Mr. Love:
Yesterday's posting from NYU's Mary Chapman delineates 8
specific West titles that averaged just over 23% increases
in their upkeep costs compared to their preceding year.
Prior LAW-LIB postings have isolated other upkeep cost
increases soaring as high as 100%. I am comfortable in
observing on behalf of law libraries and my colleague
librarians that, in response to this unprecedented and
ravenous bite of our respective library budgets, we are yet
to see a comparable morsel of product innovation and
improvements or of improved but instead only struggling
customer service following this merger. I have never
understood how this merger could possibly receive government
approval when the likes of the proposed Revco/Rite Aid and
Office Depot/Staples mergers did not, but when I wrote to
the FTC last summer posing this exact question, the FTC's
only response was that it does not involve itself in
DOJ-investigated mergers. The prospect of a "wired"
approval process as fueled by the last few days' press
stories certainly most logically explains why law book
consumers are now victims of these scalping upkeep charges.
Thank you for your continuing interests on behalf of law
libraries regarding price and quality changes resulting from
this ill conceived merger, and for your ongoing informative
postings on LAW-LIB.
Allen C. Story, Librarian
U. S. Courts Library
401 Courthouse Square
Alexandria, VA 22314-5718
703-299-3300 / fax 703-299-3302
______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: price or quality changes since merger
Author: James Love <love@tap.org> at ~icmsgtwy
Date: 4/15/97 8:37 AM
We are very interested in learning about price increases or quality
changes in West or Thomson products, following the merger.
James Love
P.O. Box 19367
Washington, DC 20036
fax 202.234.5176
love@tap.org
________________________________________________________________
James Love / love@tap.org / P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
Voice: 202/387-8030; Fax 202/234-5176
Center for Study of Responsive Law
Consumer Project on Technology: http://www.cptech.org
CSRL Antitrust page: http://www.essential.org/antitrust
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