The sales and mergers of legal publishers continue. The Law Division of Little, Brown has been sold to Aspen Law and Business (Wolters Kluwer). The Shepards McGraw-Hill treatises were purchased by Thomson Corporation; tax titles went to Warren, Gorham & Lamont; the remainder to Clark Boardman Callaghan. We have already seen that some of the Shepards treatises will not be updated because WG&L or CBC have similar titles.

The question of receiving unsolicited material and what, if any, obligation a library has to pay for it comes up regularly. Only today (Jan. 29) our library received such material from CCH, a paper monograph to go with the CCH Standard Federal Tax Reporter. There is no invoice with the material; however, there is an "acceptance form" which gives the option of accepting or rejecting it, and there is a return mailing label. (I do hope that CCH is not going to begin charging for these pamphlets which they have been sending as part of our subscription to the loose-leaf service.) My point in bringing up the subject is to mention an article, "Unsolicited Merchandise: Gift or Sale?" by Marsha L. Baum (20 Library Acquisitions: Practice & Theory 301). Quoting from the Abstract:

This article provides a discussion of the law surrounding unsolicited merchandise and references to the state and federal statutes which provide protection for the recipient of unordered goods. Thirty-nine U.S.C. section 3009 is discussed and citations to state unsolicited goods statutes are included in an appendix. Ms. Baum concludes her article with five suggested steps librarians should take in regard to the receipt of unsolicited merchandise.

(1) Incorporate information about the protections provided by federal and state laws that prohibit the shipment of unsolicited merchandise into library policies and procedures to ensure that invoices sent with unordered items are not processed for payment.

(2) Upon receipt of an unordered item that is covered by federal or state statute, send a letter to the vendor stating that the item is being treated as a gift as provided by statute. Cite the appropriate code sections in the letter.

(3) If the federal statute applies, notify the Federal Trade Commission of the transaction in writing.

(4) If state statute applies, notify the state consumer protection agency or other agency responsible for enforcement.

(5) If state and federal statutes do not apply, follow the principles of contract law to limit the library's liability. [page 306]

Kathie Sullivan (McNamee, Lochner, Titus and Williams, Albany, NY) wrote in the May 13, 1996 issue of the National Law Journal, "Change in a publisher's ownership can result in administrative nightmares, including duplicate account numbers, incorrect invoices, unsolicited shipments, title changes, format changes, sales calls, lost subscription requests and changes in order placement and return procedures." If one is on LAW-LIB, recent postings bear out this statement in regard to West Information Publishing Group (WIPG) and, to a lesser degree, CCH. However, in fairness to West, CCH, and others it seems they are trying to make things go smoother. Several librarians who were quite angry with West in the middle of the month of January were able to resolve their problems by the end of January.

So, what are the problems, particularly with WIPG?

» Customer service and sales reps don't seem to know what's going on. They are not yet familiar with all the products. Sometimes it seems the future of sales reps is in doubt.

» Complex accounts (several locations and thus several billing locations) cause confusion.

» CBC publications are sent out by West with a West invoice, even though the library didn't have a standing order for the CBC product.

» The Appleman on insurance revision is projected to be 57 volumes, but only three or four revised volumes are issued each year.

Have there been any resolutions? Yes. Some librarians were contacted by several company reps in order to straighten things out. The first WIPG statement our library received indicates which items are CBC. Also, the statement is in the West format, which I personally like. Maybe this isn't a resolution, but some people did seem to cool off, while others reminded us that CRIV is there for our problems with publishers and we need to use it.

Following are two web sites which you may find useful:

» Library Resource List

http://www.state.wi.us/agencies/dpi/www/lib_res.html

A listing of over 500 Internet resources of interest to the library community. It has six divisions: Reference Resources, New Sites and Searching, Government Resources, Library Sites, Libraries the Net and the Nll (National Information Infrastructure), and Professional Resources.

» Law Library Resource Xchange

http://www.llrx.com

A Web newsletter which focuses on research, management and technology topics for legal professionals. The editors and publishers, Sabrina I. Pacifici and Cindy Chick, "look forward to providing readers with a new forum in which to exchange information and ideas."

Reports from the 1996 Charleston Conference "Issues in Book and Serial Acquisition: Money Talks" appeared in ACQNET, volume 6, nos. 34, 35, and 36. Topics included: Collection Development in an Internet Based Environment; Payment and Subscription Models for Online Publications; Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), the use of standardized formats for the electronic exchange of data; Recent Legal Developments Affecting Competition among Publishers; Licensing Agreements; Issues in Publishing, that is, publishers publishing both paper and electronic journals; and, Collection Development, Fulltext, and Document Delivery. More extensive reports will appear in Library Acquisitions: Practice and Theory and other print publications.