The Ultimate Book Factory

Sitting less than 30 miles from my modest home office is a print and publishing powerhouse. Thomson Reuters, in Eagan, Minnesota is involved in so many areas of electronic and print media it's hard to tell how many. Founded as West Publishing Company it eventually grew into the largest printer of legal material in the U.S. At one point, producing close to 70 million, high-quality hard-cover legal books a year.

Now part of Thomson Reuters, the Eagan campus houses over 6,000 employees. As part of the campus, Thomson Reuters Core Publishing Solutions is a very large printing, finishing and warehousing plant. In fact, the bindery covers a total of almost 400,000 square feet alone. In that space exists a virtual armada of soft- and hard-cover finishing equipment, not to mention the latest Timsons book presses, and a brand-new HP T360 inkjet web press in their press area.

Remember that those books you see at your local attorney's (or law firms) office are quality personified. Starting with quality paper, the cases feature long-lasting cloth, and are almost always gold foil embossed. In addition, Thomson Reuters came up with a unique way to accommodate updates to State legal statutes without printing a new version of the book. They developed the "pocket part." In this process, a pocket is created on one side of the case's end-paper. Updates can then be printed (either offset, or digital), in a smaller size. A manila backing is then stitched onto the back of the signatures, which allows the "pocket part" to be slipped into the book's end-paper pocket.

The electronic age has taken its toll on the print side. More and more legal research has moved to the purely online, and the workload in the printing plant has fallen in line with this reality. So here's Thomson Reuters sitting with this tremendous book printing and finishing facility. What's one to do? Well, offer your services to other customers! And this is what Core Publishing Solutions is doing.

I must confess that I have done business with Thomson Reuters, and on a recent visit, I ran into Todd Roth, vice president of Core Publishing Solutions. Todd and his team have been instrumental in reshaping Core Publishing Solutions for the new, leaner digital environment. Todd has been the "spearhead" in getting the message out to potential customers around the country that Thomson Reuters has a great capability for cost effective print, finishing, warehouse and fulfillment services. Core to their strength is the hard-cover production. Success has followed, with Core Publishing pumping out over a 100,000 hard-cover books weekly this fall in addition to the legal work they are known for.

This is a prime example of expanding and re-positioning your business to keep it busy and successful when circumstances force you to. So...if you're looking for either short-, or long-run, high-quality hard-cover book production, Thomson's Core Publishing Solutions may be your answer!