Sourcebook Prices Rise High

The lines are long, the hours are inconvenient and now there's another reason to dread the Science Center stockroom.

Sourcebook prices have hit an all-time high, with the readings for Historical Study A-68: "The Making and Remaking of the Modern Middle East" weighing in at $104.

The sourcebooks for Foreign Cultures 66: "Tiananmen Square" and Moral Reasoning 28: "Ethics and International Relations," cost $91 and $95, respectively.

Moral Reasoning 28 student John E. Trinidad '97 is no stranger to high sourcebook prices. But just because he's accustomed to paying through the nose doesn't mean he enjoys it.

"It's a lot to read so I guess the high prices are expected," Trinidad said. "But costs should be cut down because I have to buy books from the Coop as well."

According to William G. Witt, copyright officer for Harvard's Office for Sourcebook Publications, price watchers shouldn't be surprised that sourcebook costs have set a new record.

The copyright fees charged by publishing companies--which are responsible for most of the sourcebooks' high prices--have been on an upward trend for the last four years, Witt said.

"It's certainly not inflation," he said.

Witt traced the high prices to a proliferation of requests for copyright permissions after Kinko's Copies lost a $1.5 million copyright infringement lawsuit several years ago. Kinko's had made millions of copies for sourcebooks without getting permission.

Publishing companies were, in turn, forced to enlarge their staffs to process these copyright requests. And that added to the cost and prompted firms to increase the fees they charge to reproduce copyrighted material, Witt said.

According to Witt, smaller publishers, many of whom are strapped for cash, are now beginning to collect copyright fees.

Now the only way to save money is to break the law.

"Ironically," Witt said, "those of us who follow the rules and conscientiously seek permission are penalized."

But not all publishers have increased their fees. Some have tried to keep costs as stable as possible, said Judith Michelman, permissions coordinator for Harvard University Press.

Michelman added that increasing copyright fees is often used as a tactic to offset decreased demand for regular books and textbooks.

"Professors are increasingly turning toward sourcebooks," Michelman said. "Publishers raise the prices to make up for reduced profit from regular books."

Students, while unhappy about the high prices, seemed resigned to paying exorbitant costs.

"Compared to the price of the rest of the textbooks," said Vivian M. Lee '98, "I came expecting these ridiculous prices."