This story is like Groundhog day.. but legal publishers will keep on doing this until they have no more hardcopy product to turn into digital product.
We learn that Informa has initiated changes to their IP World group of websites which include the online versions of Patent World, Copyright World and Trademark World?
A post to UK LIS LAW tells of one firm who have a regular subscription to the hardcopy and currently get access to
the website as a part of this subscription, however they have been told this week that these subs now have to be seperated and the firm will have to pay for hardcopy only and then buy site licences to access the online versions.
A library manager at another UK firm responded to the post saying that as far as they are now aware, this state of affairs is common to all Informa titles- subscribers should now expect to pay the same for the hardcopy journal only as they did previously did for single user online and hardcopy.
The librarian also adds ...Unless you subscribe to I-Law at a discount (and then you may well face a large hike in renewal price). We were told about this about 10 months ago by our account manager. Needless to say, we'll be cancelling.
HOB doesn't even pretend to be surprised by Informa's approach any longer, we've seen it so many times before. As for the librarian's response we award full marks. If every KM or Library Manager did the same they'd soon be dropping their prices or looking at how they manage these changes.
