College and Research Libraries


Prices of Foreign Library 
Materials: A Report 

Frederick C. Lynden 

In fall1986 the author traveled to France, Germany, and the Netherlands on a grant from 
Martinus Nijhoff International to gather data on the prices of European library materials and 

· encourage production of European academic book and serial price indexes. This study con-
cludes that the best sources for data on the prices of academic library materials from Europe are 
vendors who supply American college and research libraries. At least two vendors are cur-
rently making available such data: Blackwell and Harrassowitz. In addition, there is a new 
draft international standard for price indexes; average price for pages or "signatures" is a 
promising method for capturing comparative price data on books and serials; and local cost 
studies are an effective means of calculating rising costs of foreign materials, especially with 
new technology available. 

II 
esearch libraries are very con-
cerned about the buying power 
of their collection funds as the 
U.S. dollar has weakened over 

the past three years against foreign cur-
rencies. Budget planning for 1988-89 is 
about to begin in many universities and 
colleges, and collection managers must 
gather facts about the costs of library ma-
terials in order to project their needs. Re-
search libraries, in particular, now pur-
chase from 40 to 60 percent of their 
materials abroad, with particular empha-
sis on materials from France, Germany, 
and the Netherlands. Although these 
countries have a well-developed book 
trade, there is, unfortunately, very little 
published data available on the costs of ac-
ademic materials from these countries. 

There are two exceptions to the lack of 
data on academic material. The British 
have taken the leadership in determining 
the costs of academic materials with the 
British Academic Book Price Index, devel-
oped in 1974. 1 This index covers only 
books of interest to Cambridge University 

Library and hence to other academic li-
braries. In the United States, the Library 
Materials Price Index Committee, Re-
sources Section, Resources and Technical 
Service Division, of the American Library 
Association has recently developed an 
American Academic Book Price Index. This in-
dex is vendor-based and covers only 
books supplied to academic libraries by 
three vendors. 2 The U.S. also has a College 
Library_ Index based upon data from 
Choice. 3 The above indexes are really sub-
sets of general national data available in 
the U.S. from Publishers Weekly and in En-
gland from the Bookseller. It has long been 
recognized, however, that the academic 
subset differs from national data and that 
academic data are more reliable for pro-
jecting price changes for college and re-
search libraries. 

In summary, it would be a significant 
contribution to library budgetary plan-
ning if there were some standard and reli-
able sources of data on the costs of foreign 
materials. With research librarians spend-
ing millions of dollars on materials, it is 

Frederick C. Lynden is Assistant University Librarian for Technical Services at Brown University, Providence, 
. Rhode Island 02912. Lynden was a Martinus Nijhoff International West European Study Grant recipient. This 

article was revised February 1988. 

217 



218 College & Research Libraries 

important for them to be able to do cost 
projections based upon real market fig-
ures. Computers now make it possible for 
publishers, vendors, and librarians to 
keep more accurate and complete data on 
price trends. 

PURPOSE AND METHODOLOGY 

The foreign price data study followed 
up on a proposal made at a LffiER (Ligue 
des Bibliotheques Europeennes de Re-
cherche) meeting in 1977 and also capital-
ized on an effort currently under way to 
develop international standard criteria for 
price indexes of library materials. In 1977, 
at a meeting of LffiER, Frederick C. Lyn-
den, then chair of the Library Materials 
Price Index Committee, presented a paper 
regarding the ''Library Materials Price Sit-
uation in the United States," in which he 
urged that libraries consider two steps: (1) 
developing international standards for 
price indexes and (2) creating academic 
subindexes to national price indexes in 
Europe and the U . S. 4 The first recom-
mended step has occurred. In fall1986 the 
International Standards Organization 
Working Group 8, chaired by Morten 
Hein, Denmark, submitted to ISO a draft 
standard: "Price Indexes for Library Ma-
terials: Books and Serials. " 5 The second 
step will take time, but there is evidence 
that it would be possible to do this in 
France, Germany, and the Netherlands. 

The chief purpose of the study was to 
gather information about which sources of 
price data are most reliable for academic li-
braries. The methodology was to visit ven-
dors, book trade association officials, and 
librarians in France, Germany, and the 
Netherlands and to obtain information 
through interviews. The interviews 
sought to answer the following: 

1. Existence of price data: which organi-
zations collect price data on library materi-
als, and how current are these data? 

2. Publication: where are price studies/ 
indexes published, or how are they made 
available if they are not published? 

3. Methodology: how are price studies/ 
indexes compiled, and what principles or 
standards do the compilers follow? 

4. Use of price/studies/indexes: how 
are price studies/indexes used in research 
libraries, and how are the studies/indexes 

May 1988 

modified (if at all) to serve the purposes of 
libraries? 

5. Improvements in data: are the orga· 
nizations that collect data aware of the 
standards developed in price reporting, 
particularly the American national stan-
dard and the ISO draft proposal? 

In addition to gathering data on prices of 
library materials for France, Germany, 
and the Netherlands and publicizing this 
data, the study aimed to encourage pro-
duction of price indexes where none are 
available and to make available informa-
tion about the standards work that has 
been accomplished. 

Before describing those data now avail-
able, it is worth explaining the uses that 
can be made of them. Information gath-
ered from foreign price reports can be 
used by librarians: 

1. to justify increases in the library's 
book budget 

2. to allocate the materials budget by 
subject categories 

3. to analyze cost trends and plan fu-
ture budgets 

4. to aid librarians in interpreting collec-
tion program costs to funding authorities 

5. to determine the impact of material 
cost increases on other library programs 

ACADEMIC PRICE DATA 
CURRENTLY AVAILABLE 

As noted earlier, the British were the 
first to compile an Academic Book Price In-
dex. In 1974 the Cambridge Library Man-
agement Research Unit (LMRU) began, 
under the direction of Len Schofield and 
Alan Cooper, II collecting data on the aver-
age prices of British Academic books by 
subject, based on the division of the copy-
right intake of the University Library 
Cambridge into academic and non-
academic items according to the library's 
criteria. ''6 The Tress Brown Index, previ-
ously used by British academic libraries, 
measured what university libraries were 
already buying, and the contention was 
that it therefore measured only the prices 
of books that these libraries could buy 
from limited budgets. LMRU felt it was 
more desirable to measure the prices of 
books that university libraries should buy. 

