The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1920-10-27

C1mOfla8e, Mes1., Oct. ID NE
city 10 one ef the country's fountain
heads OF learning. Aside from haf-
boring the great and ave inspiring
Harvard university, numerous les
ser schools, and endless b0okshops
specializing in al degrees OF sfudi-
ton, Cambridge possesses the fac
tory Of the largest schoelbook pub
fishing company in the country
This plant regularly keeps 2.oo0.-
900 schoolboeks on hand In its
storage bins, and even with this
huge reserve. the presses have to
run night and day At the busy sea
sons.
Right now, the factory 10 working
at the highest pressure. Schools
from Florida to California seld to
the company's 6mces in Boston for
books, and while most schools are
opened by this time, orders are still
piling. in. Many school oficieas, il
seems, have . way Of waiting until
the term is about to open and then
deciding on the books TO be used
and the company to patronize. This
casual attitude of the local powers
is one Of the chief causes Of white
hair in the textbook business. No
ouiia board has yet been located
that can tell z firm how many
physics or spelling books Of GER
tain kind will be called for, so that
it has to estimate q reasonable
number and then work at top speed
II orders exceed expectations.
This company, with its stock o1
2,000,000 books, finds it necessary
to keep no less than 1000 different
titles ON hand, and these are all
what might be called current
books; for as soon as a textbook
becomes Anticipated or is supplant'
ed by a later edition the old copiei
on the shelves are torn up to b.
sold as Junk
Walking along the storage room.
you can catch glimpses Of spelling
books and arithmetic that call W
pictures of your early struggle.
with culture. Less familiar work.
are here too. such formidable AZ
fairs as THE Application Of Cal
culus to Mechanics" Word Fer
nation in the Roman Sermo Plebe
ius," and "A Grammar Of the In
mutt Language" The guide oblig
ingly explains that lnnuit meanl
Eskimo, that this particular work i!
rarely called for. and that it SELL
/ for IS, an unusually high rate for ,
plainly bound schoolbOok.
Books That Do Not Sell.
Books Of this type are tn
"Jonahs" Of the schoolbook bust
ness. Some patient scholar spends
perhaps 20 years writing an OBJ
truse thesis on which neither h,
nor his publisher can possibl.
make any money, because few cop
les will be. sold. Yet the demands
Of advanced scholarship require
such books, and the larger publish
ers must be the ones to produc'
them, even though they often know
in advance that the books mean ,
loss. Ponderous works, however
make up only small fraction o
the plants output. The bins fol
the most part are stacked to tn,
ceiling with ordinary grammar ant
highschool books
| The demand for schoolbooks in
creases every year, and this mean
plenty Of trade for the publishers
They tell you, though, that they ar,
far from sailing on a smooth sc,
CT prosperity. Certain kinds O
paper are about to advance tw,
cents a pound, which means tina
the rates on schoolbooks will g.
up, as it is claimed that they ar
now being sold on as low a margil
Of profit rs is permissible. An ad
vance will not cut down business
{, for schoolbooks are q necessity
but publishers say that they drea,
announcing a raise, for the public
seeing sugar, leather, and voc
drop, is all the more loath to par
with larger sums for other com
modities. =
In the past, they say, schoolbook
have remained remarkably stabl
in price, though publishers hav
been constantly increasing expen
ditures to improve the appearance
Of their product.
Few people have any idea Of tn
ms and outs of putting a textboo
on the market. You may hay