From a used bookstore perspective, the most seriously non-sexy of all books are textbooks, if that’s all they are, for they have no life outside of the constraints of the classroom. No one actually wants them, never did, never will. They cost an inefficiently high amount at the beginning of the term, are sold to the resentful, and their resale value depreciates nearly as fast as that of the tuition, also inefficiently high.

They’re expensive because they’re made to be sold to people who’ve already agreed to pay the tuition. What’s the point of resisting paying $30-$90 a pop for artificially revised crap on glossy paper if thereby you lose your family’s dreams, and possibly your social life?

So the students have to buy them, and in fact often the cost is passed directly to the parents, who can only grumble and worry. Neither they nor the students have any but a yes or no choice. The professor or administrator who puts the order in also has little choice, but in a sense he is the real customer. He determines market share among the competing products in a multi-billion dollar captive market.

So he orders 300 copies of some Introduction to English, or Biology, or World History in the 17th edition.. It’s $39.95 for a badly made paperback whose content looks a lot like that of the 16th edition, and the 8th, but usually the cover is distinctive. For have you ever noticed that it’s often those undergraduate courses in which the real information changes the least, say U.S. Colonial History or the French language, that require the most frequently revised, expensively researched and most up to date price tags?

With the exception of things relating to computers, where significant developments often occurred last night, there is little excuse for this.

The graduate subjects in non-computer fields where real changes occur, particle physics say, show far fewer revisions: they’re much more like real books in that respect. They often change only every 12 years or so, and have some value outside the classroom. They’re expensive because of a narrow market, not a wide one. And that narrow market will only economically support necessary revision, not nonsense.

The big money to be made is in the wide market of the survey courses, but only if the publisher can keep the undergraduates from buying the previous class’s textbooks used instead of his new. So he makes the previous class’s copies useless where once they were essential.

I once took an intensive Italian course where the 5th edition had just replaced the 4th, but only about half of the class could get the 5th, so the professor okayed use of the older edition. I used a 4th edition, and adjusting to the outdated model was easy: the publisher had only switched Chapter 14 with Chapter 16 (it actually worked either way) and reversed all the genders in the homework exercises. Presumably the student using the old book would turn in homework in the wrong gender, and so be wrong. There was no curriculum reason for the changes whatsoever, nor a political one. The genders already alternated 50/50, and in similar sentences.

All this revision is expensive. In the ‘70’s revisions were usually 3-5 years apart. In the 80’s and 90’s the gaps shrank to 1-2 years, and each time the physical book had to be reprinted, bound and warehoused and the artificially obsolete copies disposed of. All paid for by the students taking the courses.

I thought in the 70’s that the way out of the problem would be for an idealistic textbook company to sell the student a license to use the book, but not the right to resell it. There would then be low level dealings between undergraduates, but nothing threatening to the publisher’s bottom line. The big used textbook companies, Follett’s, Missouri Books and the like then simply couldn’t buy or sell this company’s texts, obviating the need for defensive revisions. So the book could be priced at a relatively low level and stay there.

But of course no one with the capital to do this would want to do this, so no one did. And now with electronic publishing and cd roms, it will soon be something of a moot point. But even if some textbook publishers’ involvement becomes almost entirely electronic, don’t expect textbook prices to drop significantly just because those publishers’ up-front costs decline. For if the decades long consistent effects of American “ higher education” have anything to do with its purposes, a major purpose is to train good consumers that are deeply in debt. And in this regard, the system works very well.

Back to real used books, books that someone might actually want without being threatened with a stick: Bookcellar Café at 1971 Mass. Ave in Cambridge, near Porter Square (and also coincidentally near our space in Davis Square and Kate’s Mystery Books at 2211 Mass. Ave.) will close at the end of February. The owner is running a 50% off everything sale before shutting down forever. His hours are 11-7 Wednesday - Monday. His phone # is 617 864-9625.

As always, questions and feedback are very welcome at mike@mcintyreandmoore.com.