This same discussion took place on mediev-l a year or two ago
regarding the PL, with the same reactions, except that a Chadwick-Healey
representative did respond with an explanation of their philosophy.
Unfortunately, I cannot find the discussion in the Mediev-l archives nor
do I remember their exact line of argument.
Clearly, though, C-H is pricing it for institutional purchasers
only. One reason to do that is to maintain long-term control over the
content. Any library that buys it at that price is going to abide by
the conditions of access. If it were cheaper--well, anybody could buy
it and make copies very easily, at which point sales would drop
precipitously. That is why some publishers go the route of online
access (paid)--to maintain some kind of copyright control over the
content.
Remember that the price of published material is not just derived
from the cost of production plus profit. The price reflects the value
of the content over time--and certainly the PL, despite its MANY flaws,
had and has some inherent worth that transcends a single sales effort
(as would be true of a top selling novelist for example). C-H has a
historic right to that value (ie, their company invested in it long ago
and wants to maintain that investment). As long as C-H has an interest
in maintaining copyright control of the PL, they will have to balance
price and access in this way. Otherwise, the PL will quickly slip into
public domain usage, legally or not, and C-H will be out of the loop.
Personally, I wish such items were either accessible online through
subscription or so widely held by a variety of research libraries that I
would be able to use it. As it is...noone out here in the Pacific is
investing yet.
KLJolly
--
Dr. Karen Jolly
Associate Professor, History
University of Hawai`i at Manoa
[log in to unmask]
http://www2.hawaii.edu/~kjolly
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