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Law Publishers in the Twenty-First Century: Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution? or The Need for a Paradigm Shift in Publishing for the Legal Education Market

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 March 2014

Wirt Soetenhorst
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Abstract

In this article Wirt Soetenhorst explores a paradigm shift that is already taking place in the legal education market and that will accelerate over the next five years. This development will have consequences for all the parties that are active in the field of academic legal education: authors, institutions, libraries, students and publishers. The article analyses the current traditional business model (the sale of physical textbooks) and outlines several potential scenarios for the future of legal publishing in which publishers move into teaching and academic institutions.

Keywords

publishinglegal publisherslegal educationNetherlands
Type
International Perspectives
Information
Legal Information Management , Volume 14 , Issue 1 , March 2014 , pp. 74 - 79
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2014. Published by British and Irish Association of Law Librarians 

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References

Footnotes

1 Tung, Genevieve Blake, ‘Academic Law Libraries and the Crisis in Legal Education’, Law Library Journal Vol. 105(3) (2013–14)Google Scholar.

2 See Larry Downes, The Laws of Disruption (2009), p. 3.

3 Website of the Association of Dutch Universities, http://www.vsnu.nl, consulted on 17 October 2013. See also Carel Stolker, ‘Over de toekomst van het juridisch onderwijs’ [‘On the future of legal education’], Ars Aequi (January 2013).

4 For an overview of the financial aspects of publishing models in academic and professional publishing (including an analysis of textbooks), see Pinter, Frances and White, Laura, ‘Development of Book Publishing Business Models and Finances’, in Campbell, Robert, Pentz, Ed and Borthwick, Ian, eds., Academic and Professional Publishing (Chandos Publishing 2012)Google Scholar, p. 171 et seq.

5 See Stolker, supra note 3.

6 See Rapport Kwaliteit & Diversiteit, rechtswetenschappelijk onderzoek in Nederland [Report on Quality & Diversity: academic legal research in the Netherlands] (2009), pp. 27–28.

7 C.J. Stolker, ‘Recht: taai, taai, taai’ [‘Law: tough, tough, tough’] in ABG, De Academische Boekengids, ABG 85 (2011), http://www.academischeboekengids.nl, consulted on 18 October 2013.

8 See also Michael Clarke, The Digital Revolution in Academic and Professional Publishing (2012), pp. 91–92.

9 Ibid., at pp. 80–81.

10 This is a real model that is already being applied elsewhere. For example, the University of Plymouth's psychology programme uses this approach. It even goes a step further in the sense that the university itself pays for the digital content. See Bookshelf presentation of 3 October 2013.

11 Incidentally, in the case of the Erasmus Law College library, there is evidence of a hybrid product: 65 percent of students opted for digital content and a print version for a slightly higher price, while 35 percent opted exclusively for digital content.

12 See Viek Tracz, The Seer of Science Publishing, scienmag.org, 4 October 2013 consulted on 7 December 2013.

13 In this sense, see also E. Margolis and K.E. Murray, ‘Say Goodbye to the Books: Information Literacy as the New Legal Research Paradigm’ (6 August 2012), Temple University Legal Studies Research Paper Series No. 2012–34, http://ssrn.com/abstract=2125278.

14 Incidentally, MOOCs are also regarded as being potentially disruptive for university business models. See Richard Wellen, ‘Open Access, Megajournals, and MOOCs: On the Political Economy of Academic Unbundling’, Sage Open (October–December 2013), pp. 1–16.

15 See also Heringa, A.W., Legal Education, Reflections and Recommendations (Intersentia 2013), pp. 89–90Google Scholar.