Interesting little post on SLAW yesterday illustrating that Westlaw is undercutting the LN service by a hefty percentage. If this price differential is repeated across the board we’d suggest that LN sales staff in North America are in for a miserable 2010.
Simon Chester writes:
The Economy Hits Legal Information
Doubtless there have been other stories like this, but multiple headlines on the same day start me wondering whether after the North American economic earthquake settles, we won?t have very different local and community outreach for legal services and legal information:
In Mount Vernon Ohio in 2008, the law library board received $49,438 in revenue from penal fines and traffic fines. Due to the economy, those revenues dropped steeply in 2009, currently being down around 30 percent, with two months to go in 2009.
This shortfall has caused the law library to fall behind in its payments to LexisNexis, an electronic data company that provides access to legal research databases for $3,600 a month. The board found another supplier for data access, Westlaw, which is offering service for $2,267 per month, with the first payment starting one month after service begins.
In the proposed 2010 budget, the payments to Westlaw for access would make up the primary expense, at $27,204. An estimated $750 is included for a new computer capable of handling large data files. As the state mandates keeping some sort of law librarian to assist users, $1,200 is allotted for that, $600 for one year?s rent of the room in the county building, $3,400 for new books and updates to existing books, and $150 for supplies.
And read the rest of the article at the link below for more stories of budget woe at state legal depts and libraries across the country. Will we see a price war or will we see as other commentators have suggested, either West or Bloomberg buying LN (or parts thereof ) which will in turn , we presume, preserve a duopoly and keep those prices up.
http://www.slaw.ca/2009/11/23/the-economy-hits-legal-information/
At least we now have the promise of Google Scholar’s future to give people an alternative.
