Hi all,
I have been wanting to make a comment about CBC & prices
for the last couple of weeks and now seems to be the
perfect opportunity. [My staff will tell you I have been
wandering around muttering under my breath for the last
month about prices]. The steepness of the Couch bill, I
assume is paritially due to the fact that they updated the
whole set--when filed we noticed that the set had been
updated in June 1995. When did CBC (and others) get
the idea that *every* treatise needed to be updated
multiple times in a year? Some of CBC's were actually
supplemented 4 TIMES (McCarthy on Trademark)
I'll use McCarthy as an extreme example--the newest
edition was released in December 1992--updated once
in 1993, twice in 1994, and 4 times in 1995. Literally, the
effect is that it has more than quadrupled in price since 1992.
Many others have moved from one to two supplements
(net effect a more than doubling in price). We made
complaints about Little, Brown doubling their prices--to be
consistant, we need to be concerned about this trend of
multiple supplementations because the net effect on budgets
is the same. And, with the "great" new format being used
on so many titles, one cannot even skip a year or purchase
only one release to meet budget constrictions and not totally
lose a set's integrity. [And, it is questionable how long we
will be able to purchase one release a year from WGL--we
got a replacement edition in the "great" new format this
morning].
Like El Paso County, we are suffering a tight budget (as I
assume many libraries are) and we have really been
clobbered with CBC updates and new editions the last
couple of months--and many of these have been the
second (or higher) supplement we have received for each
title. We are not budgeted to cover that high of a "price
increase" and the result will be that we will be cutting
quite a number of useful titles in order to keep those we
*absolutely* have to maintain.
There is no need for a response saying how useful it is
for users to have "the most up to date" materials in each
treatise--that is not the true purpose of a treatise. A treatise
is a starting point--an overview-- for a topic. Yes, a treatise
does need to be current as of its publishing cut off date but,
no matter when that is, there is always a lag and other
search tools need to be used to find the most current
materials. And, when one needs to search out 3-6 months
to catch current developments, it really doesn't take that
much longer to search out the major developments of a
whole year. In topics where change is rapid (tax, labor,
securities), there are services and high costs and frequent
updates are expected but most areas of law do not
change that rapidly and every treatise does not need to
be treated (or priced) like a service.
Kathy Carlson
Wyoming State Law Library
Date: Thu, 4 Jan 1996 13:28:07 -0700 (MST)
Reply-to: kclark@csn.net
From: Kathleen Clark <kclark@csn.net>
To: law-lib@ucdavis.edu
Subject: Couch on Insurance 3d
Hi all,
I just received an invoice from CBC for the latest updates to the above
title. It contains a partial revision to the looseleaf format and the
remaining portion of the set contains a 12/95 cumulative supplement. All
for the wonderful price of $476.15 and the revised edition is not yet
complete.
This seems quite steep to me; last year I might not have complained, but
I am on an extremely tight budget this year. Any thoughts or plans on
how you are handling this would be appreciated.
Kathleen Clark Edie (kclark@csn.org)
El Paso County Law Library
Colorado Springs, CO 80903
(719) 630-2880 (after 1/8/96, phone # is 719-448-7780)
Kathy Carlson
Wyoming State Law Library
(307) 777-7509
kcarlson@windy.state.wy.us
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Nov 14 2007 - 20:49:09 PST