SSRN Joins Mendeley and Elsevier

SSRN has announced that it is joining Mendeley and Elsevier.

Here’s the announcement on SSRN.

Here’s Elsevier’s blog post about it.

Both statements promise that SSRN users should face little disruption on the cost front. They also promise the entanglement will lead to new features (throwing Scopus out as an example of what might occur).

Lexis Acquires Lex Machina

Under the headline, “Lex Machina is Accelerating With LexisNexis,” Lex Machina announced this morning that it had been acquired by the larger corporation.

Robert Ambrogi discusses the deal (while it was still an unconfirmed rumor) here. His report of the confirmation of the deal is here.

Additional coverage from Bloomberg BNA is here.

Text of the announcement email from Lex Machina is below:

Today we’re excited to share that Lex Machina has agreed to be acquired by LexisNexis. We will continue to operate as a stand-alone entity within North American Research Solutions at LexisNexis Legal & Professional.

Lex Machina’s mission is to be bring Legal Analytics to all of the law. With the acquisition we will increase our ability to fulfill this mission and accelerate our timetable. As part of one of the largest and most successful content providers in the world, Lex Machina now has access to a vast collection of litigation documents. Leveraging this data on our Legal Analytics platform, we will be able to deliver unprecedented insights for attorneys of all areas of the law.

We will also be able to innovate faster and roll out more features and products to continue to help IP attorneys provide the best service to their clients, win more cases, and win more business. And we’ll gain additional resources to scale our engineering, customer success, and support teams, allowing us to focus even more on our customers.

All of us at Lex Machina are very excited about the road ahead. Please let us know if you have questions or would like to learn more about Legal Analytics.

Thank you,

Your Lex Machina Team

Vendor News: Fastcase Acquires LoisLaw

Fastcase has purchased LoisLaw from WoltersKluwer. Robert Ambrogi broke the news on Law Sites after current Loislaw customers started receive notices of the change. Fastcase has confirmed it, and posted some FAQs on the transition.

It looks like Fastcase has expanded it customer base by acquiring the current LoisLaw subscriptions and brand. The legacy LoisLaw subscribers look like they’ll have an option to continue accessing WoltersKluwer treatises as long as they continue their subscriptions, but it doesn’t look like anything will change for current Fastcase subscribers (i.e., no new windfall of editorial content showing up on Fastcase).

Thank you to former CRIV Chair, Liz Reppe, for bringing this to my attention.

Vendor news: LexisNexis aquires MLex

Press release:

http://www.relx.com/mediacentre/pressreleases/2015/Pages/lexisnexis-announces-agreement-to-acquire-MLex.aspx

Commentary from Dewey B and iBrary Guy

ProQuest acquiring Coutts and MyiLibrary, partnering with Ingram.

ProQuest announced today that it is acquiring Coutts and MyiLibrary from Ingram Content Group. It is also “entering into a strategic partnership” with Ingram for print distribution.

The press release can be read on the ProQuest website (the same release can also be read on the Ingram website).

More info on these changes from ProQuest is available here. A PDF of FAQs is available as well.

Without knowing how long this has been in the works, the easiest interpretation of this move is that it is a response to EBSCO’s purchase of YBP (see earlier coverage of that development here). ProQuest is selling this acquisition as a further expansion of its ebook content (adding MyiLibrary titles to the Ebrary and EBL titles already available from ProQuest). At the same time, these statements say that nothing will change immediately for current MyiLibrary customers. ProQuest also promises this will not delay the ongoing integration of the Ebrary and EBL platforms.

PLC to ThomsonReuters; Knowledge Mosaic to LexisNexis

In a January 3 press release circulated to Knowledge Mosaic customers, it was announced the company was acquired by LexisNexis. Knowledge Mosaic content is to appear in LexisAdvance, but Knowledge Mosaic is to continue as a standalone platform for the near future. See coverage at 3 Geeks.

Thomson Reuters has acquired Practical Law Company. There is no word yet of how their respective products may be integrated. Here is the press release from Thomson Reuters.