Thomson Reuters = TEASER

Some of you might remember the announcement about a new American Law Reports series that was released a few weeks ago.  I know it might have gone unnoticed with all the ridiculous cloak and dagger hype surrounding WestlawNext (honestly, have you ever seen a marketing campaign so ridiculous?), but trust me, ALR International (ALR-INT on Westlaw) was announced with the usual fanfare that seems to a hallmark of TR.  The description reads:

This set provides comprehensive analysis of legal issues and case law from countries throughout the world. As the newest series in the ALR® family, it collects and analyzes relevant U.S. and foreign cases from English- and non-English-speaking countries on specific legal issues of international import that have been litigated in the U.S. and global courts.

This set would be quite helpful to a clinic at my institution and be a good source for foreign case law organized by topic.  I quickly jumped on Westlaw to review the first volume.  Indeed, it looked quite helpful as is the case with the entire ALR set.  I quickly advertised the new resource to the clinical professors and international law professors who I thought would find this set useful.  One project would benefit greatly from one of the entry on the Refugee Convention and I wanted to be sure these professors were aware of this publication.

Of course, last week, when one of our Librarian Professors logged on to ALR-INT, we learned - OOPS!  Sorry, your academic subscrition does not include this resources.  Or, more precisely: "Your request to access ALR-INT cannot be processed because use of this database is not authorized under your subscription agreement." Of course the material was part of my agreement the week before; however, this is the problem with unilateral agreements.

Just to be sure that there was not a problem with our account, we checked with our local Westlaw representative.  No mistake.  It was announced, they cluttered my inbox, they let me use it for a week, advertise it to my school, and then they pulled it without any notice.  Behavior like this is nearly as obnoxious as the WestlawNext roll out.

This is not the first time TR and Westlaw have pulled a stunt like this.  If you can recall similar incidents, leave a comment!  It would be interesting to collect them for future reference.  You know, for those times when they claim to be such good library partners. No one likes a teaser! (VS)