The problem of increasing costs for scholarly monographs has fallen squarely on our libraries at a time when users are demanding diversification into electronic media. It is not the fault of our libraries that the cost of books has soared, except insofar as the passion for resorting to inter-library loan has damaged sales. But in addition to the problem of cost, we confront a problem of perception. The story of the decline of the book resembles other master narratives of modern history, the big stories of industrialization, modernization, and secularization that I invoke when teaching Western Civ. The narrative of the decline of the book portrays historical forces that are inevitable, unilinear, and irresistible.
Print is perceived as being replaced by digital information even as print proliferates.
It is essential to face up to the fact that there is no magic technological solution to the problem of the costs of academic monographs. Books will be necessary for scholarship and teaching. And we should vigorously experiment with ways to reduce the costs of good books. The book versions of microform dissertations made available from University Microfilms provide one possible model. Although their product is sometimes hard to read, it is recognizable as a book.