As an outgoing CRIV member (2023-2025), it’s a fitting moment to consider the early history of CRIV publications. A huge thank you to Andrew Christensen and AALL staff who helped with this research and made this post possible!
The first issue of Publications Clearing House Bulletin, the original CRIV publication, appeared in January 1978. This was back when CRIV was CORPUD – the Committee on Relations with Publishers and Dealers:
Publications Clearing House Bulletin—a standalone publication— addressed analog issues in an analog world:
That’s a lot of correspondence to read!
As one can tell from a glance at the Table of Contents, PCHB addressed a variety of issues but always had two dedicated sections—one for complaints:
. . . and another for suggestions for improvement in the legal publishing industry:
A decade later—in August 1988—Nancy Paul announced in the AALL Newsletter (20.1, pg. 29) that both CORPUD and PCHB were undergoing a “!!Title Change!!”: they were renamed the Committee on Relations with Information Vendors and The CRIV Sheet:
The most significant change that year, however, was that the committee publication would no longer remain a standalone entity, but would now be included as a feature within a larger publication: the AALL Newsletter. Among other factors, a major reason for the change was that “the Board…decided that the content of this newsletter was important enough to be included within the pages of the AALL Newsletter in order that the valuable information which we have come to expect from PCHB would be brought to the attention of the entire membership” (p. 2).
The following month—September 1988—the first issue of The CRIV Sheet appeared within the pages of AALL Newsletter 20.2. This issue of The CRIV Sheet is indexed as Volume 11, No. 1 since it is a title change/continuation of Publications Clearing House Bulletin (the final issue of which was Volume 10, No. 4 in January 1988):
The CRIV Sheet continued to appear in AALL Newsletter until the Newsletter ceased publication in July 1996. Then, a “new magazine” that broadened the scope of the Newsletter, AALL Spectrum published Volume 1, Number 1 in September 1996, and The CRIV Sheet …
But this is convenient stopping point. Perhaps in the near future someone can pick up where this survey leaves off.
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