Law Librarian Blog

Clearing the Lungs

The Daily Beast offers many not-so-fun facts about the American workforce in an infograph published at Land Of The Free, Home Of The Workaholics. Hat tip to LLB co-editor Mark Giangrande. Many thanks. Hacked up some phlegm over this one. It's Saturday, have a lingering case of bronchitis, have a backlog of "day job" projects... . Time to get to work.

I know, this is more tweet-like than a blog post but ... well, at least I'm not worried about possibly having a brain tumor. [JH]

Seventh Circuit Says West Can Resell State Drivers License Records To Authorized Users

The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that it’s OK for West Publishing to acquire driver’s license records, store them in a bulk database, and resell that information to authorized users.  West was on the receiving end of a class action suit that accused the company of violating the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act (“DPPA”), 18 U.S.C. § 2722.  The Act limits the disclosure of driver license records by state DMVs, though there are 14 exceptions.  Bulk sales to vendors was not one of those exceptions, though West prevailed nonetheless. 

The case came to the Seventh Circuit on a plaintiff appeal after a successful motion to dismiss.  The District Court concluded that plaintiffs did not have standing and did not state a claim under the DPPA.  The Court of Appeals reversed on the standing issue but affirmed dismissing the case based on the allegation that West violated the Act.  West could, the Court concluded, act as an agent for those with an authorized use under the Act.  The Court synthesized precedent from the Sixth and Ninth Circuits as justification for its decision.  The Court explained it is a good thing that there are these centralized depositories, otherwise DMVs would be overwhelmed by individual requests which number in the millions per year.  For those asking, the 14 authorized uses are in footnote 1 on page 4 of the opinion.

So, anyone know how much capital it takes to become a commercial mirror for desirable individual records containing sensitive information?  The opinion is Graczyk v. West Publishing Company (10-1193).  [MG]

95% of All Classes of BNA Shares Vote "Yes" to Bloomberg's Acquisition Offer

Bloomberg is expected to complete the acquisition of BNA today. After the merger, BNA will be an indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary of Bloomberg. The acquisition IMHO is a good thing for both companies. BLaw+BNA is a competitive force that will have to be reckoned with by Wolters Kluwer in the speciality legal publishing marketplace for premium content and online services. [JH]

Friday Fun: Gorilla Sighting in Harvard Law School Library!

Hardly noticed by one law student who continued her studying. [JH]

Every Little Fraction of a Point Matters: A Brief (Don't Know If Complete) Chronology of the Univ. of Illinois College of Law Administration's Unethical Conduct

2011: Gaming academic credentials of 1Ls since Class of 2011

Illinois Law Academic Credentials	Median LSAT	Median GPA
Class of 2014	163 (not 168)	3.7 (not 3.8)
Class of 2013	167	3.6 (not 3.8)
Class of 2012	165 (not 166)	3.7 (not 3.8)
Class of 2011	165 (not 166)	3.6

Quoting in pertinent part from U of I College of Law Dean Bruce Smith's recent email published on ATL:

I have previously reported to you that profile data (median LSAT and median GPA) for the class of 2014 disseminated by the College of Law were inaccurate, and that the College has since posted accurate, verified data on its website. Ten years of profiles have been rigorously reviewed, and the inquiry has now determined that student profile data for the classes of 2011, 2012, and 2013 were also inaccurate. The accurate, verified data for these classes (and the previously reported data, indicated in parentheses) are as follows: Class of 2011: LSAT 165 (166) and GPA 3.6 (3.6); Class of 2012: LSAT 165 (166) and GPA 3.7 (3.8); and Class of 2013: LSAT 167 (167) and GPA 3.6 (3.8).

See also the official press release dated Sept. 28, 2011.

In Illinois Law Restates Its Numbers: The Deception is Deeper Than We Thought, ATL's Elie Mystal comments

I haven’t made that big of a deal about this new restatement because it just doesn’t surprise me: if a school lied once, it probably lied many, many times.

...

I don’t expect the toothless American Bar Association to punish Illinois in any significant manner. But we might as well take a look at the depth of Illinois Law’s deception.

Not a bad idea, Elie. So let's proceed with a brief look at Illinois Law's history of unethical conduct, at least with respect to what is currently available to the public.

2009: Admitting "substandard" students who had clout: Extracting additional scholarship funds from the University and the jobs-for-admission scheme

U of I Law was admitting "substandard" applicants because their families had clout. A class action lawsuit filed in 2009 claimed the practice had been on-going since 1999. Don't know about that but the Chicago Tribune reported the College of Law wrangled approximately $304,000 in additional scholarship funds for admitting 24 "special admits" between 2004 and 2007. Why? I'm thinking to offer those scholarships to high LSAT/GPA applicants to even out the score. See this LLB post and its links trail.

Then the was the jobs for grads in exchange for accepting clout-heavy substandard students. Quoting from the Illinois Admissions Review Commission's Final Report and Recommendations (Aug. 6, 2009):

{T]he Chancellor participated in the formulation of a separate strategy purportedly to offset the harm that the Law School would suffer to its national ranking as a result of accepting substandard applicants. But far from offsetting any harm, the proposed jobs-for-admissions exchange only compounded the initial problem of clouted admissions and fed a culture of cynicism and crass opportunism unbecoming any public institution, much less our flagship university.

The Commission's Final Report also criticized former U of I Law dean Heidi Hurd for "personally and extensively participated in admissions applications in a manner inconsistent with University-sanctioned principles of ethical conduct and fair dealing."

2005: Inflating expenditures reported to US News for Lexis and Westlaw

With an anonymous hat tip for calling this one to my attention, let's quote from Alex Wellen's The $8.78 Million Maneuver (New York Times, July 31, 2005):

[I]n what it calls a longstanding practice, Illinois has calculated a fair market value for [WEXIS] online legal resources and submitted that number to U.S. News. For this year's rankings, the school put that figure at $8.78 million, more than 80 times what LexisNexis and Westlaw actually charge. This inflated expense accounted for 28 percent of the law school's total expenditures on students, according to confidential data filed with U.S. News and the bar association and provided to The New York Times by legal educators who are critical of rankings and concerned about the accurate reporting of data

...

These student expenditures affect only 1.5 percent of a school's U.S. News ranking, but this is a competition where fractions of a point matter.