The Cambridge library was one of four 
receiving books on copyright deposit, and 



"The British Academic Book Price In-
dex (BABPI) has been produced an-
nually since 1974, and the results 
have been quite different than the 
Whitaker New Book Prices Index, a 
general price index.'' 

British National Bibliography (BNB) cards 
were sent to LMRU for all books selected 
for inclusion in the main catalog and 
therefore deemed to be of academic value. 
The average prices of these books were tal-
lied, using forty-eight subject areas with 
totals for the ten major Dewey classifica-
tions. The British Academic Book Price Index 
(BABPI) has been produced annually 
since 1974, and the results have been quite 
different than the Whitaker New Book Prices 
Index, a general price index. In 1983, how-
ever, BABPI compiler Lawraine Wood no-
ticed that from 1982 to 1983 the average 
price had .decreased, whereas the general 
retail book price index had shown an in-
crease. Uponexaminingthecauses, Wood 
discovered that a large number of pre-1982 
books had been included in the index be-
cause the BNB was catching up on its cata-
loging. Upon further examination, Wood 
discovered an increasing number of un-
priced items that, by practice, had been 
excluded from the index. A sample re-
vealed that the unpriced items had caused 
a price understatement of as much as 25 
percent in the index. Therefore LMRU, 
which had by then become the Centre for 
Library and Information Management 
(CLAIM) at Loughborough University, re-
alized that the source of price data was not 
reliable. 7 

At about this time, Wood was invited to 
attend meetings of the Library Materials 
Price Index Committee, which was grap-
pling with the problems of creating an aca-
demic book price index for the U.S. With-
out any source, such as a depository 
system, to use for such an index, the com-
mittee decided to use data from vendors 
supplying approval- and blanket-plan 
books to American academic libraries. By 
happy coincidence B. H. Blackwell repre-
sentatives in attendance told Wood that 
they could provide data for a British index, 

Prices of Foreign Library Materials 219 

and she returned to England with the rec-
ommendation that the data used there 
also be vendor supplied. Currently the in-
dex is created from data supplied by Black-
well. All of this is reported because it illus- · 
trates several principles that underlie the 
foreign price data study: 

1. Academic libraries should use aca-
demic price indexes because they differ 
from the general price indexes. 

2. Vendor data can be a reliable source 
of information because they are up-to-
date and are frequently supplied from 
computerized records. 

3. When there is no depository system, 
vendor selections of current titles for aca-
demic libraries can be an excellent source 
of information. 

4. Vendors classify the books that they 
supply by subject in order to tailor their se-
lections to libraries' interests. 

This movement to create an academic 
subset of price indexes took place only in 
the U.S. and England. Thus, it seemed 
logical to extend these principles to mate-
rials from France, Germany, and the 
Netherlands. It is also important to be 
aware of the general indexes from these 
countries because these can show incon-
sistencies in academic price data that 
might be due to anomalies in the source 
data. 

In the U.S. the Bowker Annual of Library 
and Book Trade Information makes available 
general and some academic price informa-
tion for foreign publications. In 1986, the 
Bowker Annual published information 
about British book prices from CLAIM, us-
ing the data from Blackwell; on German 
book prices from Buch and Buchhandel in 
Zahlen, produced by the Boersenverein 
des Deutschen Buchhandels (a national 
trade organization of booksellers); and 
Latin American book costs, gathered from 
several research libraries, among them the 
Library of Congress. 9 There is obviously 
very little information in the Bowker An-
nual on academic foreign prices, and no in-
formation on prices in the Netherlands or 
France. Recently, the Book Research Quar-
terly published an article by Sally F. Wil-
liams that contains a table showing the 
sources for published price reports. 10 

There is no information again on the 
prices of ''academic'' materials in France 



220 College & Research Libraries 

and the Netherlands. 
In summary, progress on academic 

book price indexes has been made chiefly 
in the U.S. and Britain. These indexes 
now rely heavily upon vendor data that 
are machine-readable and are preselected 
for the academic market. National price 
data are useful in discovering trends, but 
are not as applicable to academic libraries. 

LIBER AND PRICE INDEX 
STANDARD PROPOSALS 

Another factor that caused this study to 
be started was the general interest, ex-
pressed at the LIBER meeting in 1977, in 
the production of academic price indexes 
for library materials from European coun-
tries. A working party consisting of J. L. 
Schofield, England; A. W. Wamsteker-
Meijer, the Netherlands; and E. Mittler, 
West Germany, proposed work on price 
indexes for other European countries. 
Their proposal was for Western European 
countries to produce indexes for their own 
countries on the prices of academic library 
materials. At the LIBER meeting in April 
1977, it was proposed to have "indexes 
from the four countries which together 
produce the main part of the European 
output: United Kingdom, France, Ger-
many, and the Netherlands."8 It was fur-
ther recommended that LIBER contact ap-
propriate parties in each country, and that 
LIBER publish the indexes as separate 
publications. One or two standard criteria 
also emerged: the UNESCO classification 
was felt to be desirable for subject divi-
sions and the total number of publications 
per category was to be listed. After over 
ten years of inaction, LIBER will put the 
subject of price indexes on its agenda for 
its April1989 general meeting in Spain. 

Although there was no progress on the 
academic price indexes, there was prog-
ress on a standard that could be used in-
ternationally. Working Group 8 of the In-
ternational Organization for Standardiza-
tion, Technical Committee 46 was estab-
lished in 1983 to consider the creation of 
an international standard for price indexes 
for library materials. Headed by Morten 
Hein, Denmark, the group included rep-
resentatives from England, U.S., Swe-
den, France, and Germany. After five 

May 1988 

meetings, the Working Group submitted 
a draft proposal (9230) in November 1985 
that was accepted after some technical ob-
jections were resolved and has now gone 
out as an international draft standard. The 
draft standard has the following distinc-
tive features: 

1. Covers price indexes for books and 
serials; nonbook media are not included. 

2. Distinguishes between national in-
dexes measuring prices and local indexes 
measuring costs. 

3. Allows for separate indexes for pa-
perbacks and hardcover publications but 
indicates a preference for including the 
two formats together. 

4. Uses the UNESCO breakdown for 
subjects with its twenty-five subject 
groups. 

5. Permits the compilation of serial 
price indexes by either national agencies 
or subscription agents (book prices for na-
tional indexes may be taken from national 
bibliographic or trad~ sources or may be 
calculated by direct observation). 

