Former law librarian finds success in serving her former colleagues.

Donna Tuke Heroy knows when she became interested in becoming a librarian. Her uncle, a prominent attorney and trustee of the public library system in her hometown of Cincinnati, arranged a summer job for her in a local branch library.

She also knows when she found her interest in legal library work. As a student at Indiana University, she had friends in law school. Their discussions of legal research intrigued her and she talked her way into an internship in the university law library. "I even remember the first reference question I dealt with involved finding a federal regulation.... I can't remember if I actually found it."

Over the next 12 years she worked as a law librarian, first at DePaul University, then with two private law firms. "I was unusual in the field then, having both a law degree and a library degree. That happened in some university law libraries but not in private firms."

The newsletter bug

Then in 1981, having married and considering beginning a family, she was looking for a position that offered flexibility of working conditions for her new situation. She "discovered" newsletters.

"I owe a lot to the newsletter association and the information and publications it provides. Especially in the early years, I knew my field but almost nothing about newsletter publishing," she said.

"I noticed that I and other law librarians were often flying blind when selecting new products and services."

Hence the launch of Legal Information Alert. Now celebrating its 20th anniversary of publication, the newsletter (10x, $169/year) serves "as a sort of Consumer Reports for law librarians," evaluating products and services available to them.

"Attorneys doing research often also want information about particular businesses or firms," Tuke Heroy said, "so at first we included that information in LIA but eventually it led to the launch of Business Information Alert (10x, $162/year) in 1989.

Virtual firm

Like Lee Bellinger of The American Sentinel (NL/NL 3/31/01), Tuke Heroy describes her publishing operations as a "virtual firm." She's headquartered in Chicago with one full time person on staff. Her fulfillment operation is handled by a woman in San Antonio. Almost all of the editorial materials are produced by professionals in the field. Business Information Alert has a new editor (six months) whom Tuke Heroy has not yet met in person. (On the other hand, she recently went to St. Louis to attend the Bat Mitzvah of a former editor who worked with her for 10 years.)

She has nothing against either journalism school graduates or men, Tuke Heroy told NL/ NL, but while everyone who has worked for Alert Publications Inc. has had writing experience of some type, none has ever had a degree in the field. And, while all of the key players in the firm have been women, at present there are two regular columns written by men.

"I think a woman-managed firm offers more flexibility, more understanding in a small office of what it means when someone has a sick child."

Changes in the field in 20 years

"The business has changed tremendously over the past 20 years," she explained. In the early '80s there were a number of mainly family-owned legal publishing firms, West, BNA, and others. Today, after acquisitions, there are basically two giants, the WestGroup and Reed Elsevier. But, Tuke Heroy noted, a number of fairly new niche firms -- most online--have entered the business, and Alert Publications covers them editorially.

When Tuke Heroy travels, she likes to visit subscribers and she noted recently that many of them are now buying much of their materials online from sites like Amazon.com. "Not subscription services, but one-offs, and we need to reflect that trend in our editorial," she said.

Another way the business has changed is in its business arrangements. When she began, Tuke Heroy said, things were fairly informal. The contributors submitted materials and Alert published them. Today Alert has written copyright agreements with all its contributors and for everything it publishes.

Marketing

Theirs is pretty much a closed field, Tuke Heroy explained. They serve university, law firms, business libraries, and larger public libraries. "People come into the field, in six months or so, they've usually heard about us. We have a marketing plan, sort of," she said.

They do continuing small forced free trials to new names they gather and are just now about to mail a formal direct mail package. "We haven't done this in years," she commented. "We send letters, but a 'real package,' not since longer than I can remember."

Frequency

Both services are published 10 times a year. Early on she discovered that a monthly schedule was too demanding, so she publishes two combined issues a year, July-August and November-December. This was originally intended to allow her to have some time off for summer vacations and at the holidays.

When she began this schedule, she said, she didn't know enough about publishing lead times, etc. to realize that if you wanted time off in August, you should plan to publish a September-October combined issue.

She also keeps this publishing schedule for economic reasons. "Our market is price sensitive and the frequency allows us to keep the price at $169 for the legal service and $162 for the business title, which they think is expensive."

The future

The internet, of course, has brought big changes. Alert has a web site, www.alertpub.com, and offers subscriptions. The staff monitors listservs for editorial ideas and prospect names. But, Heroy commented, their sub scribers seem happy with the print publications, 12-16 pages.

"We have competitors who are internet only and fully advertising supported, Tuke Heroy said. (Alert publications do include ads, usually one or two an issue.) "I'll be interested to see how they do if there is a significant business downturn."