(Emphasis added)

Fair market value, really? What damn market sector? Ever get a Westlaw "report" that states for $XX,XXX cost per year you are getting $X,XXX,XXX value per year. No one pays list price and there is no way in hell to determine fair market value for WEXIS in the private sector because that is confidential information. So U of I Law had to taken this list price nonsense as being "fair market" value. Of course, that assumes a "fair market" metric is a non-deceptive substitute for actual WEXIS expenditures by U of I Law. No way in hell it was. 

Hello Parents. Want your sons and daughter to bend and break the ethical norms of the legal profession, then send them to the U of Illinois College of Law. If this institution's track record does not require an enforceable code of conduct on all law school administrators -- one not "administrated" by the ABA -- what will?

What about the law faculty? Do we exclude the law faculty from being required to blow the whistle. I don't think so. Most law schools have admission committees run by law faculty to review applications, etc. You can bet they are involved in crunching LSAT/GPA scores in the process -- I've been in the faculty lounge and at faculty meetings where this is a "hot topic." The law faculty may not be directly involved in reporting false data to the ABA and US News for LSAT/GPA stats, inflated expenditures per student stats and placement stats. Is that because the law faculty wants plausible deniability?

And despite this long history of unethical behavior (or that part which is public knowledge), U of Illinois Law isn't even on double secret probation while the administration is behaving like the Animal House of the legal academy. [JH] 

A Little Weekend Reading for the Vinyl Gen: The Jurisprudence of Bob Dylan

Perhaps also of interest to the Post-Vinyl Gen, New York Law School prof Michael L. Perlin's Tangled Up in Law: The Jurisprudence of Bob Dylan [SSRN]. From the abstract:

A careful examination of Bob Dylan’s lyrics reveals a writer - a scholar - with a well-developed jurisprudence, ranging over a broad array of topics that relate to civil and criminal law, public and private law. His lyrics reflect the work of a thinker who takes “the law” seriously in multiple iterations - the role of lawyers, the role of judges, the disparities between the ways the law treats the rich and the poor, the inequality of the criminal and civil justice systems, the corruption of government, the police, and the judiciary, and more.

Hat tip to CrimProf Blog. [JH]

Run! Hide! The Lawyers Are Being Replaced By Machines

There are a series of articles in Slate lately on how computers, or, more generally, technology, will changes professions by automating the more mundane tasks and possibly the more complex ones as well.  Today’s entry takes a look at the legal profession.  I won’t build up any suspense.  The prediction is that computers will tread into the advising clients area through litigation analysis.  The example is a company trying to decide if it wants to defend a patent suit or settle by licensing.  A computer program with enough analytical power along with a database filled with reams of documents from a statistically significant set of similar cases could predict the outcome of the current dispute.  The Justice Machine™ says settle.

The article notes the work of Professor Daniel Katz at the Michigan State College of Law who is working on just such a product.  One of the points made is that Professor Katz needs that large cache of documents to build his system.  These are locked in PACER unfortunately.  The work may be slowed due to the time it takes to liberate these documents via RECAP or some other free archive.  For my own part, I suggest that Professor Katz work with Lexis or Westlaw on this.  They have the goods documents in their systems. Assuming he can work out compensation with either of them he can help them develop a new line of business.  If WestlawNext can predict the documents we want, why can’t it predict our litigation strategies and outcomes?  Get a patent, Professor Katz.  The new patent law revision changes the rule from first to invent to first to file.  I can see someone in Eagan right now mouthing the words “By the pricking of my ears….”

There are companies out there doing some of this analysis.  The article mentions Lex Machina, a company which started as a Stanford University project.  It analyzes patent litigation that makes forum shopping a bit more predictable for the desired result.  I’ll assume that counsel at Lexis will let this one slide as a possible trademark confusion issue.  I wonder if Lex Machina’s computer system can figure the outcome of that one, or will they have to ask an attorney.  Recall that Lexis famously sued the makers of the Lexus luxury automobile for trademark violations.

Let’s not forget Google.  That company capitalized a documents automation system to the tune of $18.5 million.  I expect that if that venture turns out well Google would buy the service outright and merge it into its offerings.   Google loves to automate the obvious stuff and be disruptive at the same time.  Artificial intelligence and legal advice is so that.  Better yet, something like this would give the Justice Department something else to think about.  If not the Department, then it’s brand new antitrust analysis machine that it purchased from…Google.

I think artificial intelligence and the law are made for each other for the type of analysis the article describes.  Nonetheless, I doubt that computers would supplant the legal industry entirely.  The article takes a slightly different view:

If automation brings more people legal services, at lower prices, while also pruning the ranks of human lawyers, I suspect most readers will consider that a win, win, win. And in the long run, this could well be. The trouble is that the path from here to there will be rocky—many firms will be shuttered, an ever-larger number of newly minted young attorneys will fail to find work, and a huge industry's economic prospects will fade.

I don’t think so, at least not for a long time.  In any event, the legal industry seems perfectly capable of doing this without automation helping it along.  I don’t know if you need an attorney-client relationship for something like a simple document preparation scenario.  I think you do need one for litigation strategy.  It may take fewer lawyers to deliver the machine’s result, but the machine has to be that accurate before that will happen.  I mean, WestlawNext isn’t perfect yet, is it?  We are indeed a long way from lawyer apps provided to indigent criminal defendants.  [MG]

"From soup to nuts, the legal system needs an overhaul:" Glassmeyer's Record-setting Blog Post

Quoting Sarah Glassmeyer from her Everything Sucks post. about which she tweets "I try for a new record on how many times a person can use the word 'suck.'" I countered something like 35 times and that was just in the post's first paragraph. That's got to be some sort of record (at least until Jason Wilson takes up the challenge!). Well Sarah, your post does not suck! [JH]

Thomson Reuters in Turmoil: Danger Alert, It's Time for "Chiefs" to Duck and Cover

Here we go ... TR is executing a reorg -- the Markets Division is merging with the Professional Division and the Head of the Professional Division has been appointed TRI's COO.

First Question: Why wasn't this reorg executed last summer when TR cleaned house in Markets' executive suites and CEO Tom Glocer took charge by personally directing the Markets Division?

Second Question: By appointing Jim Smith, CEO of the Professional Division, TRI's Chief Operating Officer, are Glocer's days at the helm numbered?

Let just quote from a Reuters' story dated Sept 28, 2011, I repeat a Reuter's story. It is titled Thomson Reuters appoints COO in another reorganization.

The lead paragraph in bold and several font sizes larger reads:

Thomson Reuters Corp named Jim Smith chief operating officer, putting him in a strong position to succeed Chief Executive Tom Glocer, who is under pressure to boost sales to financial institutions.

