An exchange on the law-lib listserv yesterday caught my eye. A firm librarian from Akron sent out a general request for information that would help her draw up her 2008 library budget. She was trying to be realistic about the increase in cost of legal publications - she said she was using "the AALL price index for legal publications and did my own check by randomly selecting titles from our collection and comparing the prices for 2006 and 2007."
What was interesting was the response that her posting elicited from Ken Svengalis, who was a longtime law librarian of the RI state library and is now a consumer watchdog for legal publishing. He wrote a scathing indictment of the AALL's price index and the cozy relationship between the AALL and some legal publishers. He also provided a link to the powerpoint presentation he gave at the AALL conference in July that details the economics of the legal publishing business.
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