This just in, Lexis/Quicklaw is intending to charge $50 per head for Academic Access at Canadian Law Schools starting next September.
So a Canadian Law School with 500 students would be charged $25000 starting September 2008.
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It is hard to believe that, for a similar aggregate sum, CanLII could not be improved to the point that it would provide many of the same services to law students — with the difference that those improvements be available to all and on an ongoing basis.
If I was running a law school, I would simply tell my faculty that our students will now be relying on Westlaw and CanLii for their research needs.
Perhaps QL will go back to free student accounts when they notice the impact of several cohorts of new lawyers who find it easier to do research without them.
This is a shame. QL surpasses Westlaw in a few crucial ways (labour arbitration cases for one), and regardless of whether the Law schools absorb the cost (unlikely) or download it onto students (hmmm), I see problems on the horizon.
If Westlaw doesn't do something similar, I'd be very worried if I were QL.
There's (essentially) nothing that a LLB/JD student can't do using Westlaw/CanLii/Hein that they would need QL for. As a student, I'd be very upset if my school was putting tuition dollars toward QL if those other services were available cost-free.
Worst business move of the year.
Free QL for law schools has been the best marketing dollars that QL/Lex has ever spent.
I am waiting to get the details since, as Steve notes, this would be a surprising and awful marketing decision. Considering the hours academic and firm librarians spend each year teaching students how to use QL/Lexis effectively they should be paying us per student! Oh well, one fewer platform to worry about.
I guess this means that the long honeymoon between QL and Canadian law schools has finally come to an end. Sigh!
add to this that QL is losing CLB content (including DLR), it sounds like they are heading a dangerous path, risking to be judged useless both in terms of cost and content.
First reaction: what a bad marketing move.
Second tought: before I fully verbalize my toughts on this seemingly bad marketing move, I wonder what motivated QL/Lex to adopt such a strategy? We could perhaps think of students were abusing the system, but would a nominal charge of $50.00 prevent any further abuse if that is the case?
Mark, any idea on the motives behind this?
One of the nominal reasons given was the expense of developing the new interface.
How much do students actually use Quicklaw? From assisting practitioner teachers with casebook prep,and from orienting new articling students over the years, I would suggest that the answer is not as much as we think they should.
Aside from the preceived poor LNQL business decision, perhaps not having Quicklaw will not be a big deal to law students. Now, if they didn't have access to treatises…oh wait – LNQL does have textbook content. I wonder what the good folks at Irwin Law are thinking about this decision.
I agree with those who raise the idea of CANLII as the alternative. I seldom go onto QL these days, and find myself there only to search journal articles and non-decision-related content.
The idea of directing the funds to support CANLII development is a brilliant one, and I hope that the schools give it some serious thought.
LNQL's decision to charge law students is a business decision and from my point-of-view as an academic law librarian I will now be evaluating it like any other legal research database we subscribe to.
It should be pointed out that charging for student access to Westlaw or Lexis has long been the practice in the US. As Richard has pointed out, the "long honeymoon" is over. This development was probably inevitable once Quicklaw left private ownership.
Bear in mind that so far Westlaw/ECarswell has not charged anything. And that there are other alternatives provided by other publishers such as Maritime Law Book and CCH which should be taken more seriously.
As for CANLII, it should by now I hope be considered as a real alternative to the commerical products, and as law students need to know how to use it and what it is good for, just like we have always done for the commercial vendors.
The one major concern I have in all this is that we are back to having duplication of services and reporting, which has plagued legal publishing in the common law world since the nineteenth century, and has particularly been a concern in Canada.
Neil,
For case law: it's my view that we've reached the point, with at least the major Commonweath LIIs, that nobody who knows the basics of the subject matter needs to start with the commercial services for current case law.
These days, where case law is involved, I head for eCarswell or QL just for older cases of where I want a headnote. (I assuming that, just as here, the other Commonwealth courts send their judgments to the local LIIs at the same time as they're sent to commercial publsihers.
What this means, I think, is that the future of the commercial publishers has to be in the value added material: analyses, summaries, commentaries, journals, reviews etc. A good example, for case law, is the excellent notes the various Carswell specialty reporters often have or had. Of course, if one isn't going to get paid for work, it would be better provided to one's jurisdiction's LII.
David
Law students don't need QuickLaw. I have found WestLaw easier and more efficient, especially given that the CED and the Canadian Abridgment are readily available. If law students don't need / learn to use Quicklaw, I guess future lawyers won't need it either. Maybe if LNQL wanted to save money, they could cut back on the free travel mugs they give out at their student seminars.