More snips from the article:

The company also said it was merging its Markets division with its Professional division, which was run by Smith, in the second major restructuring in two months.

...

The company's controlling shareholder, Canada's Thomson family, has been concerned about the performance of the unit, people familiar with the thinking of the board said in July. Glocer has been given about a year to accomplish a turnaround, they said at the time.

The appointment of Smith raised fresh questions about how long Glocer will remain CEO, and whether the Markets business had deteriorated further in the last two months.

...

Suzanne Stein, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, wrote in a note to investors that Wednesday's announcement showed that Thomson Reuters "remains in a period of turmoil."

Thomson Reuters "will need to show improved results in Markets, and continued strength in Professional in order to give investors confidence it has solved its internal issues," she wrote.

There you have it. You won't find Rudovsky published in FSupp but at least Reuters has the guts to publish. Ah, Reuters link live as of 9/28/11, 9:15 PM Eastern.

Continued Strength in the Professional Division? Perhaps, but TR Legal is still TRI's cash cow. In the context of TR Legal that "strength" in terms of financial performance is largely due to South American acquisitions. (Wasn't that Glocer's domain a long time ago? Can't remember but I think so.) It sure as hell isn't from US legal income. TR Legal's current profit margin (excluding recent South American legal publishing acquisitions) is at West's pre-Thomson acquisition level. Is a 25%-ish profit margin, instead of 32-33%, the "new normal" for TR Legal?

What if TR Legal's profit margin declines even more -- not just this or that quarter but longer term and that becomes the "new normal" for TRI's cash cow?

• Charging a WLN premium as a cost-to-user for TR Legal staying competitive in online legal search is getting a fair amount of push-back. (Let's not even talk about the "imagination" it took to apply a boilerplated 20th century pricing scheme to WLN or the concerns folks have with WestSearch.) 
• Maintaining outrageously high annual print continuation pricing during this recession (instead of moderating pricing like Lexis did) lost a subsription base for "high margin" print in the Shed West Era that won't be recovered. 
• Selling high priced practitioner works, particularly when compared to comparable coverage in substantially lower priced Lexis works is leading to substitution. 
• Engaging in format switcheroos from "loose-leaf" titles and sets to pamphlets, re-commoditizing court rules by padding them from the content inventory to increase pricing (e.g., "Key Rules series) makes folks look at a possible new acquisition always on their guard, always suspicious, because they never know what to expect TR Legal will do with that title next year.
• Declining editorial quality standards brought to the public's attention in Rudovsky, etc., etc.

All this has produced the opposite reaction to the tag line "trusted legal resources from Thomson Reuters." No trust. And all of the above was avoidable but for a corporate culture in the executive suites -- not sales reps who may be just as frustrated with corporate policy as buyers are -- a sixth floor culture that can be characterized as arrogant, as oblivious to customer needs, as taking buyers for granted because of the Company's dominant market share.

Layoffs Coming? Again quoting from the Reuters article:

Glocer said the merger of Markets and Professional may result in some layoffs, though any cutbacks would affect "chiefs, not Indians in front of customers."

When will TR executives realize that they are not too big to fail? It sounds like it is not "good to be Tom" right now. Might not be all that great to occupy an office on the sixth floor in Eagan either.

I'm thinking recent developments aren't the end of Thomson Reuters' turmoil. Time to duck and cover because the "bomb might explode without any warning." [JH]

Are eBooks Destined to Become the "8-track Tape" of the 21st Century?

In the context of current law eBook offerings, I think we can conclude from Jean O'Grady's recent Dewey B Strategic post the answer to the title question is "yes." ("The more I talk to publishers about the model for "circulating" multi-volume treatises, the more I am disheartened at the predominance of print based paradigms.")  While not addressing the prospect eventual development of enhanced law eBooks as discussed here, O'Grady does offer our major vendors some advice in the context of the private sector. Remember this is the market sector that really drives the entire legal publishing industry market:

Law Firms Need A Different Model - Law Books and Lawyers are Different

Law firms are not public libraries. We are purchasing corporate access to content, we need a model that permits the unfettered access to appropriate units of content on an "as needed" basis.
 
Treatises are not monographs - they are complex organisms that change over time.
 
Lawyers need information not "volumes." 

Lawyers require updating by "push " not "pull."

Even in the two other, fairly insignificant to vendors based on their total spending, market sectors, ah that would be the legal academy and the public sector, I wouldn't recommend wasting a single penny of buying the current iteration of eBooks. I, for one, don't care if my statutory or public patrons are asking for them (they aren't). However, if they want an 8-track, they can spend their own funds. I wouldn't even provide the current (read lame format) law eBooks to patrons at no cost if WEXIS were to offer them.

Until professional grade law eBooks come to market, I'm just saying "no." O'Grady's "8-track" characterization is dead-on. For more, check out her eBooks: Why are Publishers Pouring Digital Content into 19th Century Wineskins? [JH]

First Thoughts On The Kindle Fire

Pundits are calling Amazon’s new Kindle Fire tablet a serious contender to the Apple iPad.  I agree that it is a contender, but not because it matches the amenities that Apple offers in their product.  The basics of the Kindle Fire is that it is WiFi only, smaller than the iPad with a 7 inch screen, and runs on the Android operating system with a custom interface.  It also happens to sell for $199, which is less expensive by more than half compared to the least expensive iPad.  Amazon is counting on the Kindle Fire to be the front end to its considerable store.  Want movies, music, games, newspapers, magazines, or books in your pocket?  Amazon has them in abundance, if not with the elegance of an Apple product.  I think Amazon is counting people who want a mainstream tablet experience without overpaying for it much like people who shop at Wal-Mart and Target rather than Macy’s.  There are a lot of them.

There is a long article in Bloomberg Business Week that takes this angle and does a good analysis on how Amazon intends to position the Kindle Fire (hint: it’s not as a productivity device) along with its impact on the market.  There are even references to how Amazon is disrupting the brick and mortar world.  Borders Books is one example of a company who couldn’t compete in the book business, though I believe the Border’s demise was exacerbated by its bad management.  Barnes & Noble is surviving, but even that company has suffered through management control issues in the last year or so.  But Amazon’s foray into the general catalog business, with the Kindle Fire as a window into it, has disrupted established business such as Best Buy to the point where that company is cutting back the size of its stores and/or they types of products on display.