11The international draft standard 
1 Price Indexes for Library Materials: 
Books and Serials,' which records 
common criteria for creators of price 
indexes, can be used by those pro-
ducing price reports for academic li-
braries.'' 

The international draft standard ''Price 
Indexes for Library Materials: Books and 
Serials," which records common criteria 
for creators of price indexes, can be used 
by those producing price reports for aca-
demic libraries. One dividend of the for-
eign price data study was that vendors, li-
brarians, and national publishing 
organizations were made aware of the ef-
forts toward creating the standard, about 
which surprisingly few were aware. In 
summary, LIBER proposed in 1977 to cre-
ate academic book price indexes for West-
ern European countries. Although no 
product emerged, the proposal is under 
active consideration again. However, 
there was progress made in developing an 



international standard that is now in a 
draft standard stage. This proposal should 
be useful to compilers of price data from 
European countries because it will allow 
for comparability among various coun-
tries' data. 

THE FOREIGN PRICE 
DATA STUDY 

Hence, the foreign price data study con-
centrated on discovering what was avail-
able. The primary methodology was inter-
views with librarians, publishers, and 
booksellers. Following is what was 
learned about price data available from 
vendors, bookselling associations, and li-
brarians in each country. 

Price data from the Netherlands 

American academic librarians are princi-
pally interested in English-language mate-
rials from the Netherlands. Dutch collec-
tions in American academic libraries are 
not extensive, but English-language 
Dutch publications from such publishers . 
as Elsevier, De Gruyter, North Holland, 
Brill, and Nijhoff, among others, are pur-
chased heavily by American libraries. The 
Bookseller's Association, Stichting 
Speurwerk, Betreffende het Boek in Am-
sterdam (Frederiksplein 1, 1017 XK 
Amsterdam-C) keeps statistics on Dutch 
book prices and publishes them regularly. 
A synopsis is published in Boekblad, a 
weekly trade magazine similar to Pub-
lishers Weekly. Data have come from the 
Royal Library since 1983. Table 1 gives 
summary data since 1983. 11 All prices are 
in Dutch guilders. More detailed tables 
show production and costs by subject. 
The tables use UNESCO subject head-
ings. 

Of more direct interest to American aca-
demic librarians are the changes in the 

Prices of Foreign Library Materials 221 

costs of English language and other for-
eign language publications. Unfortu-
nately, there is no direct source of infor-
mation on the English language and other 
foreign language publications and their 
average costs. There are a couple of possi-
bilities for obtaining information on 
Dutch, English and other foreign-
language titles: Stichting Speurwerk' s 
Boeken Titelproduktie Vreemdtalig (Book Title 
Production for Foreign Languages) or the 
monthly publication of Nijhoff Information. 
Both of these publications list not only 
English-language titles but also titles in 
German, French, and other languages 
produced in the Netherlands. The advan-
tage to the latter is that it contains only 
those titles of special interest to academic 
libraries, whereas the Stichting Speur-
werk' s figures include statistics of all pub-
lications in these languages. One assump-
tion would be that academic and scientific 
title production in foreign language con-
stitutes the primary proportion of Dutch 
foreign-language publishing. Neverthe-
less, there is no price information tied di-
rectly to these figures. In 1985, for exam- . 
pie, with sports books and children's 
books excluded, there were 1,270 Dutch 
books published in English, German, 
French, and other foreign languages. 
Stichting Speurwerk includes only a 
count of the titles. Since Nijhof!Information 
contains price information, it seems like a 
better source for academic libraries. In 
fact, it might serve as the database of the 
academic subset for Dutch books pur-
chased by American libraries. 

In addition to the general information 
provided by associations supported by the 
book trade, vendors can supply informa-
tion of specific interest to academic li-
braries. The publication Nijhoff Information 
is one ~xample. Many vendors now have 

TABLE 1 

AVERAGEPruCESDUTCHBOOKS 
(Boeken-Titelproduktie) 

Year New Titles New Editions All Titles %!ncr . 

1986 46.50 fl. 26.30 fl. 40.30 fl. 8.0 
1985 41.70 fl. 25.60 fl. 37.30 fl. 3.8 
1984 40.50 fl. 24.80 fl. 35.90 fl. 10.8 
1983 37.40 fl. 21.80 fl. 32 .. 40 fl. 



222 College & Research Libraries 

considerable information available as a by-
product of their computerized files. In the 
U.S., Baker and Taylor, Blackwell North 
America, and Coutts currently provide 
customers with data on book prices; data 
from their programs make up the price in-
dex of American academic books. Mar-
tinus Nijhoff is in the process of computer-
izing all of its records and, as a part of this 
computerization, it will have the capabil-
ity of building in price data on materials 
both monographic and serial, supplied to 
academic libraries. The computer system 
will be ready in 1988, and currently Ni-
jhoff is querying customers about their 
needs from the computerized system. 

In discussions with the monographs 
and serials managers at Nijhoff, it was 
learned that the managers felt that actual 
local inflation was not substantial, but that 
American librarians should be more aware 
of the currency changes that are really 
hurting the ability of academic librarians 
to purchase. They pointed out that the 
currency change made Dutch materials 
more expensive. Regarding future price 
information both agreed that, in the new 
system, Nijhoff will have the capability of 
delivering price reports and would be will-
ing to publish general information of 
value to the library community. One of the 
two was aware of the standard on price in-
dexes that ISO has in draft form. The 
monographic manager said that Nijhoff In-
formation was available on slip form and 
could be used for compiling price data. 
(One other Dutch vendor, Swets & 
Zeitlinger, has produced price reports on 
books and journals supplied to academic 
libraries.) 

Price Data from France 

National data in France are available 
from Cercle de la Librairie and appear an-
nually in Livres Hebdo in summary form. 

May 1988 

All of these reports are generated by a 
computer system called Electre that is 
managed by the Cercle de la Librairie and 
available to anyone in France through 
Minitel, the government owned and man-
aged system that makes free terminals 
available to anyone in the country. Mini tel 
now has 2 million units available in 
France. The data on book prices comes 
from Les Livres Disponibles, which is similar 
to Books in Print. Table 2 shows the general 
price trends for books in France. 12 

As can be seen, there have been no double 
digit increases in the costs of French books 
in recent years. By a decree of 1954, the 
Syndicat National de !'Edition keeps sta-
tistics on books for the Institut National de 
la Statistique et des Etudes Economie (IN-
SEE). The Syndicat National de !'Edition 
is part of the Cercle de la Librairie. The 
Cercle is a principal source for statistics 
and information on the book trade in 
France (Cercle de Librairie, 35, rue Gre-
goire de-Tours, 75279 Paris, Cedex 06). 

