Rate Your Legal Resources Vendors: BNA, LexisNexis, West and Wolters Kluwer

The little survey I am about to ask you to take is just an attempt to see where the law library community stands with respect to our relationships with our vendors, the big two, LexisNexis and West, and the not as big but eager to increase market share two, BNA and Wolters Kluwer. It is an overly simplistic and admitting unscientific survey but it offers a little something for everyone by asking participants to rate legal publishing vendors by customer service, pricing and contracting, products and services value, and the impact our collection development decisions may have on our patrons' current research practices.

Like previous LLB polls, this one is idiosyncratic in the sense that the questions asked address issues that pop into my always befuddled head. They may not be the best questions -- my blog widow says I'm an idiot most of the time -- but they are the result of what happens when you think out loud in the blogosphere. This survey is a follow-up to LLB's (1) April 2009 Should LexisNexis and Thomson West Be Worried About the Economy's Turbulence? Results of the LLB Poll; (2) February 2009 Tough Times Ahead for Law Library Budgets poll results; and (3) recent email communications from some law librarians who prefer to response to blog posts directly to me instead of by adding comments to posts.

Responses need not be limited to one representative per institution. You may not have an opinion on every question but you probably have opinions for some and each question offers survey takers the opportunity to add their own narrative about the issue presented. Results will follow in about a month or so and republication of any comments will remain anonymous.

So here it is: LLB's Rate Your Legal Resources Vendors. [JH]