"Powered by Service:" Not TR Legal's Library Relations Model

It didn't take long to see what impact AALL's Vendor Colloquium had on Thomson Reuters. None.

Responding to complaints about West shipping unsolicited annotated court rules for state codes in some jurisdictions, Anne Ellis, TR Legal's Senior Director of Librarian (Marketing) Relations, informed her company's institutional buyers that Thomson Reuters was right, not them. The Company knows what is best for law library collections, not law librarians, and that's why the new annotated court rules volumes are now part of their subscriptions. In response to a lawlib list question about whether a customer could subscribe to their annotated state code without the new annotated court rules now being shipped, Ellis wrote in her Dear Colleagues message (republished below the fold):

We believe there is great value in annotated court rules for someone doing research in annotated statutes, but if a customer wanted to get only annotated statutes, he or she could theoretically do so, but it would require that they order a la carte, and it would be more expensive.

(Emphasis added.)

In other words, damned if you do, damned if you don't because whatever you do will generate revenue for TR Legal.

Ellis also reviewed the history of West's publishing practices for annotated state codes:

In the late 1990s, when West began to create annotated codes in new markets, we did not initially include annotated court rules as part of those sets. There was widespread customer dissatisfaction with that decision, and after hearing from our customers, we began to include annotated court rules with the new annotated code products in states like West Virginia, Georgia, Utah, New Mexico and others.

Really, did that stop West from publishing annual unannotated state court rules pamphlet editions?

Ellis continued:

During the past decade, as budgets tightened for our customers, we introduced annotated codes products in several new jurisdictions without annotated court rules, but we always held out the possibility that we could supplement the product by adding annotated court rules. In every state where we have launched a new code product in the last 10 years, we have heard that we need to have annotated court rules as part of the set. Suggestions that we could include un-annotated court rules were largely rejected by customers.

The key reference here is "as budgets tightened." Is West under some delusion that budgets have loosened up now? What's really tightened up in this economy is TR Legal's print revenue stream in the Shed West Era.

Once again CRIV chair Rob Myers received a ham-fisted blow to the solar plexus for bringing this type of issue to TR Legal's attention. Once again, "thanks for trying, Rob." And once again, we read the institutionalized arrogance of TR Legal thinking it knows better than law library institutional buyers do when it comes to our collection needs.

You will find the string of law-lib list messages (no doubt others on AALL's all-sis, pll-sis, sccll-sis and ts-sis lists as well because Rob had to post to multiple lists in our association's circa 1990 fragmented communications universe) under the heading "Thomson Reuters response to West Rules of Court - Add On to State Statutes Questions." One law-lib list comment to TR Legal's response was "We desperately need an organization that advocates for us." That brought a response from the AALL Vendor Liaison.

I can assure you that CRIV and the Vendor Liaison advocate for AALL members on a whole range of issues.  It's important to note that advocacy does not always effect immediate change, and that some issues are resolved more slowly over time.  Some of my work takes place in the background, where my advocacy can supplement the voices from the public forum.
 
It is also important to note that AALL members are not always united in their opinions on publisher practices, which makes it more difficult to advocate for one point of view. In these cases there may never be a perfect resolution, but nonetheless we work hard to represent all perspectives.

More information about the work of CRIV and the Vendor Liaison will appear in the Members' Briefing in the April issue of the AALL Spectrum. In the meantime, I am always happy to hear directly from AALL members who have specific questions or concerns.

Margaret K. Maes
AALL Vendor Liaison
mmaes(at)aall.org

(Emphasis added.)

The Customer is Always Right. Does the above mean that AALL only advocates for institutional buyers when there is only one point of view? The last time I checked, we are a professional association of diverse institutions -- academic, public and private sectors and within each sector there are some differences based on missions, funding and user populations. This is why it is important to have (1) real institutional diversity on CRIV and (2) the vendor-buyer relationship not being filtered through a single person, the AALL Vendor Liaison.

If AALL finds it difficult to represent all perspectives, there is one thing I believe all law librarians would agree on -- the customer is always right. If AALL started from that premise in institutional buyer advocacy and publicized both its successes and failures by way of a CRIV-Unleashed Blog in a timely manner, I believe that could be the first step toward earning some trust with the membership.

Some may think that librarians need to take individual responsibility for vendor-library complaints. That certainly is the case for local issues. But when issues sound in editorial quality for specific titles or, as in this case, for pattern and practices, list messages are not individual librarians complaining about local matters. They are calling attention to issues that are systemic. This clearly is one of them. While West has published annotated court rules for some annotated state codes, TR Legal is now cramming down the throats of subscribers in other jurisdictions annotated court rules without any real options.

