BAD IMPRESSION

"The Harvard University Press aims to aid in the advancement of knowledge by making possible the wide distribution of the work of the foremost scholars of the world". So runs the ambitious statement of the purpose of the University Press as given in the Catalogue. Only those who have suffered their books to be published by the Press can tell how far short of this ideal the reality is. The difficulties of the work done in Randall Hall are such that scholars send to the Press only those books which commercial Houses refuse to publish.

The authors complain about the tedious slowness with which their books are printed. Catalogues and other routine work, occupying about a fourth of the yearly output of the presses, delay the publication of more important books. The proof readers of the Press are often inaccurate and a large burden of the work falls upon the writer. Because the cost of printing is unconscionably high, remuneration to the author is small or altogether lacking. Moreover the type of the books is often redistributed after a small edition is published, before there is time to discover whether demand warrants reprints.

These faults prevent the publication of books other than those printed at the expense of the University. Many of these have such a limited market that no commercial house will take them, the University Press can hardly pretend to fulfill its initial purpose. As long as the Press is complacently content to play a minor role it may do so; but its possibilities are so great, it is to be regretted that they have not yet been realized.