saying
you can now buy "Popular Compilation of Summaries of Laws around the
World" from amazon.com for less than $25 per copy.
Below is the message I sent to our staff at the time, with the MH press
release below that.
I am going to miss our old friend, the Law Digests..
Subject: Martindale-Hubbell Law Digests
To the reference group and others who need to know --
Have you seen the information below, that Martindale-Hubbell is no
longer, as of 2007, going to publish the two volumes of Law Digests.
These have the overview of laws for countries and US states, which is
often a good first step with a foreign law reference question since it
is succinct and often a good start or lead.
Never fear -- they are selling individual country and state Law Digests
on Amazon.com for $24.95 plus $3.99 shipping (gift wrap is available).
Another alternative for us, of course, is Martindale-Hubbell on Lexis.
If you haven't searched the Law Digests on Lexis before, it's useful to
note that the databases are by continent, rather than by country. So
you would be looking for the Martindale-Hubbell Law Digest -- Asian or
European or Middle East/ Africa or North American or South American. To
streamline your query, you should add a segment search, e.g.:
country(china).
1. LexisNexis to Distribute Martindale-Hubbell(r) Law Digest
on Amazon.com(r) via "Print on Demand"
Popular Compilation of Summaries of Laws around the World Now Available
for Less than $25 per Copy and with No Minimum Order
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--LexisNexis, the leading provider of client
development solutions for the legal profession, today announced that its
highly regarded Martindale-Hubbell(r) Law Digest is available on
Amazon.com(r) on a "Print on Demand" basis that allows anyone to
purchase as many or as few copies as they like.
The Martindale-Hubbell Law Digest provides concise and convenient
summaries of a vast body of statutory law from all over the world. There
are 148 state- or country-specific digests, compiled and updated each
year by prominent law firms and legal scholars in each jurisdiction.
Anyone who wishes to purchase one or more copies of the Law Digest can
go to www.amazon.com/lawdigest <http://www.amazon.com/lawdigest> and
order any digest they want for a suggested MSRP of $24.95 per copy. All
orders will be printed and fulfilled from Amazon's print-on-demand
facilities and available for Amazon Prime, next-day and free Super Saver
Shipping.
"This is an important strategic alliance because it allows anyone -
lawyers, law firms, corporate counsel, researchers and even consumers --
to inexpensively purchase individual copies of the Martindale-Hubbell
Law Digest and enhance their knowledge of current statutory law in
select states or specific areas of practice," said Joseph Douress,
senior vice president of client development services for LexisNexis. "As
a result of this new Print on Demand offering, we will eliminate the old
two-volume print versions of the Law Digest beginning with our 2007
edition, but we will continue to offer our CD-ROM version, which was
extremely well-received by our customers when it was introduced last
year."
"Amazon.com customers can now purchase the pieces of the Law Digest that
are most relevant to them and have them delivered the next day at a very
affordable price," said Kurt Beidler, senior manager of business
development at Amazon.com. "The Law Digest project showcases how
publishers can leverage our print-on-demand capabilities, large
distribution network and global audience of more than 60 million active
customers to reduce costs and increase sales. Publishers can now
disaggregate and re-release content in new formats targeted at specific
market segments without being constrained by traditional print
economics."
Martindale-Hubbell(r) is part of the LexisNexis(r) Client Development
solution line, which provides industry leading networking and law firm
marketing resources to help firms target clients, build their brand,
develop new business opportunities, and provide exceptional client
service. Through its four solution lines - Client Development
<http://law.lexisnexis.com/small-business-law-firms/client-development>
, Practice Management
<http://law.lexisnexis.com/small-business-law-firms/practice-management>
, Litigation Services
<http://law.lexisnexis.com/small-business-law-firms/litigation-services>
, and Research
<http://law.lexisnexis.com/small-business-law-firms/research-solutions>
- LexisNexis offers Total Practice Solutions to ensure that law firms
have the tools and services they need to win in the business and
practice of law.
About LexisNexis
LexisNexis(r) (www.lexisnexis.com <http://www.lexisnexis.com/> ) is a
leading provider of information and services solutions, including its
flagship Web-based Lexis(r) and Nexis(r) research services, to a wide
range of professionals in the legal, risk management, corporate,
government, law enforcement, accounting and academic markets. A member
of Reed Elsevier (NYSE:ENL)(NYSE:RUK) (www.reedelsevier.com
<http://www.reedelsevier.com/> ), LexisNexis serves customers in 100
countries with 13,000 employees worldwide.