Cost-Effective Options Are Always a "Good Thing." Instead of TR Legal stating "theoretically" subscribers could omit annotated court rules, "but it would require that they order a la carte, and it would be more expensive," it wouldn't be difficult to give institutional buyers the option of subscribing to their statutory code set with or without annotated code rules at $X and $Y prices. Hell in Ohio where annotated court rules have been part of our subscription, I wouldn't mind having the option of omitting annotated court rules volumes if it would cost less money! Obviously, buying a la carte is not that option.

If AALL wants to narrow focus on advocating for one point of view, I believe advocating for the provision of cost-effective options to vendors is one just about every invoice-paying law librarian would agree upon. Absent that, it is caveat emptor when it comes to TR Legal's subscriptions -- ya just never gonna know what the Company will add or subtract from your subscriptions or thinks you need some new title because you have an existing standing order for some other title. (Remember the "Key Rules" fiasco?)

When the Shoe Fits. Clearly the "Zappos" model fell on TR Legal's deaf ears at AALL's Vendor Colloquium. "Powered by service" is trumped by the corporate objective of securing a print revenue stream in the Shed West Era by telling us that TR Legal knows what our collections need better than we do.

Remember, one of TR Legal's New Year's resolutions was 'We will improve the Customer Experience by assisting you with fast resolution to your inquirings." The key word here is "inquirings." TR Legal never promised to resolve problems, only answer questions. As in the past, here is an all too familiar answer that does nothing more than "push back." [JH]

Source: CRIV Chair Rob Meyers March 9, 2011 Message Posted to law-lib, all-sis, pll-sis, sccll-sis and ts-sis Lists: Thomson Reuters response to West Rules of Court - Add On to State Statutes Questions

Dear Colleagues:
 
I would like to thank Rob Myers for contacting me about the Feb. 23 post to the AALL Academic Law Libraries SIS listserv under the subject: West Rules of Court - Add On to State Statutes that questions a Thomson Reuters business practice of including annotated state court rules in subscriptions for state annotated statutes. I also appreciate it that he has agreed to post our response on my behalf.
 
Our view is that annotated state court rules are part of a state’s annotated codes collection. A view of the history of our annotated codes, a market view, and current customer input may be helpful in explaining our position.
 
In most of the annotated code sets published by old West Publishing, annotated court rules were published as part of the set. They were seen as research tools useful to customers who were doing statutory research. In most of those states we also published un-annotated court rules products. These were seen as very different products that were used, not so much for research, but for handy reference guides that were easily portable and inexpensive.
 
In the late 1990s, when West began to create annotated codes in new markets, we did not initially include annotated court rules as part of those sets. There was widespread customer dissatisfaction with that decision, and after hearing from our customers, we began to include annotated court rules with the new annotated code products in states like West Virginia, Georgia, Utah, New Mexico and others. 
 
During the past decade, as budgets tightened for our customers, we introduced annotated codes products in several new jurisdictions without annotated court rules, but we always held out the possibility that we could supplement the product by adding annotated court rules. In every state where we have launched a new code product in the last 10 years, we have heard that we need to have annotated court rules as part of the set. Suggestions that we could include un-annotated court rules were largely rejected by customers.
 
We believe that annotated court rules are very much part of annotated statutes sets. Most print annotated code sets published by West and most print annotated code sets published by our competitors include annotated court rules.
 
From our perspective, providing annotated court rules as part of our state annotated codes sets is customer-driven and we believe, given the history of this collection, industry norms and customer response, state annotated court rules are part of a state’s annotated codes set.
 
There were two other questions raised in the listserv post that I would like to address. The first asked what a customer should do if the firm or organization does not want the annotated court rules pamphlet. 
 
We believe that annotated court rules are an important part of an annotated statutes subscription. If a customer reviews the publication and does not want to keep it, the customer can return the publication for credit. It’s important to note, though, that we consider the publication to be part of the subscription so the customer may continue to receive annotated court rules as part of an annotated statutes subscription in coming years.
 
The author of the original post also asked if a customer could subscribe to annotated statutes but not to annotated court rules. Again, we believe there is great value in annotated court rules for someone doing research in annotated statutes, but if a customer wanted to get only annotated statutes, he or she could theoretically do so, but it would require that they order a la carte, and it would be more expensive.
 
I would like to thank all the readers of the AALL Academic Law Libraries SIS listserv for allowing me this opportunity to respond. I would especially like to thank Rob Myers for bringing this post to my attention and for agreeing to post my response.
 
Best wishes.
 
Anne Ellis
Senior Director, Librarian Relations
Thomson Reuters
anne.ellis(at)thomsonreuters.com