About a week ago I mentioned to Nick Triffin at Pace that Shepard's costs
seemed to be out of control. He posted that information to law-lib. That
posting engendered some discussion, including one by Myrna Bennett from
Shepard's/McGraw Hill soliciting "input and feedback." Before I can
provide meaningful "feedback," I need more "input." Here is what I think
is happening. I believe that Shepard's is in the process of revising
all of its state, regional, and federal citators and that this will take
place over the next couple of years. Assuming this is accurate I would
predict that law libraries that subscribe to only one set of Shepard's
will incur costs of at least $60,000. For those with multiple sub-
scriptions the cost will be even greater. Putting aside for the moment
the issue of whether these revisions are improvements, my questions for
Shepard's are: What are you doing? When will you finish? How much
additional shelf space will be required? . . . And when you are finished
doing whatever you are doing, what will be the total cost for the entire
project? Just consider me "Sleepless in Springfield."
will ----------------------------------------------------
Donald J. Dunn (413) 782-1454
Western New England College FAX (413) 782-1745
School of Law Library BITNET = DDUNN@WNEC
1215 Wilbraham Road
Springfield, MA 01119-2693
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