Contacts
LexisNexis
Holly Michael, PR Manager, 937-865-8852
Holly.michael@lexisnexis.com <mailto:Holly.michael@lexisnexis.com>
<<
I so feel your pain on this. We have loaded the disc onto a public
machine in each office and have retained the old print. When Lexis
announced this change Lynn and I both cringed.
Print is better for this INMHO.
<<
I am really upset about this too. It is one of our more useful books
and to have to load it on a PC each time someone wants to use it is
nuts. For an extra $320 we can put it on our network, such a deal. I
would much rather have this in hard copy than the actual MH with the
listings.
<<
About two months ago, I expressed my EXTREME displeasure about this
development, particularly since we do not network CD's here. You may
also note that several of the disks they have sent crash your computers
and have had to be reissued.
I was directed to some marketing person who basically commiserated with
me, but said that the decision had been made in line with Lexis's
perception that this is the format people preferred. I too wonder who
these people are that expressed this preference. They were also kind
enough to point out that we could buy print copies from Amazon
(paperbacks, by state, about $24.95 each). Not likely!
I feel your pain. Lexis seems disinclined to do anything about it.
<<
Our print copy of the law digest gets much more use than the print
Martindale Law Directory, which is used much more online these days.
<<
FYI, I have sent a note to our Lexis Account Rep and our Lexis Senior
Librarian Relations Consultant, to let them know that we aren't happy
with this development.
<<
I could not agree more with you about the usefulness of this volume in
print. This sounds like a situation custom-made for AALL's Committee on
Relations with Information Vendors. CRIV members should be most
interested in getting to the bottom of this.
<<
I've complained to my MH rep about this and told them next year we will
be cancelling our subscription because of this digest going online.
Hopefully if enough people complain they'll reissue it in print.
<<
Did you look at the product? I was not surprised by its issue, they
sent at least one warning letter that they were dropping the print. But
I was surprised by the very poor quality of the CD-ROM product. I
contacted someone at Martindale and told them I found it inferior and
not worth loading and if there were any charges I wouldn't pay for it.
I don't believe there are charges because they bundle it in with the
rest of the set. So you cant drop it without getting rid of something
else.
<<Attached is a copy of my correspondence with Lexis regarding the law
digest. I hope that your posting will encourage them to reconsider.
<<
I too was irritated to receive the news and disk from MH. But I think
in the announcement they also indicated that a print volume could be
purchased form Amazon.com, for $150 or thereabouts.
<<
I received the letter and CD several weeks ago-guess they were late in
getting it out to you. I was not happy either, and when I called they
said that the decision had been made to make it available on CD-Rom only
via a user study group or something like that. Our IT department just
loaded it last week for me and it is actually just a PDF of the books.
Additionally, it will be a bit cumbersome to print for example just the
Bus Orgs section of the state digests, as you will have to determine
which pages it covers and choose only those pages to go to the printer.
You can order select states digests from amazon.com for a fee. For now
we've opted for the one user version but if we find we are having
problems getting in we will have to up the license. After I communicated
the change in format to my attorneys a few grumbled, but all in all I
think it will go over well.
<<
I also was not asked for my opinion and agree with you. I wonder who was
invited to take the poll? If it were actually online as part of our
subscription and kept up to date it would be one thing, but it is a CD
which most people still find difficult to use
<<
I agree with you completely. Obviously, the opinions of librarians were
not considered when they "voted" to make this change.
<<
I don't usually make these comments to the list but I had an extensive
argument with Martindale a few months ago about this very thing. I
saved the email string because I was totally outraged at their attitude.
They told me they had polled firm librarians which I highly doubt about
changing this product. I assume they polled the solo attorneys who
don't buy the books anyway and prefer the CD. Glad to see that I am not
the only one who thinks Martindale really screwed up on this one.
Thank you for your response. To address your question, we did in fact do
customer research in June 2005, which was the time we were determining
which strategy to pursue. We sent a survey to 7,125 customers. Law
librarians were included in the sample along with attorneys in our Large
Law, Small Law, Corporate and International segments.
