Law Journals – Forcing the Shift to Online Only Access

Some recent posts have advocated the idea that law school publishers should “stop publishing” law journals in print. Instead, the posts say, the publishers should direct their energy to “creating definitive versions of their journals in digital formats and making the law review articles readily accessible in online repositories”.

I agree with the conventional wisdom that the demise of print formats for law journals and law reports is an inevitability and that it will happen in the not too distant future. Acceptance by the legal community of “digital only law journals” combined with economic realities will ultimately produce that result. In the meantime, however, print remains the format of record as well as an important source of revenue for the law journals that will not be matched or replaced by revenue generated from electronic formats.

What is the need for some in the legal research community, including directors of academic libraries, “to call for ending publication of law journals in print format”?

Electronic access to law journals

Both Quicklaw and Westlawecarswell include comprehensive collections of Canadian (and American) law journals. There are a few gaps but not many, i.e., older issues of law journals where there was no assignment of electronic rights to the print publisher and publications that restrict electronic access to select groups such as the Canadian Bar Review. This access is also free for students, law professors and the judiciary.

For more than a decade, professors and students at Canadian law schools have been given free access to the commercial online services and there is no sign as yet that this will change. The recent attempt by Lexis to introduce a nominal administrative charge was viewed as something bordering on sacrilege in the academic community and Lexis retreated in the face of the criticism it received.

Judges are also given free access to online services by the major legal publishers to ensure that their products are referenced in court judgments written by the judges. Providing free access to legal information products for promotional purposes is a generally accepted practice that is not seen as interfering with the independence of the judiciary in Canada.

Market penetration of the legal profession in Canada by Quicklaw and Westlawecarswell is so extensive that few if any serious legal researchers do not have access to law journals in digital formats. As if that isn’t enough, CANLII has indicated that it now appears to be ready and willing to offer universal free access to law journals through its online service.

Demand continues for print

Despite the easy, reliable and largely free access to law journals in Canada, the demand continues for law journals to be published in print. University law schools believe that their reputation is enhanced by the publication of a law journal in print, while doing everything possible to ensure that their law journals are also included in the major online commercial services. Law students believe that it is worthwhile for them to seek to be editors of the law journals. Law libraries continue to believe that print copies need to be retained in their collections.

In support of the demand for discontinuing print formats, mention is made of the steady decline in the number of print law journal subscriptions over the past decade. While the widespread availability of the law journals online has lessened the need to purchase print copies of the law journals, it has not eliminated it. At the same time as online searching became easier and cost effective, new technologies in print production made even small print runs profitable.

Revenue from the sale of print continues to be critical to the the viability of many law journals. Subscription purchases by law libraries and graduates of the law school ensure that each journal has money to cover the costs of producing the law journal. By contrast, royalty payments from online usage are a token amount. Royalty payments are based on paid use. The primary users of the law journal databases online are students, professors and judges, none of whom pay for their use.

Saving trees

Saving trees is another argument made for terminating print publications. For many reasons, this argument has no legs. Print runs are smaller and less paper is used as a result. At this stage, print publishing is largely done on recycled paper. In the current economy, not everyone thinks that eliminating jobs in the paper industry is such a great idea.

More significantly, however, is the fact that online access does not significantly reduce paper use. Lexis was originally funded by a paper company that believed that computers would eliminate the need for paper. When the opposite proved true, the paper company sold Lexis to a print publisher that saw the need to deliver its content online as well as in print. If saving trees really was the objective, a strong case could be made to the effect that print publications make more sense than online with its endless print downloads of content.

Library culture

Clearly the only reason for academic library directors to advocate the end of print formats has more to do with library culture than anything else. Law libraries have the capacity to simply cancel their print subscriptions to law journals and solve their individual problems with budgets and shelf space, but they do not chose to do so. Instead, the libraries seek to have someone else make the decision for them. If the publisher discontinues print, it is the publisher who is responsible, and not the institution, for forcing the shift to online only access to law journals.

Format censorship

Early in my publishing career, I experienced a similar series of calls to stop publishing topical law reports. It was the 1970’s. The argument then was that topical law reports were stressing library budgets and shelf space and to solve these problems some library directors called for the publisher to shut them down. Fortunately, the demand by the legal profession for more cases on subjects that were neglected by jurisdictional law reports, and the demand for cases organized organized on a topical basis, was so great that topical law reports were an instant commercial and critical success.

Law journals and law reports continue to be made available in print because of the demand that continues to exist for them in that format. To stop publishing them in print at the urging of one group of group of customers who have the option, but apparently not the will, to simply cancel their own subscriptions, just doesn’t make any sense.

If a particular law library believes that print formats are unnecessary for any reason, the option exists to cancel the subscription without sacrificing access to the content. My advice – just do it.