I have a personal example of this type of disruption.  I was looking for a mini-HDMI cable to connect my digital camcorder to my flat screen TV.  The cable on display at Best Buy was priced at $79.  I happened to be at a Wal-Mart that same afternoon where I found the equivalent cable for $15.  I understand that the cable cost even less on Amazon.  Shipping would be an additional cost, sure, but buy something else and that cost goes away.  Advantage, Amazon.  And that is what the company is counting on with the Kindle Fire.  I predict that unless Best Buy changes its business model (the company’s web site offers little or no price advantage alternative to its stores) it will go the way of Circuit City, or worse, turn into something akin to Radio Shack.

While we’re on the subject of Amazon’s vast tentacles into marketing, there was another story on the company that caught my eye.  CNN Money has an interesting article detailing Amazon as a publisher with its own imprint.  Both Amazon and Barnes & Noble each have a self-publishing division for e-books.  That’s not news.  What is news is that Amazon is signing major authors to its own label with a better deal than traditional publishers offer.  The story notes how author Barry Eisler turned down a book deal with St. Martin’s Press worth $500,000 to sign with Amazon.  His books will appear in e-book and print form, at his schedule (e-book out first), with creative control that traditional publishers tend to keep for themselves, and with more financial return to the author from sales.  There are other major author examples in the article.

Traditional publishers are not thrilled at this.  Oren Teicher, CEO of the American Booksellers Association, is quoted as saying “Amazon is holding the entire book industry hostage.”  I suppose it is Amazon’s response to Apple forcing the Agency Model of e-book pricing on the world.  Amazon can cut its own deal with the talent.  In fact, Amazon has the advantage of distribution that allows it to cut its own deal with authors, effectively cherry-picking the best authors from the publishers and turning them into the farm team for Amazon’s major league play for pay. 

I won’t speculate as to whether this move on Amazon’s part would extend to academic publishing as that market is limited.  However, textbooks may be another matter.  There’s a definite market there, otherwise West, Lexis, McGraw-Hill, et al. wouldn’t be there.  Academic writers could have a worse master than Amazon (see my post A Bit More On The Rudovsky Case and earlier posts it cites).

One other point worth making on the Kindle Fire is that, for a change, it isn’t Google (or Facebook) eating into the popular conscience and credit card with this product.  Maybe Google will when it has something significant to sell besides ads.  Should Google create Google Stores, at least give me credit for the idea.  [MG]

The Bloomberg Law-SCOTUSblog Connection: More Than Just an Exclusive Ad Sponsorship Deal

Bob Ambrogi reviews what by his count is the fourth major redesign of SCOTUSblog, highlighting some of its new features as well as a pulling back on some of the last redesign's features according to quoted comments by SCOTUSblog's founder and publisher Tom Goldstein:

In some respects, I decided that we needed to move backwards to move forwards. Our last platform was so unusual that I think more than half the readers didn’t really like having the two columns noting blog posts, though there are certainly loud exceptions. I think that platform educated the readers about the other features we have – like the case pages, calendar, and statistics – so those don’t have to be front and center, with everything on a single page, any longer. And the “featured content” level is a better solution to highlighting our most important posts (including because it appears on every page).

For more, see Ambrogi's Coming Monday, A New Look for SCOTUSblog. Published on Friday, Sept. 23rd, the redesigned SCOTUSblog is now live, just in time for the first Monday in October.

The Bloomberg Law-SCOTUSblog Connection. In a follow up post that also covers a bit more on the SCOTUSblog makeover, Ambrogi notes, as just about everyone who received the press release in their email in-box Monday, that Bloomberg Law has become the exclusive sponsor of SCOTUSblog. From the press release:

"SCOTUSblog's comprehensive and impartial examination of the Supreme Court is an important public resource and Bloomberg Law is proud to support their ability to bring this content to the public, free of charge via the Web," said Lou Andreozzi, chairman of Bloomberg Law.

“Bloomberg Law's support will allow us to reach new readers and give existing readers new features and enhanced information. Most importantly, it will allow us to expand the resources we provide like the significant upgrade of the new SCOTUSblog platform launching today, without charge and with the same independence and high ethical standards for which we are known," said Tom Goldstein, SCOTUSblog founder and publisher.

While that is pretty standard PR language, the next paragraph is the one I find most interesting:

Bloomberg Law and SCOTUSblog plan to collaborate on new features designed to help law students learn about the Supreme Court and will work together to develop symposia, webinars and other events for business and legal professionals. The content available on the SCOTUSblog website will also be made available on Bloomberg Law, and SCOTUSblog publisher Tom Goldstein will provide exclusive business analysis for Bloomberg Law.

Initially in the ad context, I though Bloomberg Law was just redirecting its ad dollars (perhaps thinking about pulling its ads from ALM websites because of the now close working relationship between ALM and Lexis) and saw an opportunity for advertising on SCOTUS. However, based on the press release, it looks like this arrangement may be something more than just an exclusive ad sponsorship deal.

Besides being the first time I've seen BLaw mention "law students," my hunch is Bloomberg Law may be planning to host video feeds to webinars via BLaw to its subscribers that are jointly produced with SCOTUSblog (CLE credits?). Perhaps even more, like Vblog-like SCOTUS news and analysis content from SCOTUSblog's pool of contributors. Score one for Bloomberg being the first very expensive online "professional services vendor" for fully integrated legal news and development (not just how-to-use) video content into its BLaw online services.

WEXIS will have to pay catch up here in what is going to be a multi-media market. The catch-up advantage goes to TR Legal because it can integrate Reuters, something most of us thought would be available at least in text versions fully integrated at the launch of WLN. Certainly Lexis can add video content, perhaps by way of placing a camera in front of ALM legal news reporters someday.

Remember when Lexis announced it acquired exclusive licensing of ALM products and also announced that Lexis and ALM would be working together to produce new titles under the ALM brand? That led to speculation about how long would it be before Lexis bought ALM. If the Bloomberg Law-SCOTUSblog content co-creation announcement give one an oh-no feeling, I personally doubt BLaw has plans right now to acquire SCOTUSblog. BLaw will own US Law Week if/when the acquisition of BNA is concluded. I think the independence of SCOTUSblog is key here at least for now and the possiblity of co-generation of content in joint venture-like fashion is a "win-win" for both.

In And Now for the Rest of the SCOTUSblog Story, Bob Ambrogi wrote:

Of course, this is a smart move for Bloomberg Law... .Not only will it enhance Bloomberg Law’s visibility and authenticity as a legal research provider, but it could also help it gain access to authors and content it needs to help fill out its libraries of secondary materials. Those secondary libraries — treatises, practice guides, articles — are where Bloomberg still falls short of West and Lexis. It has been working furiously to remedy that, hiring armies of lawyers and creating original content.

