Introduction

Publishing has traditionally been regarded as a profession for gentlemen. This is an outmoded term to be sure, but it conveys the impression of a trade that was not overly concerned about profit, of practitioners focused on some higher ideal. Librarians have also traditionally exhibited this trait of not focusing on money, perhaps by emulation, perhaps by an innate commitment to collaboration and the ideal of learning. This is epitomized in the title of the library journal devoted to the commercial nexus linking libraries, publishers and intermediaries, Against the Grain, which implies that its subject matter is somehow at odds with traditional professional concerns.

In contrast to the USA, such distaste may have been fostered by the long existence of retail price maintenance for books in many European countries, such as Austria, France, Germany, Greece, Holland, Italy, Portugal and Spain. In Germany, for instance, publishers are legally required by the Buchpreisbindungsgesetz to set the price, including tax, at which books are sold to the end-user. The price remains fixed for a minimum of 18 months, or until a new edition is published.

The UK form of retail price maintenance, the Net Book Agreement (NBA), enabled publishers to fix the prices at which books could be sold. Booksellers were not allowed to give discounts, except a fixed 10% discount under the so-called Library Licence. Libraries received the fixed discount on condition that they made their stock available to the public. This condition, obviously fulfilled by public libraries, was generally not considered too onerous by university librarians: virtually all allowed walk-in access to stock. The notable exception was the poet Philip Larkin, who as Librarian at the University of Hull from 1955–85, would not allow students of the local teacher-training institution access to the university library, and hence forfeited the 10% discount (Hinton, 1987, 45), an example of the triumph of principle over economics.

The early 1990s saw the discounting of book prices by some of the larger bookselling chains, by the mid-1990s publishers were withdrawing support and in 1997 the NBA was ruled illegal.