Two major vendors for American aca-
demic libraries, Jean Touzot and Aux Am-
ateurs des Livres, were visited in Paris. 
Jean Touzot's invoicing is computerized 
and provides total books sold and average 
cost without any subject separation. He 
has not been asked for information, and 
he sees computerization as less important 
than other facets of the business. He sees 
the intellectual (i.e., selection) side of the 
business as more important. Touzot also 
supplies journals, but has the same diffi-
culties in supplying price information. 
Aux Amateurs des Livres is totally com-
puterized, books and journals, but does 
not have the programs to provide price in-
formation. Nevertheless, it is possible to 
do so, according to owner Alain Baudry. It 
was noted that there had been little de-
mand for price information although he 
does receive inquiries at ALA. He indi-

TABLE2 

Year 

1986 
1985 
1984 

Source: INSEE. 

INDEX PRICES FOR FRENCH BOOKS 

Index for 
Nonscholarly Books 

179.1 
170.7 
162.0 

General Index 

162.2 
158.0 
149.3 

% Incr . 

2.66 
5.8 



cated that the tendency for price increases 
has been less dramatic in the last few 
years, primarily because costs are stable 
and are under control thanks to technol-
ogy. Aux Amateurs des Livres also sup-
plies journals and series and could pro-
vide price data using a computer. Prices 
by subject could be provided by UDC 
class. 

Baudry also mentioned that data are be-
ing gathered on university press publica-
tions. A catalog, Catalogue Automatise 
des Publications d'Origine Universitaire 
(CADOU), which will be run by DBMIST 
(Direction des Bibliotheques, des Musees 
et de !'Information Scientifique et Tech-
nique), is intended to provide a machine-
readable database of information on books 
and serials originating from universities 
that will include price; since it is volun-
tary, however, it will probably not be com-
prehensive. At the moment, it is not possi-
ble to obtain academic book and serial 
price information from either vendors or 
other sources, but there are some promis-
ing possibilities for the future. At least one 
major vendor is computerized, and the 
French government is requesting that 
publishers provide machine-readable data 
on publications of university origin. 

Price Data on German Publications 

National data on German book prices 
are available from Buch und Buchhandel in 
Zahlen published by the Boersenverein 
des Deutschen Buchhandels. As noted 
earlier, the summary tables from this an-
nual publication have been published in 
Bowker Annual since 1974. They show the 
average prices by subject using the 
UNESCO subject headings. (Incidentally, 
the bookselling community would prefer 
not to use UNESCO headings, but the 

Prices of Foreign Library Materials 223 

compiler, Horst Machill, finds these sub-
ject headings of value for comparisons. 
Since the ISO standard uses these head-
ings, Machill was pleased to get reinforce-
ment for his views.) Table 3 shows general 
German book prices. 13 Periodical price in-
formation can be obtained from the Ver-
band der Zeitschriften, located in Bad Go-
des berg. The source of Buch und 
Buchhandel in Zahlen is Deutsche Bibliogra-
phie (DB), although as many as 25 percent 
of its titles are unpriced. DB also uses 
sixty-three categories that Machill com-
presses into the twenty-five used by 
UNESCO. One feature of Buch und Buch-
handel in Zahlen that might well be copied 
is its Bogen Preisen or the average price 
per sixteen pages. Instead of comparing 
volumes it might be more accurate to com-
pare page prices . For journal prices, 
Charles Hamaker urges index makers to 
consider not only page prices but distribu-
tion of prices among journals. 14 

Although Buch und Buchhandel in Zahlen 
(BUBIZ) is an important measure of the 
costs of German books, academic librari-
ans have been uncertain whether it really 
records the costs for academic books. In 
addition, due to a major change in cover-
age, the BUBIZ index temporarily will be 
of no use to librarians, even as a general 
index. In 1986 DB increased its coverage of 
titles: the figures showed an increase over 
1985 of almost 9 percent in the representa-
tion of titles costing under 10 marks and a 
decrease of 8 percent in titles costing more 
than DM25. As a result, the overall aver-
age dropped from DM32.57 in 1985 to 
DM25.47 in 1986. The coverage of titles 
will continue at the same level so that in a 
few years BUBIZ will again be of value as a 
general index of prices. Recently an article 
by Steven E. Thompson pointed out that 

TABLE 3 

GERMAN BOOK PRICES 
(Buch und Buchhandel in Zahlen) 

Year* 

1985 
1984 
1983 
1982 

Avg . Cost per Title 

32.57DM 
30.06DM 
27.93DM 
26.48DM 

*1986 not included due to a radical change in reporting. 

%Incr. 

8.4 
7.6 
5.5 



224 College & Research Libraries 

there are significant differences between 
an academic and general index. 15 The ex-
ample used was a comparison of Buch und 
Buchhandel in Zahlen and an index from the 
Otto Harrassowitz firm, a vendor who 
supplies exclusively to academic libraries. 

The major vendor for U.S. academic li-
braries in Germany, Otto Harrassowitz, 
has compiled average price data since 1982 
for books supplied on the firm's blanket-
order plan (see table 4). The mix of titles 
offered to academic libraries obviously af-
fects the overall average price as well as 
the percentage increase. As can be seen, 
the local inflation has not been very high 
for German academic books. The data 
from Otto Harrassowitz can be very useful 
to academic libraries. Combined with in-
formation on the changes in the value of 
currency, such data can inform budgetary 
authorities on the trends of prices for ma-
terials fro:q1 Germany. With permission 
from Harrassowitz, the Library Materials 
Price Index Committee has decided to 
publish the Harrassowitz figures in the 
Bowker Annual starting in 1988 since these 
figures are of more relevance to the aca-
demic book market and more up-to-date. 
In view of the problems with the general 
index of German book prices, the Harras-
sowitz study is an especially invaluable 
source to academic libraries. · 

Overall, the Harrassowitz price study is 
of great value. It has the following features 
of interest to academic libraries. First, the 
classification system used is LC. Second, 
the index covers publications from 
German-speaking countries, not just Ger-
many. Therefore, it includes Austria, 
Switzerland, and DDR. There are plans to 
have a country breakdown. Third, it in-
cludes both paperbound and hardcover 
books together. If the countries of publica-
tion are indicated for each title and the 

May 1988 

classification system is changed to UN-
ESCO, the price study meets all the crite-
ria for indexes from the ISO draft pro-
posal. The portion of total 
German-language materials that were 
considered of academic level was esti-
mated to be 18.75 percent. 