Well, BLaw is in the process of acquiring BNA and that is a better remedy than trying to create new secondary content from scratch. Who knows, some SCOTUSblog contributors may end up with BNA contracts. A Federal Practice portfolio series someday? From this perspective, content co-generation plans announced in the press release clearly indicates that BLaw is branching out to create synergies with established high quality publishers. Should be interesting to watch. [JH]

What If the Euro Fails: What Happens to Our Dependence on Multi-National Foreign-Owned Corporations for the "Oil" which Lubricates the "Law of the Land"?

The EU has a common currency but no unified political structure yet. For a light take on this in the context of the possible collapse of the Euro see below two recent Colbert Report segments. For something a hellva lot more serious in the context of the global legal publishing industry, one might want to give pause if the Euro fails. I, for one, have no clue, but I doubt it would be a "good thing."

While some pundits think that failing to bail out weaker EU national economies could lead to war in 10-20 years in an European theather of armed conflict, I think that may be far-fetched, However, some also think the failure of an Euro currency market would deepen the current US recession and that isn't far-fetched.

Students of economic history of which I am not a member, may have to examine foreign owned legal publishers (Thomson-Reuters, Reed, Wolker Kuwer) in the context of international banking that already existed in the 1930-1940s to gleam some sort of possible consequences. That's way, way beyond my sophomoric understanding of international economics.

The one thing I do know is that professional economic opinions will be diverse. However, since we have allowed foreign companies to deliver the "law of the land" in the US, I'm thinking someone is Congress ought to be conducting hearings on this. While the conventional wisdom in Europe is that Germany must step up to the plate to somehow secure the Euro, Congress must be prepared to address this issue on "the home front." Granted the matter is substantially boarder than just commercially provided legal resources but when the "law of the land" has become dependent on non-US commerce, I think the issue is sufficiently important for Congressional attention. It might not be if Open Law was the norm but that hasn't been institutionalized yet. One can only speculate about whether Congress will rethink cutting the GPO's budget or will realize that publicly financed provision of legal resources is as essential to the infrastructure of a nation governed by law, not people, as is providing defense, energy, law enforcement, disaster relief, etc.[JH]

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
European Union Collapse & War-Fueled Recovery
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

Colbert Report: Reuters' Global Editor-at-Large Chrystia Freeland believes the European financial crisis could be bigger than America's economic crisis in 2008.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
European Union Collapse & War-Fueled Recovery - Chrystia Freeland
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

Applications Are Down At Law Schools - Does It Matter?

The Minneapolis Star Tribune is reporting on the drop in law school applicants nationally and at law schools located in Minneapolis.  The latest statistics from the Law School Admissions Council shows an 18.7% drop in LSATs administered in June of 2011 compared to the numbers from 2010.  There were 32,973 test takers then with 26,812 test takers for this year.  This continues the trend of dropping numbers of test takers that began in October 2010.  The number of law school applicants dropped by 9.9% with 78,900 applicants for seats in the fall 2011 class compared to 87,500 applicants for Fall 2010.  In contrast, the Fall 2010 number was up 1900 applications from 2009.

Are law schools hurting because of this?  I don’t think so, at least from an admissions standpoint.  The Star Tribune states that 3,500 people applied to be students for this fall’s class at the University of Minnesota, up from the 2,700 who applied in 2006.  The latest figures from the Official Guide to ABA-Approved Law Schools shows a class size of 752 with the first year class seats at 259.  That’s more than 10 applicants per seat.  If the national figures show a dent in applications, they do not seem to breach the school’s comfort level for assembling a quality student body.  Don’t cry for me, Minnesota.

Nor has the downward trend in applications stopped other law schools from popping up.  Belmont College in Tennessee opened its College of Law for business this fall.  The incoming class is 130, 30 more than the school predicted.  The average LSAT is 154 compared to the predicted 152.  The law school at Belmont College is in Nashville and competes for students with the Nashville School of Law and Vanderbilt University Law School.

It’s easy to make the connection that the bad publicity on the lack of jobs, the lower salaries for the law jobs that do exist, and, of course, the crushing average debt a law graduate carries is giving people second thoughts about applying to law school.  The trend will have to carry a lot further before law schools start getting worried.  [MG] 

Thomson Reuters Is Going to Win the Second Round of the Law eBook Slugfest

Looks like the first round goes to Lexis. While you can acquire a few TR Legal eBooks via Amazon (yawn) and you can acquire some CCH and ABA eBooks on their e-commerce site (ditto, yawn), by the end of the year consumers will be able to acquire 75% of Lexis' entire catalog in device agnostic formats from their e-commerce site. But this first round is just going to be a footnote in the history of professional grade law eBooks.

The second round is going to be won by Thomson Reuters. It's called the "Thomson Reuters ProView" eBook platform (note the omission of "Legal"). It will be the first enhanced professional grade law eBook in the market place by a major vendor if what I saw being demo-ed at Philly is launched for a substantial number of titles. TR is characterizing it as "professional grade" and for once I agree with this marketing characterization. TR ProView is in either alpha or beta (depends on who you talk to) and it is not extremely enhanced but it is the first step in the right direction. It will offer the following:

• Full-text searching
• Table of Contents
• Linking within the title
• Linking to WestlawNext
• Copying, highlighting & note taking
• Bookmarks
• Pagination options (match the print or eliminate scrolling)
• Footnotes
• Content updating

Obviously not all of the above are a big deal but this a professional grade enhanced eBook format. Based on the ProView demo I saw offers interactivity in key. By that I mean, some citations will be embedded links to access content as long as the reader (human being, not device) has a WestlawNext account (and presumbably has access to the link-embedded source under the user's WLN plan). OK, OK, so you have to have a WestlawNext account. But (1) it is a brillant strategy to increase WLN adption and may be signaling that Classic Westlaw will be exiting the stage sooner rather than later (why should the product developers code for a legacy system?) and (2)  we wouldn't expect TR to embed links to open law sources, just like we should not expect Lexis to do anything more than embed links in their next generation eBooks to Lexis or Lexis Advance (unless the Company want to increase sales of its enhanced eBooks).

I didn't see the pagination options in action, only scrolling during the demo, but this will be a plus for providing more content in context than the usually data slices we see in WEXIS database displays. Hopefully two-page displays will be available. Copying text into what besides an email remains to be seen, at least based on the demo.

