Primary Research Group Inc. has published the Survey of Law Library Plans for the Print Materials Collection, 2020 Edition, ISBN 978-157440-601-6

This study, the third in a series, presents data from 47 law firm, university, government, courthouse, private company and other law libraries about their plans for their print materials collection.  The sample includes 17 law firm, 5 university, 10 government and 8 courthouse, among other libraries. The study presents highly detailed data about their spending on and plans for primary legal materials, secondary legal materials, books, directories, newspapers and magazines and other print materials.  

The report presents data on recent, current and expected rates of change in spending on print and on the library’s overall philosophy on the maintenance of print collections.  In addition to 60 detailed tables of data on law library current and expected spending on various forms of print resources, the study presents open ended answers to questions about library purchasing plans.

Data in the report is broken out by size and type of library, and by the personal age of the survey taker. In addition, data is broken out separately for US and Canadian law libraries.

Just a few of the report’s many findings are that:

•  The government law libraries in the sample spent a mean of $774,000 on print materials in the past year.   
• Canadian law libraries in the sample culled a mean of 6.38% of the book collections in the past year.   
• Large law libraries with 5 or more librarians reduced the number of print subscriptions to law journals that they maintain by nearly 19% in 2019.   
• Small and medium-sized law firm libraries expect to increase their spending significantly on print editions of newspapers and magazines in 2020.   
• Primary legal works accounted for a mean of 34.21% of the print materials budget for the organizations sampled.

A PDF edition of this report is currently available from Primary Research Group for $144.00; a print edition is in production and will be available for shipment on September 16th and can be purchased now.  Site licenses are also available.  

For a table of contents, excerpt, and list of the survey participants – or to place an order -- view the product page for this report on our website at:https://www.primaryresearch.com/AddCart.aspx?ReportID=576Orders can also be emailed to orders@primaryresearch.com or faxed to 212-412-9097.  

Reach us by phone at 212-736-2316.  Our general website URL is:  www.PrimaryResearch.com.