CompuServe Messages

Hi Lanny, Thanks for the update on the dbase. I, for one, am eagerly looking forward to a product in that price range. I assume that Doug is helping you put the files in a form that can be imported into any of the major data bases. I had better learn how to use a database soon. West Publishing keeps its stranglehold by copyrighting not the judicial opinion, which as a govt. creation can't be copyrighted, but rather the headers and especially the pagination! When state and federal legislatures designate West as the official reporter, then West gains a tremendous market advantage because anyone writing a brief must have a copy of the West official version to give the court the proper citation. If you use a download from a court bulletin board, then you'll have the text but not the pagination. The advent of these court bulletin boards has been a move to do away with the official citation, and perhaps use numbered paragraphs, or something, in the electronic format. I think that these technological developments will ultimately break the West stranglehold and its monopolistic pricing. I hear you re download speed. I do have a local 9600 node for compuserve, but I fret that I can't get to a 14.4k without a serious toll call. That would be 50% faster at the same cost through CIS. Delphi has just opened a 9600 node in my toll-free area so I can now go web cruising at a decent speed, picking up big files as I go, without too much waiting. BTW, my article on the fluorescent chabazites is essentially done. If I get a chance, I'd like to perhaps amplify a point or two, but if you need to "set type" and you're at your deadline, then go ahead and print. Nathan