DATE: June 26, 1994
TO: John Lederer <74020.210@COMPUSERVE.COM>
FROM: Chris and Jill Wren <CGWREN@ACM.ORG>
Madison, Wisconsin
SUBJECT: CD-ROM v. Print Costs
We note your LAW-LIB posting to our response to your LAW-LIB
message asking for comments about pricing of CD-ROM and print
publications. Like you and Alan Sugarman, president of HyperLaw,
we were disappointed to learn that a factual error appeared in
Barry Bayer and Benjamin Cohen's review (which we summarized in a
memo) of HyperLaw's CD-ROM product, Federal Appeals on Disc. We
apologize for any inconvenience that might have resulted to
HyperLaw, Mr. Sugarman, or others from our unintentional
repetition in correspondence of the review's error.
We appreciate Mr. Sugarman's bringing the reviewers' error to
our attention, and we hope that people interested in the issue of
cost comparisons of print and CD-ROM products will read Bayer and
Cohen's full review, keeping in mind that West publishes
approximately 30 hardbound volumes of Federal Reporter a year.
The review, dated July 13, 1993, appeared in Law Office
Technology Review, which is available online.
Regarding the remainder of your message, we couldn't agree
more with your observation that the final cost of a print or
electronic publication includes more than just the cost of the
paper and printing for a print publication or the cost of the
disk and duplication for a CD-ROM publication. That theme has
formed the foundation for our remarks about making useful cost
comparisons between print and electronic publishing. Having
accomplished our goal of drawing attention to the importance of
having such comparisons take into account all costs associated
with publication, not just the cost of the medium of publication,
we will continue to listen with interest as the discussion of
CD-ROM and print pricing proceeds.
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