Oh, It's Just a "Pay Trial" to WestlawNext (Unsolicited? Apparently the Answer is "Yes")

See our earlier post which republishes Tamara Avevedo's law-lib listserv announcement. Anne Ellis responded to it today on law-lib. Bottom line, TR Legal is calling this a "pay trial" for WLN now. The Company's efforts are not an "end-around law librarians," although the only way Tamara learned about this "pay trial" was by clicking on a link that was sending her to WLN.  

Hi, Tamara

I read your post and thought I’d write a short comment to try to set the record straight on a couple points. I hope I can clear this up. 
 
We are not turning WestlawNext on for all accounts on June 1. I’m sorry you heard otherwise. We will continue to work with librarians and together we will manage trials and access to WestlawNext for their firms.
 
The link you described does indeed take users to a pay trial for WestlawNext. This is one of several opportunities we have created for end users to see the new service.
 
We’re really excited about WestlawNext and what it offers legal researchers, but please don’t interpret our efforts to showcase the new service as an attempt to do an end-around to librarians. We will continue to work with firms and their librarians on the best approach for trialing WestlawNext, account by account.
 
I hope this is helpful. Thanks again, Tamara.
 
Anne Ellis
Senior Director, Librarian Relations
Thomson Reuters, Legal

Did anyone with contracting authority approve the "pay trial" at the institutional buyer's end? If the law firm librarians who have commented to Ellis' post on law-lib is any indication, the answer is a resounding "no." It's a form of advertising with the institution picking up the tab; Classic Westlaw is being used to promote WLN at the firm's expense. This is utterly unacceptable. To quote from one law-lib-er's comment:

You may be excited about WestlawNext [Anne], but our goal is to get legal research done--not respond to ads in the middle of our client work.

Some law-lib-ers mention that they learned about this now so-called "pay trial" when the messaging first appeared on Classic Westlaw. Others that they noticed it thanks to Tamara's heads-up warning. Sounds to me like we know who doesn't know law librarians' names -- TR Legal's Librarian (Marketing) Relations program. 

E-mail Your Rep, Your Rep's District Manager, His Boss, The Boss Above His Boss, the TR Legal Czar if You Know His Name. My earlier commentary on this stunt remains by and large applicable. This appears to be happening only in the private sector for the moment. At least at my little county law library, I haven't seen the  "Search WestlawNext Now: Improve your research efficiency by 64% with WestlawNext. Your organization has access to the advanced search engine and improved design of Westlaw Next. Go there now and begin increasing your productivity!" message yet, and can't login into WLN under my OnePass account. However I've informed my rep and his district manager in no uncertain terms that WLN access is to be prohibited under our accounts; that no click-thru for fee-based "trial" access via messaging is to be allowed, and that no free temporary WLN access is to be offered to any account holder unless by me.

"Hi, I'm a law library director and my name is Joe. I am responsible for Westlaw contracting. fiscal management and payments." TR Legal, I think, needs to hear this from the law library community because I doubt our professional association is going to lift a finger to put one on a keyboard to send a public message to the Company.

And Damn It All to Hell. I had a post that said something sort of positive about TR Legal but that got pushed aside for this. Maybe latter this week, but not tomorrow or Thursday for that matter. [JH]