Sourcebook Costs, Numbers Increase

Keeping pace with a national trend, custom publishing on the Harvard campus has increased sharply in the last few years.

According to a new report on custom publishing on college campuses prepared by O'Donnell and Associates, a Connecticut-based market research firm, compilations of articles and textbook chapters like sourcebooks and course packs are the "only growth area" in textbook publishing.

William Witt, the copyright officer in the Harvard's office of sourcebook publications, which handles all the sourcebooks for the Core classes, said approximately three-quarters of the Core classes have sourcebooks.

"When it started out, there were about 10 [sourcebooks]," Witt said. "Five years ago, there were 30 per term. Now about 40 courses per term [use sourcebooks].

Officials at the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC), a company that handles permissions for publishers, said that in the past year alone, it had a 40 percent increase in the amount of requests from Harvard.

Overall, the CCC has seen an increase of 50 percent last year on top of a 66 percent increase the year before that.

The quantity of sourcebooks is not the only thing that have been increasing--costs have too.

"The price of sourcebooks has been going up," Witt says. "Every term, publishers are consistently raising their prices. I've been told that because people use sourcebooks instead of textbooks, it's necessary for them to make the money back."

"My feeling is that the prices are going to rise because I haven't seen them stop," he added.

Jerry Denault, who puts together the sourcebooks for General Education classes, also said that publishing permission fees have increased.

"Clearly there has been an increase in permission cost among a substantial number of publishers," Denault said. "OIT costs have gone up a little, but not drastically."

However, Isabella L. Hinds '67, the director of professional relations for the CCC, said that publishers are not increasing their prices.

"We haven't seen any increase from individual publishers," she said. "They appreciate your budgets are limited and there is an educational issue at stake. There is sensitivity."

Denault also said the CCC, which entered the academic permissions market in the summer of 1991, has made direct bargaining between professors and publishers a thing of the past.

"The Copyright Clearance Center serves as a bureaucracy between the publisher and us. It's a much more difficult route to complain," Denault said. "There are some [fees] that have gone up a lot, and it protects them [publishers] from nasty letters and nasty complaints."

"Some publishers are being very honest and very forthright and not trying to milk the situation," he said. "Other publishers are taking their books out of print as soon as possible, it seems."

However, faculty may not be willing to pay the higher prices.

Steven R. Singer, director of communications and public affairs at the Kennedy School of Government, said that high permission fees make him reconsiderusing some material.

"I teach a class were we use course material,"Singer said. "I have occasionally not includedmaterial that was marginal in value because ofcost."

"Generally, if it's important material, youhave to use it," he added.

Witt said that he informs professors if theirsourcebooks are going to be unusually costlybecause of length or permission fees.

"If an individual item comes in and it's muchhigher than what I consider to be normal, I'llcall the professor," he said. "There comes a pointwhen faculty aren't going to pay the high prices.The ones [articles] that are most expensive theywon't use."

The length of the sourcebook also makes adifference in cost, Witt said.

"For a course like A-12, which has a very largesourcebook, their book is very expensive," Wittsaid. "Some faculty make the size of thesourcebook smaller [to save money]."

Witt said most sourcebooks for Core classescost between $40 and $60.

Across the nation, the average costs forsourcebooks is $16, according to the O'Donnellreport

"I teach a class were we use course material,"Singer said. "I have occasionally not includedmaterial that was marginal in value because ofcost."

"Generally, if it's important material, youhave to use it," he added.

Witt said that he informs professors if theirsourcebooks are going to be unusually costlybecause of length or permission fees.

"If an individual item comes in and it's muchhigher than what I consider to be normal, I'llcall the professor," he said. "There comes a pointwhen faculty aren't going to pay the high prices.The ones [articles] that are most expensive theywon't use."

The length of the sourcebook also makes adifference in cost, Witt said.

"For a course like A-12, which has a very largesourcebook, their book is very expensive," Wittsaid. "Some faculty make the size of thesourcebook smaller [to save money]."

Witt said most sourcebooks for Core classescost between $40 and $60.

Across the nation, the average costs forsourcebooks is $16, according to the O'Donnellreport