Current Status of Biomedical Book Reviewing:
Part IV. Major American and British Biomedical Book Publishers
ABSTRACT
This is the fourth part of a comprehensive,
quantitative study of biomedical book reviews. The
data base of the total project was built from statistics
of 3,347 reviews of 2,067 biomedical books taken
from all 1970 issues of fifty-four reviewing journals.
This part of the study identifies the major American
and British biomedical book publishers in terms of
their quantitative production of book titles reviewed,
and determines the relationships among these pub-
lishers. It is found that Williams & Wilkins, Charles C
Thomas, Academic Press, and Springer Verlag are the
most productive biomedical book publishers in terms
of books reviewed in 1970. These four publishers
accounted for 32% of the 1,674 books available in the
United States and reviewed in the reviewing media in
1970. Williams & Wilkins is especially significant by
virtue of reprint activity. The present study also
explores the price trend of biomedical books. It is
found that the mean price for 1,077 books studied
was $16.20 per volume, withl a standard deviation of
$9.42.
INTRODUCTION
I N order to keep researchers and librarians
up-to-date with what is new in their fields and
what should be added to their collections, book
reviews, publishers' advertisements, and publi-
cation announcements are essential. Generally,
reviews written by subject specialists carry
much more weight than publishers' advertise-
ments, because reviews are more objective,
evaluative, and critical. Publishers' promotional
material seldom includes unfavorable or critical
statements, so except as a means of keeping up
with current publications in the various disci-
plines, they are of little value for book selection
and evaluation. In almost every subject field,
there are a few publishers whose publications
are more highly regarded than those of others.
Publications from these publishers generally are
acquired by librarians without regard to evalua-
302
BY CHING-CHIH CHEN, Assistant Professor
School of LibrarY Science, Simmons College
Boston, Massachusetts
tions in book reviews. Librarians learn to know
these books through experience and make their
selection decisions intuitively after having
learned of their existence through publishers'
announcements or through other informational
channels.
Although it is hazardous to assume that
major publishers in specified subject fields
invariably publish only books of high quality,
an identification of major publishers in subject
disciplines is nonetheless useful for librarians
and researchers, particularly to those who are
relatively new and inexperienced in their jobs.
This paper is the fourth part of a compre-
hensive study of biomedical book reviewing. Its
primary objective is to identify the American
and British biomedical book publishers whose
books are most often reviewed, and to deter-
mine the relationships among these publishers.
The study also examines current price trends of
biomedical books available in the United States.
The data base used for this part of the
composite study is identical with that of earlier
ones (1-3), i.e., a data file of 3,347 reviews of
2,067 biomedical titles. These records were
taken from all 1970 issues of fifty-four general
biomedical journals with bona fide book
reviews.
Reviews of these 2,067 books were arranged
alphabetically by main entry. All books origi-
nally published either in Great Britain or other
foreign countries were checked against both the
1970 and the 1971 Books In Prin1t (BIP) for
either American publishers or distributors. It
was found that 1,674 of the 2,067 biomedical
books were either published or reprinted and
distributed by American publishers and/or
distributors. The publisher information for the
1,674 titles was recorded and tabulated on
separate data sheets under publishers' names. In
the case of British books which were reprinted
Bull. Aled. Libr. Assoc. 62(3) Jului 1974
 BIOMEDICAL BOOK REVIEWING-PART IV
by American publishers, specific records were
included to show the relationships between the
British publishers and their American associ-
ates.
Furthermore, 1,077 of the 1,674 titles
available in the United States (i.e., every two
out of three titles) were checked against the
1970 and/or 1971 BIP, and if not found there,
against individual publishers' catalogs and other
bibliographic sources for price information.
Since most of the books reviewed were single
volume monographs, it was decided that, in
order to derive more accurate and compatible
average cost figures for every publisher, price
per volume rather than price per title would be
used as the cost unit. For example, a three-
volume title costing $90.00 is recorded as
$30.00 per volume on the data card. The
obtained cost information for the 1,077 books
was further recorded on a master data sheet
under publishers' names first and then under
detailed price groupings (two-dollar incre-
ments).
RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
1. Major American Biomedical Book Publishers
Appendix I gives a rank list of American
biomedical book publishers by the number of
books reviewed in 1970. In this list, publishers
are grouped under four categories: Trade
publishers, university presses, learned or re-
search societies and institutions, and govern-
ment publishing offices. It is apparent that
trade publishers are the chief suppliers of
biomedical books, accounting for 1,479 (or
88.35%) of the total 1,674 books available in
the United States. University presses are the
distant second group accounting for 147 (or
8.78%) of the total.
Among the trade publishers, as demonstrated
clearly in Appendix I, the major American
biomedical book publishers can be identified
readily. The top ten, in descending order, are:
Williams & Wilkins of Baltimore; Charles C
Thomas of Springfield, Illinois; Academic Press
of New York; Springer Verlag of New York';
I
Springer Verlag is actually a German publisher.
Since all ninty-three books indicated in Appendix I are
in the English language and available from the
publisher's New York office, these books were
Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 62(3) July 1974
Appleton.-Century-Crofts of New York; F. A.
Davis of Philadelphia; W. B. Saunders of
Philadelphia; Grune & Stratton of New York;
John Wiley of New York; and C. V. Mosby of
St. Louis. Each of these publishers produced
forty-eight or more biomedical books which
were reviewed in 1970.
It should be noted that although other
publishers also reprint foreign biomedical
books, Williams & Wilkins seems to be most
active in this respect. As shown in Appendix I
and Table 2, 88 of the 177 Williams & Wilkins
books listed were reprints of titles originally
published outside the United States. F. A. Davis
is second in line as a reprinter (thirty-three of
fifty-eight books). Therefore, Williams &
Wilkins would be ranked fourth after Charles C
Thomas, Academic Press, and Springer Verlag if
only books originally published in the United
States were considered.
It is also interesting to see from Appendix I
that the top three university presses publishing
biomedical titles are Oxford University Press,2
Harvard University Press, and Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.2 However, none of them approxi-
mates the productivity in biomedical titles of
the top ten trade publishers.
2. Seventy-five percent of the 1,674 Books
Were Supplied by Only Twenty-teo Pub-
lishers
Table 1 lists, in descending order, the
publishers who issued twenty or more books
reviewed in 1970. It is most interesting to find
that although 161 different American pub-
lishers and/or distributors were involved in
publishing, reprinting and/or distributing the
1,674 books reviewed, three-quarters of these
titles were supplied by only twenty-two
(13.66%) publishers. The top ten publishers
produced 51.58% of the 1,674 books. Except
for Oxford University and Harvard University
Presses, twenty of these twenty-two publishers
listed in Table 1 are trade publishers.
considered as "American" for the convenience of data
collection.
2Oxford University and Cambridge University
Presses are British publishers. Their books were treated
as "American" as books in the English language from
Springer Verlag.
303
 CHING-CHIH CHEN
TABLE 1
AMERICAN BIOMEDICAL BOOK PUBLISHERS WITH TWENTY OR
MORE BOOKS REVIEWED IN 1970

