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.
> Donald J. Dunn (413) 782-1454
**********************************************************************
Don, and others on the list:
I had a meeting with Shepards representatives today which clarifies
some of the situation but still leaves most of Don's questions
unanswered. I conveyed the substance of those questions to them and
I would expect a response in due course.
Our chief conversations concerned the US Shepards Case and Statute
citators. We kind of agreed to disagree about the value added by
case names and enhanced readability and went on to clear up some
misinformation. First, although the number of pages of citations is
increasing all the time and the new format increases the number of
pages even more, the good people at Shepards are not trying to make
more volumes than necessary. To keep numbers of volumes down, I am
told, they will be using extra strong thinner paper so we will be
getting more pages per volume. Nevertheless, the full US case
citator will now be 24 volumes ( eight for each of the three
reporters) and will cost $1950. Second, libraries that do not collect
eg.: US Reports or L Ed. will be able to subscribe to just one set of
eight volumes for, eg. just the Supreme Court Reporter for just (?)
$1450. Whether you go whole hog for $1950 or partial for $1450, you
get a free six months of CD-ROM equivalent product included in the
price. The annual subscription cost for the paper product (I don't
think this includes replacement volumes) will be $490 per year, as
compared to $330 last year.
What is new in the equation is that instead of monthly updates,
Shepards will be updating the case and statute citators every two
weeks. For CD users, this is three CDs every two weeks. Also new is
the possibility of going to a flat rate subscription for all new
updates. Exactly how that works for the print version I may have
misunderstood, but for the CD ROM version, the annual fee for
updating is $750 for a single user license and $1450 for a 2-4
concurrent user license. The CDROM updates would include all new
revisions, reformatting of information, etc. and enable subscribers
to dispense with purchasing revised volumes of the print version.
Now, I costed out our last three years of US Citations subscriptions
and replacement volume costs and figure (someone out there correct me
if I am wrong) the cost from June 1990 to date has been about $3,700
or roughly $1230 per year. If I am right, then the $750 per year
cost for all future updates is a pretty good deal and the savings
could even pay for the CD drive to read them on. The question is,
how soon and by how much is that yearly cost likely to go up?
The other new thing, more interesting to law firm librarians than to
academic libraries using Lexis and Westlaw, is a new Shepards service
enabling the user to get a daily fax of all cases for which a citing
case was given a "history" or "treatment" abbreviation. Essentially,
this enables the user to bring an entire Shepards set up to date
on a daily basis with a fax from Shepards at a cost of bout $7 per
day. If the fax indicates your case has had subsequent history or
treatment in a citing case, you would still have to get the cite to
that case from Shepards, at an additional about $3 per citing case.
The Shepards people I talked to had to rush and could not give more
info on the state and regional citators that may show a very
different cost situation. But the above at least gives this
librarian's understanding of the situation as regards the US Case
Citations at this time.
I hope it helps.
==================================================
Internet: NTRIFFIN@LAWLIB.LAW.PACE.EDU :-)
;-)
Nick Triffin Tel: (914) 422-4275 |-)
Pace Law Library Fax: (914) 422-4139 ;-)
78 North Broadway %-)
White Plains, NY 10603 ;-)
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