Content updating? Well, after Rudovsky, I think buyers need to be concerned about editorial quality. For embedded links, one will still have to go to WestlawNext to determine if something is still good law. Even if content updating is somehow automated and automatically feed to the text, human editing by expertise greater that what was revealed in Rudovsky is required. Forthcoming? I'm skeptical.

Unlike the current iteration of Lexis eBooks, the ProView platform is not device agnonstic. It is coded for the iPad. This is probably the way to go because I believe the iPad is the device of choice among law practitioners despite not yet being much of a work production workhouse. See, e.g., The Rise of the Legal iPad.

As for internal full-text searching in ProView, I have no idea what is driving the search -- something generic as in based on iPad's search? Vendor custom-built, a varient of WestSearch capturing readily on-hand metadata or new metadata?

Even taking all of the above issues and concerns, Thomson Reuters ProView is going to trump what is available right now in terms of eBooking technology. (And some folks thought I would never have a good thing to say about products and services offered by the folks in the Land of 10,000 invoices!). Let's always give credit where credit is due and in this case credit is due TR for developing an ehanced eBook platform going to be professional grade in law.

Marketing Enhanced Law eBooks. It is clear that TR Legal is targeting the individual consumer for ProView. Let's take a very simple illustration from what the new platform offers. If you acquired the 20XX ProView title, you can add your own annotations to it. Not a big deal. However, one reason a practitioner may want to buy the 20XX+1 year new eBook edition from TR Legal is the buyer's annotations to the prior year's edition will carry over section by section to the later edition.

Brilliant! TR Legal has realized that some consumers do not buy successive editions, oftentimes because they do not want to lose their marginalia (which may include cites to statutory and regulatory changes). Of course, other reasons may be that editional changes from one year to the next may have nominal significance particularly in the context of the stick price shock for acquiring the latest edition. No word on pricing for TR Legal's enhanced eBooks but the tranfer-over function could be a selling point for indivdual consumers of these forthcoming ProView works.

Selling the Enhanced Law eBook. Pricing? Who knows but note well Lexis is selling its current generation of eBooks on its e-commerce site at full list price of the same pBook editions. While TR Legal tested the waters by selling a few none-ProView titles by way of Amazon, I expect TR Legal to follow the major publishing houses trend to sell ProView titles only on its own e-commerce site. Except for trade titles, publishers' own eCommerce sites already generate the greatest percentage of sales. Why share the proceeds?

Individual consumers will be buying ProView titles from WestStore, or calling their Westlaw account reps, or their West inside "print" sales reps to order them. It should be clear to all that the only proof-of-concept Amazon has made in the eBook market is that eBooks will be bought by the individual consumer in the 21st century new normal; TR Legal's redesigned eCommerce site, aka WestMart, clearly indicates that TR Legal's primary marketing strategy is to sell as much as it can to the individual consumer. So while TR Legal apologized for its "know your librarian's name" in the context of performing research, it is clear exacting who TR Legal is going to target for sales -- the individual, not the institutional, buyer. And why not? There is a huge market of practitioners who do not benefit from the expertise of employing law librarians for purchasing decisions. We might see this by the initial selection of titles TR Legal first brings to market in its ProView eBook platform.

What About Terms and Conditions for Buying Next Generation Law eBooks? Unlike the pBook, the eBook is DRM-ed already. Licensed access will be the norm. Will content updating be automatic for a one year license or an additional upsell cost? Don't know but when the "good 'til actively cancelled by end user" model works so well why not replicate what has worked in the past. We have to wait to see if an alternative to some sort of standing order option is offered.

Will we see some sort of "assured pricing plan" for multi-year ProView eBooks licenses at the level of the individual consumer? Don't see why not since I doubt individual consumers will read the fine print about end of term blow-up costs and automatic renewals. Will we see annual price inflation like we have seen in print (and like we are seeing increase in WEXIS online licensing)? As professional grade enhanced eBook sales grow, you bet we will. It's all about securing a guaranteed revenue stream as high margin print sales continue to decline. Absent some form of concerted consumer advocacy, every trick in the business will be used. I expect we will be dealing with some of the consequences when our own user populations become individual buyers. Hell, some of us have seen this happen when we take over accounts from individuals who thought assured pricing plans for print were a "good deal." Do we have any professional responsibility to advocate for the individual consumer at the national level. My hunch is AALL would say "not as AALL members." Hell, it is always essentially saying "no" at the national level for an association of institutional buyers. Of course, that won't stop AALL from accepting ads for TR ProView after launch.

While Aptara’s Uncovering eBooks’ Real Impact: Third Annual eBook Survey of Publishers (free registration required) reports that 60% of all publishers are either still investigating or have no plans to produce enhanced eBooks, the enhanced Law eBook is not in a some sort of nescient stage of development. Hell, we are only talking about TR ProView winning Round 2 in this slugfest based on an alpha or beta demo but the current business practice model for US legal publishers is absolutely perfect for the sale of enhanced law eBooks. They will come to market. When the EPUB 3 standard is released next spring, I think we will see Lexis taking its digital inventory of the Company's current EPUB-eBooks to the next level by embedding links. This format conversion process is one common publishing industry strategy. See Market for Enhanced eBooks Remains Largely Untapped But... TR ProView has taken a different route.

WEXIS Strategic Objectives. I, for one, think the enhanced law eBook will be one of the more significant developments in legal publishing since the widespread acceptance of very expensive online legal search in the generalist market. The enhanced law eBooks that will be offered by WEXIS will not likely be a mere sideline in WEXIS corporate strategic objectives. It only looks that way right now because professional grade law eBooks aren't available yet.

There may be some differences between the companies. Take ProView's linkage to WLN content. Certainly that makes sense as a way to increase WLN adoption rates since embedded links will only function if one has a WLN account. It also makes sense if one thinks TR Legal will keep its overwhelming share of the online legal search market when Classic Westlaw disappears. I'm not sure TR Legal will maintain its dominant share in the very expensive generalist online legal search market but it could. Lexis will probably embed links to Lexis Advance and/or Classic Lexis until the latter disappears. At something like one-third of the online search market, will Lexis enhanced eBooks help the Company increase its market share. Considering Lexis Advance's market segmentation approach the answer to that question is going to depend on whether one will be required to have a Lexis Advance user account to click-thru the embedded links. It might be wise to offer free click-thru to eBook cited primary resources to confirm "good law" status, including free use of Shepard's, by way of one of the flavors of Lexis Advance. Doing so might increase user exposure Lexis online which in term might increase user licensing. 