In summary, the above experience indi-
cates there need to be several conditions 
present in order to produce academic in-
dexes for the countries of France, Ger-
many, and the Netherlands: 

1. There need to be vendors who sup-
ply principally academic libraries and 
have their files computerized. 

2. The vendors need to be able to break-
down the data by: 

a) Total volumes shipped, or titles in 
the case of periodicals. 

b) Total cost in the country of origin's 
currency. 

c) Total average prices. 
d) Subject classification, preferably 

UNESCO, but LC is acceptable. 
e) Imprint year. 
f) Country of publication. 

3. The vendors must also be able to dis-
tinguish formats, such as book, periodi-
cal, microform, etc. 

4. The vendor should be aware of the 
standards that might be applicable, such 
as the ISO draft proposal or the National 
Information Standards Organization 
(NISO) standard. 

5. The vendors must be willing to have 
the data published and shared with librar-
ians, and they should be willing to share it 
on computer tape. 
When these conditions are met, it will be 
possible to produce academic book and 
journal price studies and indexes. As 
noted above, the Blackwell firm has come 
to the rescue of the British Academic Book 
Price Index, and ·several firms are willingly 

TABLE4 

GERMAN ACADEMIC BOOKS 
(Otto Harrassowitz) 

Year Titles Amount(DM) Avg. Pr. (OM) % Incr . 

1987 19,122 1,201,751.10 62.84 6.5% 
1986 21,745 1,282,577.20 58.98 -1.1% 
1985 19,059 1,136,512.22 59.63 -1.0% 
1984 16,504 944,228.15 60.24 



participating in the American academic 
book price index project. It appears that 
the Harrftssowitz price study meets most, 
if not all, of the criteria from above and 
that there are vendors in the other two 
countries who can meet these criteria. 

Next, the paper will discuss budgeting 
practices in some libraries in France, the 
Netherlands, and Germany, and then it 
will examine discriminatory pricing and 
suggest steps that might be taken to ease 
its effects. Finally, the paper will report on 
conclusions that can be drawn from the 
study and make some recommendations 
for the future. 

Library Budgeting in the Netherlands 

Although it was only possible to visit the 
University of Groningen' s library, the di-
rector was able to speak about activities in 
the other fifteen university libraries in the 
Netherlands. There is an association of 
University and National Libraries, similar 
to SCONUL in England and ARLin the 
United States. According to Willem 
Koops, director at Groningen, this gr<;mp 
is collecting information on the costs of 
.materials to Dutch libraries. Since the or-
ganization is voluntary and not everyone 
has cooperated, there is no book price in-
dex for academic libraries. Many libraries 
such as Groningen, however, have their 
local acquisitions computerized and can 
provide quite accurate data on books, con-
tinuations, and subscriptions. As noted 
later, in the Netherlands, library serial 
costs are rising at a very fast rate. One way 
the libraries in the Netherlands have dealt 
with higher costs is to cooperate nation-
ally on acquisitions. To avoid gaps in col-
lections, there is an agreement that a li-
brary cannot cancel a subscription when 
there is no other subscription for that title 
in the country. There have been some po-
litical problems in this area as well. 

Many universities in the Netherlands 

Prices of Foreign Library Materials 225 

have very decentralized library systems 
where department and institute libraries 
tend to be autonomous and not always co-
operative. The budget at Groningen is for 
the central library, and the institute li-
braries pay the central library for services. 
At Groningen automation costs have risen 
since the library is a member of Pica, the 
national network, and also has its own 
system for acquisitions, cataloging, and 
serials. As noted earlier, the costs of seri-
als, many of which must come from over-
seas, are rising faster than monographic 
costs, and a study done locally at Gro-
ningen was used to justify more funds for 
books. For example, at Groningen an ex-
penditure pattern has emerged (see table 
5). As can be seen, serials costs are out-
stripping monographic costs, and the li-
brary administration is interested in better 
data on materials costs in order to be able 
to project costs. The general harm done by 
declining budgets was expr~ssed in a 
questionnaire sent out by the Interna-
tional Publishing Association in June 
1986. The cover letter on the questionnaire 
notes: "IPA wishes to draw the attention 
of national and regional authorities on the 
damaging trend of declining library bud-
gets for education, research and public in-
formation.' ' 16 The questionnaire goes on 
to ask for library data from IP A members 
on library buying during the last three 
years. 

Library Budgeti~g in France 

Although it was only possible to visit 
one French library, the Sorbonne in Paris, 
its conservateur Michel Marion gave me 
much information about the budgeting 
process there that he said was similar else-
where in France. According to Marion, the 
materials budget has not been keeping up 
with the costs of materials, particularly the 
costs of foreign materials. French im-
porters of foreign materials impose a 

TABLE 5 

EXPENDITURE PATIERN 

Books 
Continuations 
Journals 

1980 

1,302,630 fl. 
307,933fl. 

1,292,739 fl. 

1982 

1,015,213 fl. 
402,778 fl. 

1,817,868 fl. 

1985 

863,610 fl. 
485,786 fl. 

2,109,756 fl. 



226 College & Research Libraries 

value-added tax (VAT}, which makes li-
brary materials very expensive. The funds 
for books come directly from the national 
government (80 percent) and from the 
university (20 percent) through tuition. 
There are no private funds available for li-
braries, but sometimes the library does get 
special funds for buying materials 
through departments. Journals have pri-
ority over books, but overall the funds are 
totally insufficient to stock the library. The 
library seems to be relying more on ex-
change now as well. Theses are used for 
exchange purposes. Unfortunately, at the 
Sorbonne there are no computers avail-
able for managing materials funds. The 
budget justification at the Sorbonne de-
pends upon data showing the cost rise, 
and departmental advocacy for needs on 
building and maintaining collections. 

11
• • • the cost of periodicals to which 

[French] libraries subscribe has in-
creased between 1981 and 1986 by an 
average of 7 points more than the cost 
of living." 

