The 2020-21 Dewey B Strategic What’s Hot and What’s Not Survey included a series of questions related to the COVID-19 Crisis.
COVID Resources Every legal publisher launched some kind of COVID related legal resource. Many of these resources were made publicly available outside the paywall. These products included toolkits, trackers, practical guidance, advisories, checklists, legislative and caselaw monitors. Legal publishers demonstrated laudable community-mindedness. In light of this, rather than ask readers to rate these pro bono offerings, I asked readers to identify which COVID offerings they had used. Readers were able to select multiple products.
The B Word Most law firms were facing financial uncertainty which resulted in slashed budgets. Everyone was working from home. For law firms with large libraries – this meant – books that were no longer accessible or even “up-update-able.” Overnight librarians who had not yet done so, were challenged to build robust digital libraries. Many librarians asked vendors to make adjustments to fixed price multi-year contracts for print materials. How did vendors respond to customers budget adjustment requests?
How Did the Legal Publishers Compare? Lastly I asked readers to provide an overall rating for each publisher based on their overall experience with each vendor during the COVID crisis.
Key Takeaways:
COVID Resources – Bloomberg Law’s In Focus COIVD-19 was the most heavily used COVID Offering
Responsiveness to Print Budget Concerns – Wolters Kluwer was the most responsive legal publisher addressing librarians contracting and budget issues.
Overall Responsiveness During COVID Crisis – Wolters Kluwer received the highest percent of “excellent” ratings for their free resources, responsiveness to budget concerns and overall support during the COVID Crisis.