Abstract
THIS analysis of the cost of biological books in 1935 by John R. Miner (Quart. Rev. Biol., Dec. 1935) is the tenth of its kind, and allows of a comparison between the current prices and those of 1926, as well as between those of 1934 and 1935. The prices are quoted in cents per page and at the current rate of exchange into United States currency. The number of pages reviewed is 143,199, an increase of 15.6 per cent over 1934 and 73.4 per cent over 1926. The cheapest of all publications are those of the U.S. Government, which are only 0.11 cents per page, a truly astounding figure which represents a reduction of 38.9 per cent on 1934 and 64.5 per cent on 1926. The next cheapest are those of the British Government at 0.50 cents per page, a decrease of 43.8 per cent from 1934. It is pointed out that there has been a reduction of 25 per cent in the export price of German publications which, as it occurred late in 1935, does not come into the calculations. Against this is to be set the fact that from 1934 to 1935 there has been an increase of 7.9 per cent. Moreover, over the ten years there has been an increase of 87.2 per cent in the price of these works, so that Germany heads the list with an absolute price of 2.04 cents per page, or nearly twenty times that of the U.S. Government or two and a half times that of British non-Governmental publications. France started the decennium with the low price of 0.35 cents per page, and in spite of a drop of 14 per cent from 1934 has a total increase over the period of 145.7 per cent. The non-Governmental publications of Britain are 0.84 cents per page, of France 0.86 cents per page and of the United States 0.90 cents per page. In considering these statistics, it is to be borne in mind that they are not based upon the whole of the biological books published by the countries chosen but upon such samples as passed through the hands of the reviewer. They are not absolute, therefore, but they may be taken as giving some approximation to the actual conditions.
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Prices of Biological Books in 1935. Nature 138, 196 (1936). https://doi.org/10.1038/138196c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/138196c0