According to Marion, Pierre Carbone 
from DBMIST is aware of price trends for 
materials and what is being done at 
French university libraries. A report sent 
to the author by Carbone indicated that 
the cost of "periodicals to which [French] 
libraries subscribe has increased between 
1981 and 1986 by an average of 7 points 
more than the cost of living.'' Books 
showed less of an increase during this pe-
riod because ''libraries have chosen to 
maintain their periodical subscriptions to 
the detriment of their book purchases; 
consequently, they have in most cases 
purchased cheaper monographs ... " 
DBMIST also has computers available for 
keeping proper records. 

Library Budgeting in Germany 

Two libraries in Germany were visited 
and there was correspondence with an-
other library. In Berlin, the Technische 
Universitaetsbibliothek Director Helmut 

May 1988 

Sontag and his staff indicated that serials 
are consuming 50 to 60 percent of his 
budget, and there is very little•room for 
the purchasing of monographs. The bud-
getary process is automated at the Tech-
nische Universitaetsbibliothek and the 
other two libraries mentioned here. The 
Preussicher Staatsbibliothek and the Hei-
delberg Universitaetsbibliothek are also 
completely automated for acquisitions. At 
the Staatsbibliothek Preussicher Kultur-
besitz (SBPK}, Kurt Wolfgang Drozd, 
head of acquisitions, has created an auto-
mated price index for books and periodi-
cals showing price development since 
1980 by subject area and by country. Many 
academic libraries use this index for com-
parison but compile their own price stud-
ies to show the trends. 

University libraries in Europe, which 
are state-funded institutions, have not 
typically obtained private donations for 
acquisitions, since seeking private fund-
ing is not the practice, and philanthropy 
does not occur. In Germany many univer-
sities have a second source of funding 
from the government, i.e., research mon-
ies from a government research council. 
At the Universitaetsbibliothek Heidel-
berg, the library, in addition to regular 
funds, gets supplementary monies from 
the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft 
(German Research Council) for the sup-
port of foreign materials in special subject 
areas designated according to a national 
collection plan. Marion Mallmann-
Biehler, deputy librarian, supplied the 
Heidelberg budget for acquisitions, which 
is computer produced. It is divided by 
books, series, continuations, magazines, 
newspapers, antiquarian monographs, 
antiquarian magazines, and manuscripts. 
Each segment also shows the foreign 
costs. The library also has a detailed sub-
ject breakdown. 

One of the factors that has reduced 
funds available to research libraries in 
Germany is the phenomenal growth of 
university libraries over the past twenty 
years. Since the national and state govern-
ments support the budgets, a larger num-
ber of libraries reduces expenditures over-
all. There has been considerable research 
in Germany on the costs of materials. Of 



particular interest is the work by Rolf 
Griebel, Bamberg University, whose re-
cent address to the national library associ-
ation on "Preisindizes und Haushal-
tungsplanung" is a very complete 
explication of what is happening in the 
price index field. 17 Griebel is seeking to de-
velop an academic index as well and look-
ing toward vendors as the most produc-
tive source for price data. 

In summary, there are some encourag-
ing signs for collection managers who 
need more data from Europe. First, re-
search libraries in the Netherlands, Ger-
many, and France are moving toward bet-
ter informed decisions through the use of 
computerized data. Second, serials ex-
penditures appear to be outstripping 
monographic expenditures in European 
libraries as well (although this may change 
somewhat with the strengthening of Eu-
ropean currencies). Third, libraries are in-
creasingly concerned about the minimal 
funding available and are relying more on 
resource-sharing arrangements. One 
promising effort is occurring in Germany 
where a national resource-sharing plan is 
supported by government funds. This 
could provide a model for the United 
States. 18 Fourth, private funding for acqui-
sitions is not available to European institu-
tions that are predominately state sup-
ported institutions. Finally, there is 
interest in obtaining price data and there 
are efforts underway to collect better data. 

Effects of the Dollar's Loss in Value 

The most deleterious effects on acquisi-
tion budgets have resulted from the con-
tinued downward trend of the dollar 
against West European currencies. Library 
Issues (Ann Arbor, Mountainside Publish-
ing) has been reporting on the changes in 
the dollar's value in a section of the news-
letter entitled ''Dollar Watch.'' In March 
1987, it reported on the dollar's loss in 
value during 1986: Britain ( -2.0 percent), 
France ( -14.2 percent), Germany (- 20.3 
percent), Japan (- 20.7 percent), Nether-
lands ( -20.1 percent), and Spain ( -13.5 
percent). The dollar's average loss in 1986 
was 13.1 percent. 19 The vendors visited in 
France, Germany, and the Netherlands 
saw the weakening dollar as a serious 

Prices of Foreign Library Materials 227 

threat to American acquisition programs. 
The dollar downturn can be added right 
on the top of inflationary increases when 
calculating total increases. However, it is 
best to keep figures separate for present-
ing a case to budgetary authorities since 
many institutions are willing to give li-
braries special increases to counteract cur-
rency changes. 

At Brown University Library, the combi-
nation of inflation in the prices of books 
and journals and the dollar's losses re-
sulted in a 1988-89 budgetary request for a 
16.2 percent overall hike in funds. 
Brown's purchases from selected vendors 
in Great Britain, France, Italy, the Nether-
lands, Spain, and West Germany in 
1986-87 totaled $498,478. Approximately 
40 percent of all materials purchases were 
foreign. Using Brown's total foreign ex-
penditures of $927,559 and applying for-
eign currency changes from July 1986 to 
June 1987, it is estimated that Brown lost 
$152,956 or had a 14.2 percent increase in 
costs for foreign materials due to the dol-
lar's loss in value. It can be seen from pre-
vious data on publication price increases 
that the currency changes have more ef-
fect than the inflationary increases. Ven-
dors said that American librarians need to 
keep a better record of foreign currency 
changes than they have. 

One practice discussed at every visit 
was that of discriminatory pricing, a prac-
tice by British journal publishers, and a 
German publisher of chemistry serials, to 
charge North American libraries a higher 
price than the price charged in the country 
of origin. Although this practice origi-
nated in the early 1980s when publishers 
were trying to recoup the losses when the 
dollar was strong against foreign curren-
cies, it only came under the scrutiny of li-
brarians in 1984. 20 However, since the dol-
lar has weakened there has not been a 
compensatory decrease in the prices of 
these journals. Every vendor was aware of 
this practice, condemned it, but had no 
recommendation for resolving the situa-
tion. They also uniformly indicated that in 
their countries American publication 
prices were hiked upwards. For example, 
in the Netherlands booksellers are obliged 
to use special exchange rates set by the 



228 College & Research Libraries 

Dutch Bookselling Association in consul-
tation with the Ministry of Economic Af-
fairs. In France the price for import books 
is free-floating, i.e., the vendor can use a 
fixed price or not depending on his own 
preference. As Knut Dorn of Otto Harras-
sowitz put it: ''The Harrassowitz position 
is clear. A publisher cannot single out one 
group of libraries. It is unfair.'' There were 
some suggestions about how to lessen the 
effects of price discrimination, currency 
fluctuation, and inflation. These recom-
mendations follow, along with the conclu-

. sions of this study and recommendations 
for the future. 

