Re: Costs of textbooks

[Bernard Cleyet <anngeorg@PACBELL.NET>]

My Panofsky and Phillips was $9.75 (ca. 1961) and Jenkins and White $8.50 (ca.
1959).  The only common costs (that I can think of)  that have increased more
than 10X are medical and housing.

bc

P.s. Bleaney & Bleaney's  E. & M. (676 pp. 1967)  63 s. (£3-3)  ~$10.

I remember buying gasoline for 19.9¢/ga.  (and Santa Barbara gas. is notoriously
expensive!) just before leaving for Keele U. (England) in 1966.  Even at $2/ga.,
gas would be inexpensive!  (That's why we have the military).

Larry Smith wrote:

> At 1:39 PM -0500 12/13/01, Rick Tarara wrote:
> > I would say that minimally you would have to supply a list of books you
> > consider to be consistent with your course.  However, I don't know that this

cut --

> And while textbooks are really _very_ expensive, I also wonder along with
> Rick if they are more expensive proportionately than they were 30 years
> ago.  Depsite their high cost, I still feel they are well worth the money
> to the students in terms of their overall education.  The financial return
> on what they spend on their education (including overpriced texts) is (on
> average) huge.  (That all said, I do wish they didn't cost _quite_ so much.)
>
> I had a prof once in grad school who wrote a great textbook but eventually
> got so fed up with the publisher's charging the students so much that he
> bought back the copyright and self-published it and sold it at barely over
> cost.  I loved that as a student, but I don't know how it would work for a
> professor of an intro class who likes/needs ancillaries such as the big
> publishers provide.
>
> Larry