Let the "competition" begin. Of course in this duolopy competition won't be based on price. For awhile, it will be based on functionality. Eventually history will repeat itself and then competition won't even be based on that unless new players enter the enhanced law eBook market for secondary sources like NOW.

Who Pushes Enhanced eBooks to the Next Level? After embedded linkage to their online search services with supplement, etc. at the level of the individual consumer, will we see more media-rich content and upsells from WEXIS enhanced eBooks in the generalist legal marketplace? Probably but it may take a "nudge" from speciality legal vendors. I expect BLaw-BNA to enter the legal specialty market with enhanced eBooks. Hell, a once digital-only premium legal publisher like BLaw doesn't bend its initial marketing strategy by aquiring the catalog and editorial quality of BNA titles with a customer base willing to pay for top-notch secondary content just to sell pBooks and augment its online offerings. BNA was already lagging behind even the lame eBook offerings of CCH. Absent an infusion of capital from Bloomberg, BNA would have had a very hard time trying to be competitive with the coming of enhanced eBooks in law. Add BNA's sales force for boots on the ground purposes, I'm think both sides of this acquisition have a "win-win" for selling versions of a integrated database-pBook-eBook catalog of services. This assumes BNA online services will not be licensed to WEXIS. Something I think we can expect down the road. The one open question is whether BLaw will stick to its licensing model of selling all of its online content at a flat rate or will adopt an option that offers flat rate pricing by specialized law and business practice areas now that it offers sufficient resources by way of BNA to compete with Wolter Kluwer. 

In the context of BLaw-BNA enhanced eBooks, imagine for example a search tie-in to a BLaw-BNA enhanced eBook for Developing Law Labor, a enhanced subscription in an eReader format to Securities Law & Regulation Reports that also includes videos from Bloomberg News about late breaking developments, video feeds, live and archieved, to Congressional hearings for enhanced eBook subscribers of the Daily Tax Reports, etc. Then add upsell opportunities for editable standarized forms in tax, SEC, etc, Perhaps even intelligent apps for examplary research based on SEC filings, pension plans, etc. Perhaps clause finders apps from something like BNA's Collective Bargaining Negotiations and Contracts tied to an enhanced version BNA's Labor & Employment Library for work production. Perhaps even pay-per-view webinars (which also may carry CLE credits), for example, offered to enhanced eBook subscribers of BNA's IP treatises that would of course also have embedded links to BLaw's and BNA's IP resources. This sort of competitive push will force Wolter Kluwer to kick up its current eBooks in the context of adding IntelliConnect and upsell opportunities, for CCH and Aspen specialist-branded works if the Company isn't already thinking along those lines. It just makes sense because of the narrow-focus on the individual consumer for selling eBooks.

Unlike WestlawNexis, BLaw is already providing Bloomberg News feeds and some video content to breaking news developments from Bloomberg news, etc. Score one for Bloomberg. Unlike BLaw, all versions of WEXIS online include a form of up-sell via their search services for out-of-plan sources when licenses do not block access. We just never really thought of them as "up-sell" until the rise of eReaders like the iPad. We are entering new territory here. Again, score one for BLaw's flat rate pricing.

Enhanced Law eBooks as a New Publishing Form. The professional grade enhanced Law eBook will eventually be transformative. It will be interactive and multi-media rich. It may start off with pBook context as its basis for it will ties into our major vendors online search services. It will repurpose other digital inventory from some traditional standalone titles like form compiliations that be embedded in usable formats if not already part of the e-text even if the user does not have access to the material by way of access to the vendor's database search service. It hopefully will provide content-in-context instead of data sliced displays. Significantly, it may be the answer to the complaint that WEXIS online output demotes the value of secordary literature someday.

And if anyone is thinking this will come cheaply. Think again. Pricing for the functionalities of the enhanced eBook will cost more than pBooks. The enhanced law eBook will not just be an electronic edition of a pBook. It will be a new form of publication, one where increased functionality over the pBook comes at a price. Our major vendors are betting that individual legal consumers will pay that price. Considering generational shift, I think our vendors' bets are right because I think the eBook buying population will be demanding these enhancements.

Let's just face the reality that the blind conversion of pBooks into current eBook formats without any substantial additional functionality (meaning email is not one of them) is pretty damn lame for literature in a profession that has been "online" for over three decades now. Professionally, I think no one should be paying any premium for updated, "upgraded," online legal database platforms. Upgrading is just a corporate cost of staying competitive even in a duopoly that displays monopolistic tendencies. Development of new search engines is the just price of staying competitive. Advertising claims about saving research time are a joke but even if taken serious how does that offset costs to vendor. About the only new feature being offered by WEXIS on any "significance" is internal sharing of "folders" and that's hardly worth additional cost.

The professional grade enhanced eBook is an entirely different matter. In the Shed West Era of print, the greater the improvement in functionality, the more likely our major vendors will be able to compensate for lost revenue. It this case, we are talking about the market for a new product. Consumers will eventual perceive the difference. Marketing will eventually stop referencing pBooks in the context of selling professional grade enhanced eBooks. While "professional grade enhanced eBooks" is a mouthful right now someone may come up with a new name or the state of the eBook art will simply make us forget about eBooking in its current form when it comes to professional literature.

Where Will This Leave the Institutional Buyer? For now, out in the cold. To its credit, Lexis is providing some work-arounds for institutional buyers of its current eBook offerings. I find them "clunky" to say the least for lending purposes and who knows how either Company will work out this dynamic for enhanced law eBooks in an instituional buyer setting. Eventually, libraries may be able to acquire licensing by user accounts or IP-authentication. Eventually, vendors may start packing discounted enhanced eBooks in their online search licenses in some way, shape or form. Lending? Perhaps some form of time-sensitive patron access logins. But all this is probably going to happen many rounds later in the law eBook slugfest. [JH]

CNBC's Ranking of the 10 Most Hated Jobs

Wedged in between 8th place, Technical Support Analyst, and 6th place, Electronics Technician, in CNBC's 10 Most Hated Jobs by level of job dissatification is Law Clerk:

7. Law Clerk
Clerkships are among the most highly sought-after positions in the legal profession. A law clerk assists judges as they write opinions, and the ones who get the job are almost always near the top of their class at law school. Six justices of the U.S. Supreme Court, including Elena Kagan and current Chief Justice John Roberts, were all law clerks early in their careers.

