As posted to LIS – LAW
If you have print editions from Thomson Reuters, you may want to read on…. Please contact Julie.johnson@tr.com direct with feedback on any issues/thoughts arising from these changes to the fundamentals of these UK legal materials.
I sent a message out on 2nd July (below) about changes to the formatting of print in both loosesleafs and new bound editions. My colleague has done some further work examining the contents replacement for Woodfall, her remarks are here:
‘In regards the Table of Cases, in all the newly released materials we have had there are they are truly awful. The following are just a few of the issues – duplicate entries for cases – some of which are in different parts of the index, inconsistent treatment of case names, inconsistent listing (not following standard indexing conventions), company names being treated as personal names, no cross referencing. Worst of all is that the case index no longer provides a consolidated single entry for each case with the full hierarchy of citations. It looks like AI (I assume) has been run over the text of the work and the case references cited have been ripped out and then stuck them in a table. These have then been reproduced with no proofing and no consistent application of rules.
‘The new numbering system only applies to sub sections not individual paragraphs as before. The running headings have been changed to Title of Book and Title of Chapter – previously they were Title of Chapter and Title of Subheading. While the section numbering is on each page, that is not helpful if you don’t know what the sub section is, especially as they can run for many pages.
‘In the looseleafs, all the legislation in a work is now treated as one subsection so they have just the one number for a multiple Acts/SI. These run for pages and pages with no way of identifying what piece of legislation you re in without literally going page by page (see Woodfall Appendices) . Can you imagine if this is applied to something like the Encyclopedia of Planning ? It will become unusable.
‘On top of this is the increasing size of the works. The new typeface and layout, even with the removal of the legislation tables has dramatically increased the number of pages. “Expert Evidence” for example was early 100 pages larger than the last edition. Goodness alone knows how this will apply to works which are already oversized such as Chitty on Contracts. Current Sentencing Practice had to have new binders issued. These were several centimetres larger than the old ones. That is increasing the shelf space that hard copy works occupy and is making them generally harder to use. None of this is environmentally “friendly” with increased use of paper and larger packaging requirements, with all the related cost implications too.’
If you love your legal materials, please take a moment to think about the impact that these changes will have, whether in paper, or online and let Julie.johnson@tr.com know.
Initial Post
Good morning,
We still have some looseleafs, and have recently had complete new content for several of the Thomson Reuters titles*. A refresh from time to time is usually welcome, but this time the look and feel of the products is revamped and for us, it’s not a good revamp.
- Increased font size meaning more pages/more paper.
- New paragraph notation à la the old CCH looseleafs, why?
- REMOVAL of tables of Statutes and SIs – Who could think this was an improvement?
We have also received three new hardcopy books** this week, and again new font, complete revamp of paragraph numbering, repetitive contents pages, more pages overall and NO Tables of Statutes.
What is going on? Who thought that taking out the Tables was a good idea?
Does anyone else have any feelings about this, or is it just us?
Breathe deeply when you see the pricing !
