Cost inflation by page reductions: a discrete example of new price increases in legal serials

Exposes a subtle method of price increase used by The West Group that has gone unnoticed by the American law librarian community, that of decreasing the number of pages in serial, reporter volumes. The author examined volumes from Federal Supplement, Federal Reporter and the seven regional reporters to determine the number of pages contained in these volumes prior to the West/Thomson merger and how that number has changed since the merger. After documenting the decline in page number per volume, the author proposes some actions law libraries can take to respond to the page decline and its attendant increase in the amount law libraries may pay each year for the same number of pages spread out over more volumes.