CRIV BLOG

Thomson Reuters/CRIV Biannual Call

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Attendees:  Kate Hagen (AALL), Lori Hedstrom (Thomson Reuters), Caroline Walters (CRIV)

Agenda #1:

To address a member’s concern about the scheduling of editions for Wright and Miller’s Federal Practice and Procedure, Lori Hedstrom had a lengthy interview with the editor of that publication to get the background and history.  The issue regards a recent decision to publish the newly revised Vol. 30B as 1^st edition.  For many years it had been published as a hardbound interim edition.   Yet older editions within the Evidence Unit were labeled 1^st editions in the 70’s and 2^nd editions were published in 2005.  The timing of the new 1^st edition Vol. 30B, published in 2017, was therefore confusing to catalogers and serials inventory.  This is what Lori learned in order to illuminate and explain the irregular publishing schedules for Wright and Miller:

Unlike other West publications, Wright & Miller is primarily written by the work of outside authors, specialists in their area of interest.  Material within the set is updated as needed when the law evolves and also when a subject specialist contributes new scholarship.  This is why individual volumes within Wright & Miller have, for quite some time, taken divergent paths as far as how often they are revised between one edition to the next.

With respect to volume 30B’s recent publication as a 1^st Edition, until recently, the subject of this volume (the hearsay rules) were not covered in Wright & Miller by an independent author.  While an original analysis of the hearsay rules was being written by Wright & Miller’s original authors, this subject was covered within the treatise by material that was largely copied from the Handbook of Federal Evidence.  The volumes that contained this material were labeled as “interim” editions for many years.  Recently, a new author was retained to independently research and create a wholly original analysis of the hearsay rules, for which a new chapter was created within the treatise.  This is why the new Vol. 30B, which replaces the last of Wright & Miller’s “interim” editions, is labeled as a 1^st edition.

Agenda #2:

Thomson Reuters Listening Session in Boston:  This fall Thomson Reuters agreed to send high-level executives to meet with a group of Boston-area Acquisitions Librarians, a representation of both academic and firm libraries, to discuss billing problems and other customer service issues and concerns.  It was a very productive meeting and a first step toward meaningful change.  During our call, Lori offered to summarize the meeting for CRIV which will then be published with a wider audience.  She hopes to schedule follow-up meetings with this same group to report their progress and get feedback for further development.  A separate blog post will follow detailing the results of this meeting.