Based upon on that research, it was determined that CD ROM made the most
sense and we rolled it out to 12,000 subscribers last year with no
negative feedback.
Additionally, barring no unforeseen technical issues, we expect the
network version of the Digest to be available on June 8, 2007. Should
that date change, I will ask David to keep you informed. Once you've
used the CD in its new format, please continue to feedback to us. We
welcome the opportunity to pass requests for changes to functionality or
other related feedback to our development groups for future releases.
Sincerely,
Jeanine O'Grady Director, Large Law and International Customer Relations
jeanine.ogrady@lexisnexis.com <mailto:jeanine.ogrady@lexisnexis.com>
908-771-8639 (Direct Dial) 908-665-3593 (Fax)
<<
I had a similar reaction when I received the news. The Law Digests are
used frequently here so I was dismayed to learn of this development. I
did hand over the disc to our MIS dept and they have placed it on our
network.
I've tried it and it does work. I haven't yet introduced it firm-wide,
and I wasn't aware that it's restricted to one user at a time, but that
shouldn't present a problem. I was wondering if others were annoyed as
much as I was at the M-H decision not to print the volume any longer. I
suppose I was resigned to the fact that so many print sources are being
terminated in favor of CD or online alternatives and I'd just have to
accept it. But I do wish M-H would know how many of us were
dissatisfied with their decision nonetheless.
<<
Charlene, I can't shed any light but I definitely agree with you! I
thought it would have made sense to at least put the Law Digest on
martindale.com. The disk seems somewhat antiquated and an
administrative/IT annoyance.
Thanks for posting the info. you got re: licensing and the 'vote.'
<<
I beefed about this to Martindale back in May and got a
sticking-to-our-decision response. Hopefully more people will turn up
the heat. It's the only thing that might effect a change.
<<
I completely agree with you. Why didn't they just add the law digest to
Martindale.com? At least they might update it periodically so the
information would be current. A CD-Rom just doesn't make sense!
As you can see, there are a lot of strong opinions from law librarians,
and I did not receive any commentary from anyone approving of the total
obliteration of the print digests, nor did I hear from any librarians
who were part of the survey group Lexis was pointing to.
Would you please contact Martindale-Hubbell and let us all know more
about this decision? I don't get the feeling that anyone objects to
having the CD version, just the lack of choice in the matter as well as
the additional cost.
The original message is included in the comments above. I am attaching a
copy of the note that was included in my Law Digest CD package that
started my inquiry.
Thank you.
Charlene Cunniffe
Director of Research Services
Bass, Berry & Sims PLC
315 Deaderick St., Suite 2700
Nashville, TN 37238-3001
ccunniffe@bassberry.com <mailto:ccunniffe@bassberry.com>
615-259-6473
fax 615-742-2761
________________________________
From: owner-law-lib@ucdavis.edu [mailto:owner-law-lib@ucdavis.edu] On
Behalf Of Cunniffe, Charlene
Sent: Monday, August 06, 2007 10:54 AM
To: law-lib@ucdavis.edu
Subject: Martindale-Hubbell Law Digests on disk only?
I was irritated last week to open a package from M-H with a disk and a
note that they will no longer be producing the print Law Digest. Of
course, there was an additional note that concurrent network licensing
was available at a further cost. It's interesting to note that of all
the print resources that I am reviewing for replacement by online
resources, the steady use of the Law Digest in print has kept me from
thinking about it as a candidate for weeding (though the law directories
certainly are). I would have been happier to pay for the print than the
online for this. I did call to ask about the licensing (apparently I can
install this on our network and it will allow one user at a time to use,
which may be enough)
If they are going to keep printing the directories, why not the law
digest? When I called, the rep told me they had "taken a vote". I guess
we aren't the electorate here. Or maybe everyone else is shouting
hallelujah that's finally available online. I'd just like the option to
get the print, or at least the chance to have both concurrently. Can
anyone shed any light on this development?
Charlene Cunniffe
Director of Research Services
Bass, Berry & Sims PLC
315 Deaderick St., Suite 2700
Nashville, TN 37238-3001
ccunniffe@bassberry.com
615-259-6473
fax 615-742-2761
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