In yet another law book publisher transaction, it was announced on July 3, 1996 that Shepards Citations (McGraw-Hill) is to be acquired by The Times Mirror Company in exchange for the Times Mirror Higher Education Group and additional undisclosed consideration. This means that Shepards Citations will now be with Matthew Bender, and, Richard D. Irwin, Wm. C. Brown, Brown & Benchmark, Irwin Professional Publishing, and Mosby College (T/M Higher Education Group) will go to McGraw-Hill. Times Mirror and Reed Elsevier also jointly announced "that Times Mirror would contribute Shepard's to a new 50/50 partnership with Reed Elsevier as the first step in what is expected to be a broader strategic alliance between Matthew Bender and Lexis-Nexis..." Shepards/McGraw-Hill legal treatises were previously sold to Thomson and distributed between Clark Boardman Callaghan and Warren, Gorham & Lamont.

According to the July 1, 1996 issue of Publishers Weekly, Little, Brown has decided to sell its professional publishing division, which houses its medical and legal publishing group. Time Warner decided to sell this "division because it did not fit with the consumer-oriented thrust of the company and was too small to compete with the giants in the medical and legal fields" (p.10).

The annual CRIV Publishers' Open Forum was held on Sunday, July 21, at the AALL convention. Responding to the topic "What Is Customer Service and How Do We Get It?" were representatives from Matthew Bender, CCH, and Aspen Law & Business. All have customer service departments and all purport to be responsive to their customers. And, if they are not responsive, the companies want to know about it. Bender has 20 customer service representatives; its hours are 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern Time. CCH has 105 persons in customer service (I assume this includes field representatives); its hours are 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Central Time. Aspen Law & Business has no field representatives and also indicated that it is moving to New York. An Aspen Law & Business rep did call me recently to announce that he is the rep for Virginia, although he did not state that he would call on me.

» New publication: Directory of Electronic Journals, Newsletters, and Academic Discussion Lists. 6th ed. Dru W. Mogge, editor. ARL, 1996. 1,136 pages. ISSN 1057-1337. Item #DEJ06-A $79 ($55 to ARL members) plus $6 shipping & handling. Prepayment is required. Send check to: ARL Publications, Department #0692, Washington DC 20073-0692.

This publication includes entries for over 3,000 academic and professional discussion lists and 1,688 electronic journals, newsletters, and newsletter- digests. It is useful for locating Internet resources and for assisting librarians in building electronic collections.

» Web versions:

Journals and Newsletters -

   http://arl.cni.org/scomm/edir

Discussion Lists-

  http://www.n2h2.com/KOVACS

Following are some condensed notes from the breakout sessions at the Acquisitions Workshop held July 25 at Indianapolis. These sessions were reported on LAWACQ.

» From Brian Quigley's breakout session (as reported by Karen Pidgeon): Electronic ordering was the primary topic discussed -- which libraries are using it, which vendors have it available, and the importance of standardization of electronic data. Brian suggested two items to read: Barber, David. "Electronic Commerce in Library Acquisitions with a Survey of Bookseller and Subscription Agency Services," 31 Library Technology Reports 493 (entire issue) and Library Administration & Management, vol. 10, issue 3. Other topics relating to an integrated library system were also discussed.

» From Carol Pitts Diedrichs' breakout session on Financial Management Using Electronic Systems (as reported by Karen Douglas): Discussion centered on documentation needed for a possible audit. Some suggestions/ideas:

-If using Innovative and ordering electronically, a purchase order can also be printed for a permanent record;

-If the acquisitions department is small, invoicing/ordering functions can be divided up so that one person orders and receives and the other pays invoices;

-One person selects the vendor and the other does the ordering;

-If there is only one person to do everything, invoices can be reviewed and signed by a supervisor or the director.

There was a brief discussion on interfacing the accounting module of a library's automated system with the university's accounting system -- consider the level of interaction between the two before making a change, i.e., batch payments. This group also discussed the frustration libraries have with legal vendors who are not interested in electronic invoicing. There was also discussion about licensing agreements. Quoting Ms. Douglas' notes: "[Ms. Diedrichs] detailed how these agreements [are] negotiated and handled at Ohio State University. The agreements are negotiated with the vendor by the serials librarian with input from the university lawyer, who also reads the agreement after negotiation. The serials librarian has drawn up standard clauses relating to the needs of the library and the set-up of their network which are added to all agreements. Ninety percent of the work is done in the serials/acquisitions department. However, only the vice president for business administration has the authority to sign these agreements."

» From the breakout session on CD-ROM Licensing with Norman Desmerais (reported by Teddy Artz): Topics discussed:

(1) Publishers who allow concurrent users on a metering basis to libraries. Legal publishers are not now using this method. Metering limits access to an acceptable number of concurrent users;

(2) GPO depository items available only in non-print format present problems for libraries -- getting appropriate equipment; interpreting and using information with little or no help from GPO; continuity of publications, that is, continuity in format and commitment to continued publication;

(3) Networking CD-ROMs. Some work better on a network that has a single user, while others are disabled for network use; some may be adapted for network use, although sometimes different software is required; information may be so densely packed that it is difficult to extract; sometimes documentation is lacking or incorrect; technical expertise is required to work with networking quantities of CD- ROM products;

(4) Disposition of diskettes which are included with books. Some libraries make a copy of each diskette, either to archive or to keep with the book; diskettes are kept with the books by some, while others keep them on reserve. (As an aside, at Washington and Lee we used to keep the diskettes on reserve; however, recently, we decided to keep them with the books they accompany as this provides immediate access for the user and avoids the frustration of having to go to another location for the diskette. We do not keep or make copies.) License agreements for diskettes were also discussed.

» Breakout session on Electronic Sources for Collection Development with Anna Belle Leiserson (as reported by Kaaren Pupino): This was primarily a question/answer session directed to Ms. Leiserson. Topics discussed: Using e-mail or a Website for acquisitions requests within a law school; Using e-mail for claiming when that claim is urgent; Some vendors/publishers respond better to E-mail claims than to paper; Problems associated with shorter time frames for claiming missing issues -- some libraries have put disreputable publishers/vendors on their websites; A general discussion about CD-ROM products and how to maintain them. The handout "Electronic Resources for Collection Development" URL (distributed at the Workshop by Ms. Leiserson) is:

http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/law/acqs/aall.html