Prof.
Mark J. McCabe, School of Economics,
Georgia Institute of Technology, this
week issued his final report on Law
Serials Pricing and Mergers: A Portfolio
Approach (pdf). This 26-page
paper uses data from more than 400 legal
serials where McCabe estimated the impact
of six publisher mergers on the serial
prices during the period 1990-2000.
The results suggest that price increases
were substantial during this period,
that mergers contributed to these increases,
and that these merger effects occurred
in a broadly-defined portfolio consisting
of legal encyclopedias and treatises.
In
2000, the Federal Trade Commission rescinded
the Guides for the Law Book
Industry (65 FR 2867 (2000))
and, in their rescission, suggested that
AALL develop its own set of guidelines.
After
seeking input from the membership of AALL,
and after much work, this project was
completed with the publication of The
AALL
Guide to Fair Business Practices for Legal
Publishers.
Last
year, AALL Past President Carol
Avery Nicholson set up The
AALL Fair Business Implementation Task
Force, for the purpose of introducing
the guide and encouraging use and reference
of the guide. It is the resolve of the
task force to help the members better
understand the guide and encourage the
use of it when dealing with publishers
and vendors.
Over
the next few months, we will highlight
different sections of the guide. It is
our hope that these will be of benefit
to you.
The
task force members also encourages you
to read through either your paper copy
of the guide or the electronic
version.
Finally,
make use of the guide. It describes standards
for the business practices that most directly
affect law librarians and is intended
to be a basis for fair practice and to
foster better communication between librarians
and publishers.
Submitted
by:
The
AALL Fair Business Implementation Task
Force
Kay Todd
Michael Beaird
Kamla Hedges
Judy Lauer
Linda McLane
James Mumm
Vice
President Tory Trotta asks that
you please don’t forget to volunteer
for an AALL
Committee! The online
volunteer form makes it easy
and you are sure to expand your skills,
your network, and your profession if you
do! The deadline is December 1.
Do
you know someone—maybe even yourself—who
would benefit from an AALL scholarship?
In addition to the AALL scholarships awarded
for those in accredited library or law
schools, the association offers several
other scholarships, including one to promote
diversity within the profession and another
to fund continuing education for law librarians.
This year, 11 scholarships totaling $21,000
were awarded to applicants.
To
enhance the diversity within law librarianship,
AALL offers the George
A. Strait Minority Scholarship Endowment.
This scholarship is awarded to college
graduates with law library experience
who are members of a minority group, as
defined by current U.S. government guidelines,
and are degree candidates in accredited
library or law schools. Recent recipients
of the Strait scholarship are Filiberto
Govea, Florante Ibanez, and Debora Taylor.
Applications for
the 2004 scholarships are available on
AALLNET and are due on April 1,
2004.
Do
you know of a course, workshop, or conference
that would increase your experience in
law librarianship? If the answer is yes,
consider applying for the Type
V scholarship, intended for
librarians attending continuing-education
courses. Any AALL member who is a graduate
of an accredited law school or library
school and registered in a continuing-education
course related to law librarianship may
apply for this $500 grant. Many librarians
are not aware that this scholarship exists,
and consequently, some years this scholarship
has not been awarded. One or more scholarships
of $500 will be awarded during 2003-2004.
Don’t miss another opportunity to
enhance your job skills without breaking
your bank account. Applications for the
Type
V scholarship are
due Oct. 1, Feb. 1 or April 1.
AALL
members are the best advertisement for
these scholarships. If you know of a student
interested in law librarianship or a librarian
enrolled in a continuing-education course,
alert them that funding is available through
AALL.
Submitted
by Leonette M. Williams
We
will be upgrading our email server on Friday,
November 7 which will include possible downtime
from 12:00 to 4:30 p.m. We will be installing
a new 72 Gigabyte hard drive, installing
512 MB more memory, and upgrading the server
software from Exchange 2000 to Exchange
2003.
We
have improved the means for your to provide
your comments about AALLNET.
Now you will find an easily located Comments
button at the bottom of the left hand
column. Please feel free to give us your
praise, suggestions, problems and complaints
so that we can continue to make AALLNET
as useful to you as humanly possible.
I
am very pleased to announce that Steven
Oberhoffer officially joined
the staff this week as our Support Staff
Specialist (formerly known as Customer
Relations Assistant). Steven has worked
with us in a temporary capacity for the
past several months and we consider it
quite the coup to have him on board full-time.
He will be here to assist AALL members
with queries and to help you find the
help you need. He will also work with
Pam Reisinger in the Meetings Department
and Kim Rundle in the Executive Office,
and all our staff to assist in insuring
all departments run smoothly. We will
profile Steven in the near future. Welcome!
I’m
pleased to also introduce you to Ivonne Torres, our ever able Accounting
Assistant. She works closely
with Director of Finance &
Administration, Steve
Ligda to process checks and
to keep our accounting system in tip top
shape. She is also the gal who produces
the report of monthly SIS financial activities.
When not crunching numbers, Ivonne parents
Marcus, 9 years old, and Annalise, two
years old next week. She also enjoys dining
in Chicago’s many fine restaurants
and highly recommends Café
Iberico. She says, “with all
this eating I like to stay fit by being
highly involved in Tae
Bo!”
