CompuServe Messages

The difference in functionality between the reduced-type and plain-type OEDs is trivial, merely a matter of the user's convenience. The real difference is in the market for each version. OED was smart enough to find a non-institutional market for their product, one that would accept the inconvenience of the small type and the magnifying glass in exchange for the convenience of having the whole work in 2 volumes instead of 20–and, indeed, of having it at all. This after it had essentially saturated the library, institutional, and professional market for its full-sized type edition over several decades, repaying Oxford's investment many times over. They were also smart enough to sell thousands of the reduced type version to book clubs, thus bringing down the per-copy production cost. I agree with you, therefore, that Oxford's pricing is indeed largely based on their idea of what the market will bear–and with the experience of selling the previous CD-ROM of OED1 at a much higher price, they have obviously some objective basis for their idea. And I'm sure their price is designed to maximize sales revenues, not merely sales volume. Why shouldn't it? (I worked as a salesman and editor in book publishing for 15 years, and understand in a general way how these decisions are made.) However, production costs may not be entirely irrelevant. OED2 is new, and the print version can't have sold nearly as many copies as OED1 did. And the one-time production costs such as keyboarding text and setting type, though less than they would have been Before Computers, was doubtless very large and may not have been fully recovered; likewise the up-front cost of compiling and editing OED2 in the first place. I don't know one way or the other, and I'm sure that nobody outside OUP does either, but it seems a reasonable guess. Anyway, you seem to be saying that in the electronics era, "what the market will bear" considerations no longer apply. I'm sure you don't mean that, because of course it's not true.