The job clearly beefs up a resume. Yet law clerks still report high levels of dissatisfaction. The hours are long and grueling, and the clerk is subject to the whims of sometimes mercurial personalities. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also reported the job brings in a median salary of $39,780 a year—not exactly striking it rich—and those looking for advancement within the position simply will not find it.

What the most hated job? According to CNBC:

1. Director of Information Technology
For all the press that teachers and nurses get for their long hours, low pay and thankless tasks, it may be surprising to see the most hated job was that of information technology director, according to CareerBliss. After all, the salary’s pretty good and with information technology such a prevalent part of everyday business, an IT director can hold almost as much sway over the fate of some companies as a chief executive.

Still, IT directors reported the highest level of dissatisfaction with their jobs, far surpassing that of any waitress, janitor, or bellhop. Of those who responded to the survey, one simple, five-word response summed up the antipathy very well: “Nepotism, cronyism, disrespect for workers.”

[JH]

Opening: Manager, Information Systems, New York Law Institute

Located in downtown Manhattan, the New York Law Institute is a membership law library, serving the legal community continuously since 1828 by providing access to resources its members need but cannot maintain on their own.  Today, membership libraries are crucial parts of the legal information community and NYLI is undertaking major initiatives to meet 21st century demands for just in time access to legal and business information.   
 
The New York Law Institute is partnering with Axelroth & Associates to recruit for a Manager, Information Systems.  This critical management position was created a few years ago to develop and administer systems to connect members with the Institute’s resources, services and products.  The person selected will have responsibility for two key areas: 1) technology supporting the delivery of resources and member services and 2) technical services systems supporting internal operations. 
 
The successful candidate will work in partnership with the Executive Director to identify opportunities for developing and enhancing the technologies critical to NYLI’s success.  These include the creation of catalogs integrating NYLI and member records, the ongoing enhancement of the website, and other projects using collaborative technologies to enhance members’ experiences.  
 
Qualifications: Demonstrated ability to work with information technology to deliver information products and services through web-based applications, implement and administer online library systems, and develop services using Web 2.0 tools. 

• Minimum of seven years of experience implementing and managing information technologies and five years of experience in a special library, including project management and personnel experience.
• Graduate degree in library, information or computer science or another related program from an accredited institution.

Deadline: Applications are due October 15, 2011 and will be reviewed on a rolling basis until the position is filled. No phone calls please.

To apply, please send a resume and cover letter with your salary requirements via e-mail to

Ellen Callinan, Senior Consultant
Axelroth & Associates
ecallinan@axelroth.com

EOE; Competitive salary and benefits package.

Short Takes On The News

• The National Labor Relations Board issues a preliminary report covering investigations where an employee’s use of social media clashed with an employer’s social media policy.  Though there have been reports where an employee’s criticism of an employer has been protected, that protection is not a universal rule.  The report, authored by Acting General Counsel Lafe Solomon, covers 14 investigations by the NLRB.  It is available here.

• Law school is a waste of time according to Penelope Trunk, co-founder of Brazen Careerist.  Among her 5 points is that a law degree is not useful for non-law work and not worth the cost ($150k, her estimate) for that kind of work.  I suppose, but try being a law librarian these days without one.  She also says that most forms of graduate school are outdated.  Her statements are obviously provocative, though I’m not sure how much stock I’d put in them.  She describes the admissions test for law school as the LSA rather than the LSAT in the CNN report sourcing her comments.  A typo or a lack of detail on her part?  Read it here.

• Pennsylvania is holding hearings on rewriting its library code, the one that requires, for example, district library centers to hold at least 300 16 mm films.  Try explaining that to those “born digital.”  One other provision urged is term limits for library trustees.  Bill Hudson, acting administrator for the Library System of Lancaster County, is quoted:  "In the most distressing instances, some board members refuse to leave the board, even when it is clear to others that they are no longer effective."  Ever been part of a library organization’s board where that happened? 

• Today is Justice Antonin Scalia’s 25th anniversary of taking his seat on the Supreme Court.  Enough said on that one.

[MG]

Dead Sea Scrolls Now Online With Help From Google

Parts of the Dead Sea Scrolls are now available online, with more coming.  The Israel Museum partnered with Google to digitize the manuscripts and make them available to anyone with a web connection.  The scrolls are so fragile that direct light cannot be shined on them.  According to Bloomberg, the Google tool at the site makes it possible to zoom into sections of the image and read its translation in English.  The available scrolls include The Great Isaiah Scroll, the Temple Scroll and the War Scroll.  Access is here.

This is pretty amazing, as there were controversies in the past as to who could have access and study these cultural and religious materials.  Now anyone can get to them.  The achievement demonstrates a completely unrelated point as well.  I wrote a post recently about Yahoo firing Carol Bartz from her position as CEO.  I described with examples how Google appears much more dynamic and willing to spend money and take chances in comparison to Yahoo.  This is another example of that.  There are hardly any stories in the press these days about Yahoo partnering with someone to do something positive.  Love or hate Google, and there are plenty in both camps, it’s nice that they can break political and cultural barriers to make this happen.  More details are available on the Official Google Blog.  By the way, don’t call them the Dead Sea Squirrels, as some apparently do.  [MG]

eReading Platforms: eTextbooks at Indiana Univ. and Harris Poll on Adoption of eReaders

A recent Harris Poll found that 15% of Americans use an eReader, up from 8% a year ago. Among those who do not own an eReader, Harris reports that 15% say they will likely buy one in the next six months. What sort of eBooks are being read? From the Harris Poll:

Among those who say they read at least one book in an average year, three-quarters say they read both fiction (76%) and non-fiction (76%) but certain types of books rise to the top in both categories. Among fiction categories, almost half of readers say they read mystery, thriller and crime books (47%), while one-quarter read science fiction (25%), literature (23%) and romance (23%). One in ten read graphic novels (10%) while 8% read "chick-lit" and 5% read Westerns. Among non-fiction categories, almost three in ten readers say they read biographies (29%) while one-quarter read history (27%) and religious and spirituality books (24%). Just under one in five readers (18%) read self-help books, while 13% read true crime, 12% read current affairs, 11% read political books and 10% read business books.

eTextbook Reading Platform at Indiana Universtiy. eBookNewser reports on a survey conducted by Indiana University which has launched an eTextbook program. The survey of students who took courses requiring an eTextbook found that the primary textbook platform was the laptop (63%), with desktop PC coming in a distant second (11%). Tablets and eReader barely even made the list; only about 1% of respondents used them. [JH]