Cumulative % No. of Books % of Total Books Cumulative %

Rank and Publisher of Publishers Reviewed Available in U.S. of Total Books

1. Williams & Wilkins 177 10.57 10.57

2. Charles C Thomas 159 9.50 20.07
3. Academic Press 107 6.39 26.46
4. Springer Verlag* 93t 5.56 32.02
5. Appleton-Century-Crofts 60 3.58 35.60
6. F. A. Davis 58 3.46 39.06
7. W. B. Saunders 57 3.41 42.47
8. Grune & Stratton 52 3.11 45.58
8. John Wiley 52 3.11 48.69
9. C. V. Mosby 6.21 48 2.89 51.58
10. Little, Brown 47 2.81 54.39
10. American Elsevier 47 2.81 57.20
11. J. B. Lippincott 46 2.75 59.95
11. Pergamon Press* 46 2.75 62.70
12. Harper & Row (and Hoeber) 35 2.09 64.79
13. A. J. Phiebig 34 2.03 66.82
14. Oxford University Press* 33 1.97 68.79
15. Macmillan 26 1.55 70.34
16. McGraw-Hill 25 1.49 71.83
17. Harvard University Press 22 1.31 73.14
17. Yearbook Medical 22 1.31 74.45
18. Lea & Febiger 13.66 21 1.25 75.70
Total No. of publishers: 161
* For the convenience of data collection, these three publishers are considered as American since they all have
American offices.
t Only books in English language.