Proposals to Counteract Higher Prices 

Many of the vendors advocated prepay-
ment and planned to prepay for serials. 
There are three advantages: in the cur-
rency of the vendor, the value is frozen at 
the point of purchase; multiple invoice 

- processing and payment (actual process-
ing of checks) can be eliminated; and in-
terest can be collected from the vendors. 
The first advantage may be a risk, since if 
the dollar gains in value, freezing the pay-
ment at a lower rate will mean a loss for 
the library. The advantages of reducing in-
voice and check processing are clear, and 
the interest rates can be calculated to de-
termine if better interest might be gained 
locally. Some interest rates can be very at-
tractive. In 1987, for example, one vendor 
offered as high as 6.9 percent if the pre-
payment invoice for 1988 was paid by Jan-
uary 15, 1987. 

Another approach vendors offered was 
deposit accounts for books. Deposit ac-
counts have the same advantages as serial 
prepayments. They can freeze currency 
value; reduce processing; and offer inter-
est advantages. A third method suggested 
by vendors was to purchase foreign cur-
rency and use it to buy books and serials. 
Brown is considering this approach. 
Should the dollar strengthen, then the 
university would hold on to marks, guil-
ders, or pounds and wait until the dollar 
weakened again. The principal disadvan-
tage to this approach is that it requires 
large purchases and there are costs for 
changing funds. Some institutions use 
this approach, but generally a university 

May 1988 

would purchase currency not just for the 
library but for other segments of the cam- · 
pus requiring foreign funds. 

"'Prepayment, deposit, or foreign 
currency trading can help reduce 
costs, but other methods for counter-
acting higher prices may also be em-
ployed." 

Prepayment, deposit, or foreign cur-
rency trading can help reduce costs, but 
other methods for counteracting higher 
foreign prices may also be employed. For 
example, a stronger budget proposal that 
accounts for the changes in the dollar's 
strength can make an impression on 
budgetary authorities. Therefore, it is nec-
essary to be aware not only of inflationary 
increases but also of the value of the dol-
lar. In many institutions, when it is shown 
how the pressures of foreign currency 
losses are affecting materials purchases, 
many institutions are willing to compen-
sate for these losses to maintain buying 
power. A complete discussion of various 
approaches to managing rising materials 
costs is contained in a paper delivered by 
Frederick C. Lynden at the February 1987 
conference in Oklahoma on "Acquisi-
tions, Budgets and Materials Cost: Issues 
and Approaches. " 21 Other approaches are 
recommended in "Periodical Prices: a 
History and Discussion'' by Ann Oker-
son.22 

Finally, it should be noted that if unrea-
sonable and excessive pricing of foreign 
journals should continue, it will be neces-
sary to consider external political pres-
sures such as meeting with publishers, 
public exposure of pricing practices, and/ 
or cancellation of journals from offending 
publishers. The continued excessive pric-
ing practices will ultimately be damaging 
to scholarly communication. 

GATHERING FOREIGN PRICE 
DATAINTHEFUTURE 

Visits to vendors, bookselling and trade 
associations, and librarians have indicated 
the advantages of gathering data from for-



eign vendors who supply to American ac-
ademic libraries. Libraries need to encour-
age vendors to supply such data, both 
institutional and national. There also 
needs to be more regular communication 
among price exper:ts in each country. This 
study provides one example of the bene-
fits of such communication. Rolf Griebel, 
an expert on German book prices, was to 
be visited as part of this study. He was put 
in touch with Knut Dorn of Harrassowitz. 
Although he was unable to participate in 
the study due to a death in the family, his 
contacts with Dorn suggested to him the 
possibility of using vendor data for con-
structing a German academic book and se-
rial price index. This type of crossfertiliza-
tion has not occurred regularly because 
there have been too few meetings of ex-
perts on library materials prices from Eu-
rope and the United States. Morten Hein, 
chair of ISO Working Group 8, wrote in 
August 1986 that he thought it would be of 
value to set up an international mailing list 
on price indexes. There have also been 
contacts with Peter Mann of the Centre for 
Library and Information Management 
(now called Library and Information Sta-
tistics Unit}, which produces the British 
Academic Book Price Index; he has recom-
mended a meeting among international 
experts. LIBER plans a meeting in April 
1989 to consider, among other things, the 
price index question. Such a meeting 
would be another significant step toward 
better data. There are still questions re-
maining. For example, who are the ex-
perts on French academic prices? Can LI-
BER assemble the experts interested in 
pursuing the production of price indexes? 
Which vendors are interested in partici-
pating in such a meeting? It is important 
that such meetings will occur soon in or-
der to capture the momentum generated 
by interest of both librarians and vendors. 
These meetings will hopefully identify 
what problems still exist that might pre-
vent the production of academic book and 
serial price indexes; which countries 
should have indexes; what standards 
these indexes should follow; who should 
be responsible for producing them; and 
how they could best be distributed to the 
library community. 

Prices of Foreign Library Materials 229 

CONCLUSION 

The following general conclusions 
emerged from the study: 
• Although there are general data from 

publishing/bookselling associations 
available in France, Germany, and the 
Netherlands, vendors are really the best 
source of information on foreign price 
trends for "academic" titles. 

• Actual inflation rates for foreign titles 
are not as high as exchange rates. It is 
the declining value of the dollar that is 
imperiling budgets. Librarians should 
therefore spend time tracking currency 
changes that are heavily affecting the 
costs of foreign titles. 

• One possible way of dealing with the 
currency changes is to take advantage of 
prepayment plans offered by vendors 
on their serial lists. 

• As studies by librarians in France, Ger-
many, and the Netherlands proved, lo-
cal cost studies are an effective means of 
calculating the cost rise on foreign titles 
supplied to institutions. 

