Abstract
FOR twelve years the Quarterly Review of Biology has analysed and compared the cost to Americans of biological books, based upon the prices of all such received for review by the Quarterly. The analyses have produced some interesting figures regarding the relative cost of books produced by different nations, and to some of them attention has been directed in NATURE. In point of price, German books are still the most expensive, despite the announced policy of German publishers, a German average of 1-95 cents a page comparing with 1-27 for British books, and 0·85 for French. Than the last the only cheaper books published are those issued by the British Government (0.34 cents a page) and the U.S. Government (0-16), but since the last three categories are often published in paper covers, some of the saving may be on binding. Comparing 1937 with 1936, it is remarkable to find that the average price per page from every origin, except Germany and Great Britain, has been lowered -by from about 10 per cent in U.S. books to so much as 79 per cent in British Government official publications. But while the British Government has been so greatly reducing its charges, the ordinary British publishers of biological books have been compelled to increase by 16-5 per cent. However, it is possible that the particular books received by the Quarterly for review do not represent fair samples in every case ; indeed, the total of British Government publications received in all the twelve years only amounts to 8,836 pages, so that, as the authors, Raymond Pearl and Maud DeWitt Pearl, point out, general conclusions must be drawn with caution from this material.
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Prices of Biological Books in 1937. Nature 142, 428 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/142428a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/142428a0