![handle is hein.journals/lgrefsq17 and id is 1 raw text is: Introduction:
The Political Economy
of Legal Information:
The New Landscape
Samuel E. Trosow
The past few years have seen great changes in the legal publishing indus-
try and in the manner in which legal information is produced, stored, dissemi-
nated and used. A new landscape of legal information has emerged along
with the convergence of two factors. The first is the trend towards concentra-
tion in the legal publishing industry, and the second is an information envi-
ronment increasingly characterized by electronic forms of publishing and
communication.
This publication attempts to examine the relationship between these fac-
tors and consider how librarians and other information professionals could
best comprehend, cope with and even try to influence the factors which
comprise the new legal information landscape. But why political economy?
What is political economy and how does the normative political economy
of information differ from the positive economics of information?
The term political economy itself has many meanings. A common defini-
tion is given by the New Encyclopaedia Britannica:
... [a] branch of social science which later developed into economics,
concerned with the raising of revenue by the state and the increase of
the state's general resources. The term was introduced about the begin-
ning of the 17th century to describe the study of the problems of the
princely states . . . Adam Smith, the first to present a comprehensive
systematized study, seemed to equate political economy with 'the treat-
[Haworth co-indexing entry note]: Introduction: 'The Political Economy of Legal Information: The
New Landscape.' Trosow, Samuel E. Co -published simultaneously inLegalReference Services Quarterly
(The Haworth Information Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc.) Vol. 17, No. 1/2, 1999, pp. 1-5;
and: The Political Economy of Legal Information: The New Landscape (ed: Samuel E. Trosow) The
Haworth Information Press, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc., 1999, pp. 1-5. Single or multiple copies of
this article are available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service [1-800-342-9678, 9:00 a.m. -
5:00 p.m. (EST). E-mail address: getinfo@haworthpressinc.com].
D 1999 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved. 1](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/lgrefsq17&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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