JOURNAL OF CHEMICAL EDUCATION
increase in price, or a cessation of publication (probably the latter); nobody will pretend that even a generous royalty on, for example, the $194 microcard edition of Beilstein is going to make any serious contribution to the cost of preparing that great and valuable n-ork. The problem, therefore, is to ensure that microcard editions make their proper contribution to the economy of script production. This can only be done by insisting that the microcard publication returns to the original publisher such a royalty as will yield an income equal to that from a To the Editor: similar number of the printed volumes, less that proIn reading Sister Agnes Ann Green's interesting portion due to the economies of microcards over paper article on "Microcards" (J. CHEM.EDUC.,28, 549 and binding, less some small discount for increased (1951)), I am reminded to draw the attention of chemcirculation. The production budget of a large work ists generally to an urgent problem in this field which selling at $2200 appears something like this: has for some time been troubling those of us who are practically engaged in the compiling and editing of per ropy Preparation of script (inc. authors' fees) compendia. '500 Setting *iW The problem is an economic one, and rests on the Machining 300 necessity of having a printed presentation of the work Pmer and binding 200 in question available before microcards are made. (It would, of course, be possible to have only a single Varityped master copy and a circulation entirely microItems marked * do not vary whether publication card, but this is a novelty, not yet a matter of current takes place as microcards or volumes; items such as practice.) are materially reduced by carding and may be as The use of microcards must, inevitably, decrease little as $100 (no account taken of distribution costs the demand for printed copies of the work in questionor profit). But even in this way the true production and whilst, no doubt, the lowered price of the cards cost (allowing for composition of a microcard edition) will, to some degree, extend the number of those who cannot be less than $1300 per copy to which distribupossess copies, a price differential of $2200 to $194 will tion costs must be added. To sell such a set for $194 indubitably divert many sales from the books to the is obviously wrong in principle; it may be excellent cards. for old journals where copyright has expired, or where There comes a point in the publication of hooks where supplies of back numbers are exhausted, but for current the number sold just balances the cost of production compendia it may well kill the goose that lays the golden and distribution; this point represents the present con- eggs. Dictum sapiente sat est. dition of many of the major chemical compendia and treatises, even allowing for the fact that much of the authorship is often a labor of love, paid for a t nominal rates. A decrease in sales mill either cause a sharp +