• There are sources of data on price trends 
of foreign materials that can be used for 
comparison purposes: France: Livres 
Hebdo; Germany: Buch und Buchhandel 
in Zahlen; and the Netherlands: Sticht-
ing Speurwerk' s Boeken-Titelproduktie. 

• The International Publishing Associa-
tion is concerned enough about the 
price increases that it has polled li-
braries about the effects of high priced 
serials on the purchasing of mono-
graphs. 

• In addition to being able to produce 
general data on the prices of mono-
graphs supplied on blanket orders, 
some vendors can now supply data that 
are institution specific. Those vendors 
that cannot do so are now seeking to 
provide such a service. 

• All of the parties visited w~re informed 
about the existence of a new draft inter-
national standard for price indexes for 
library materials. In one case, that of the 
German national price study for books 
where standard UNESCO subject head-
ings are already used for reporting 
prices and booksellers wish to use a 
very simplified subject scheme, the 



230 College & Research Libraries 

standard will provide justification for 
the continued use of the UNESCO sub-
ject system. 

• A promising method to more accurately 
reflect price trends is to record an aver-
age price per page. This methodology is 
used by the German annual Buch und 
Buchhandel in Zahlen (Bogen Preisen or 
prices of ''signatures'') and may be use-
ful in other studies as a measure of price 
changes. 

• Aware of the British and German dis-
criminatory price practices, vendors, 
publishing/bookselling association offi-
cials were uniformly upset about this 
''restraint'' of trade and will be working 
actively to discourage these practices. 

• Those organizations with computer rec-
ords are best able to track price changes 
in library materials and provide infor-
mation to customers or users. It is es-

May1988 

sential to provide such information to li-
braries for use in their budget 
justification and planning for collection 
development. 

• As European vendors and libraries au-
tomate their processes, they need to be 
made aware of the requirements of 
North American libraries for library 
price data. 

The framework for better information is 
there. What is needed now is the encour-
agement for vendors to do the work. In 
the long run, librarians need to operate 
more like business people and protect 
their interests. They will then notice dis-
crepancies sooner than they did in the 
case of discriminatory pricing, and they 
will be able to be more effective in present-
ing their case for funds for foreign materi-
als. · 

REFERENCES 

1. Lawraine Wood, Average Prices of British Academic Books, 1974-1984 (Loughborough: Centre for Li-
brary and Information Management, 1984), 28p. 

2. Dora Biblarz, "Reporting Book Prices: Academic Book Prices: Academic Book Price Index," Book 
Research Quarterly 2:83-87 (Summer 1986). 

3. Kathryn A. Soupiset, "College Book Price Information," Choice 25:1047-51 (Mar. 1988). 
4. Frederick C. Lynden, "The Library Materials Price Situation in the United States," LIBER Bulletin 

9/10:100 (1978). 
5. Morton Hein, ed., "Criteria for Price Indexes for Library Materials: Books and Serials. Final Draft 

Version," Draft Proposal 9230 (Copenhagen: International Organization for Standardization, 
Technical Committee 46, Working Group 8, Nov. 1985). 

6. J. L. Schofield and A. Cooper, Average Prices of British Academic Books, 1974 (Cambridge: Univ. 
Cambridge, 1974), p.1 . 

7. Peter H. Mann, "Library Acquisitions: The Economic Constraints," The Bookseller 4199:2340 (June 
14, 1986). 

8. J. L. De Vries, "Afternoon Discussion, Chaired by Mr. J. R. De Groot," LIBER Bulletin 9/10:117 
(1978). 

9. Rebecca T. Lenzini, "Prices of U.S. and Foreign Published Materials," Bowker Annual of Library and 
Book Trade Information, 1987 (New York: Bowker, 1987), p.434-52. 

10. Sally F. Williams, "Reporting Book Prices," Book Research Quarterly 1:86 (Winter 1985-86). 
11. Stichting Speurwerk, "Titelproduktie 1985, Gemiddelde Prijzen," Boekblad 36:13 (Sept. 5, 1986). 
12. "Conjoncture: Le Prix du livre a diminue de moitie en quinze ans," Livres Hebda 7:116 (Mar. 18, 

1985); INSEE, correspondence, Feb. 12, 1988. 
13. Buch und Buchhandel in Zahlen 1986 (Frankfurt am Main: Buchhaendler-Vereinigung, 1986), p.51 

(see previous annuals for earlier data). 
14. Charles Hamaker, "Journal pricing: A Modest Proposal," Serials Librarian 11:172 (Dec. 1986/Jan. 

1987). 
15. Steven E. Thompson, "Reporting Book Prices: German Book Prices," Book Research Quarterly 

2:82-84 (Spring 1986). 
16. "Library Book and Periodical Spending" (Geneve: Union Internationale des Editeurs, June 16, 

1986) . 
17.. Rolf Griebel, "Preisindizes und Haushaltsplanung," address given at the 76th meeting of the 



Prices of Foreign Library Materials 231 

German Library Association, Oldenbourg, 1986. 
18. Paul Kaegbein, ''National Collection Building in the Federal Republic of Germany,'' Journal of Aca-

demic Librarianship 13:81-85 (May 1987). 
19. Mark Sandler, "Dollar Watch: Fourth Quarter Update," Library Issues 7:4 (Mar. 1987). 
20. Marcia Tuttle, "The Pricing of British Journals for the North American Market," Library Resources 

& Technical Services 30:72-78 Gan./Mar. 1986). 
21. Frederick C. Lynden, "Managing Rising Materials Costs," address given at the University of 

Oklahoma Libraries Conference on "Acquisitions, Budgets and Material Costs: Issues and Ap-
proaches," Feb. 26-27, 1987. 

22. Ann Okerson, "Periodical Prices: A History and Discussion," Advances in Serials Management 
1:15-16. 

IN FORTHCOMING ISSUES OF 
COLLEGE & RESEARCH LIBRARIES 

Inventing the Electronic University by David Lewis 
State Coordination of Higher Education and Academic Libraries by Vicki L. Gregory 
The Political Economy of the Academic Library by Dennis P. Carrigan 
College Library Friends Groups in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut by Janet Butler 

Munch 
Automated Collection Analysis Using the OCLC and RLG Bibliographic Databases 

by Nancy P. Sanders, Edward T. O'Neill, and Stuart L. Weibel 
Sources of Professional Knowledge of University Librarians by Ronald R. Powell