3. A High Percentage of Biomedical Books were 265 British medical books imported into
Originally Published in Great Britain Were the United States in 1969 and 264 in 1970.
Reprinted by American Publishers Since the study .deals with biomedical book
reviews, the subject areas covered are broader
Of the 2,067 biomedical books reviewed in than medicine only. Therefore, if one allows an
1970, it was found that 1,370 titles were additional 125 titles for areas other than
published originally in the United States; 354 medicine, it would bring the 1970 import of
were books published in Great Britain, of which British biomedical books to the United States
274 were either reprinted or distributed by to 389 titles. Then it is fair to say that of these
American publishers and/or distributors; and 389 titles, approximately 70% were reviewed in
343 were books originally published in coun- biomedical journals.
tries other than the United States and Great
Britain, of which only thirty (all in the English 4. Major British Biomedical Book Publishers
language) were reprinted in the United States.
In other words, a very high percentage (77.4%) Table 2 gives a rank list of British biomedical
of British books reviewed were reprinted by book publishers. It is obvious that the top five
American publishers, while few other foreign from a quantitative standpoint are: J. & A.
language books were. Churchill, E. & S. Livingstone, Blackwell,
According to the 1971 Bowker Annual of Butterworths, and William Heinemann. Of the
Library and Book Trade Information (4), there 274 British biomedical books reviewed in 1970
304 Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 62(3) July 1974
 BIOMEDICAL BOOK REVIEWING-PART IV

and reprinted by American publishers, these
five publishers accounted for 168 titles (or
61.3%), while the other thirty-four British
publishers accounted for 106 titles (or 3 8.69%).
Davis (33), Lippincott (27), Appleton (24),
Little, Brown (14), Grune & Stratton (10),
Mosby (10), and Barnes & Noble (7). Williams
& Wilkins alone accounted for 32.12% of the
total.

5. American Publishers Engaged in Reprinting 6. Average Price of Hardcover Biomedical

British Biomedical Titles Books Available in the United States

From Table 2 one can easily observe that
although the 274 British biomedical books were
reprinted and/or distributed by thirty-eight
American publishers and distributors, most of
this activity was carried out by fewer than a
dozen publishers. These, in descending order of
productivity, are: Williams & Wilkins (88 titles),
As mentioned earlier, two of every three
books of the 1,674 titles available from
American sources were checked for prices in
BIP, individual publishers' catalogs, and other
sources. Price per volume was taken as the cost
unit and therefore, prices were prorated for
multivolume sets. As a result of the compre-

TABLE 2
RANKING OF BRITISH BIOMEDICAL BOOK PUBLISHERS* BY NUMBER OF
BOOKS REVIEWED AND REPRINTED BY AMERICAN PUBLISHERS
No. of Books Reprinted by American Publishers
Rank and British Publishert Reviewed (No. of Books)

1. J. & A. Churchill 41 Grune & Stratton (5), Little, Brown (14),

Williams & Wilkins (22)
2. E. & S. Livingstone 37 Williams & Wilkins (37)
3. Blackwell 34 Davis (27), Lippincott (6), Wiley (1)
4. Butterworths 30 Appleton-Century-Crofts (19), Lippincott (10),
University of Nebraska Press (1)
5. William Heinemann 26 Appleton-Century-Crofts (5), Davis (5), Grune &
Stratton (5), Lippincott (1), Mosby (1),
Springer Verlag (3), Thomas (4),
Warren H. Green (2)
6. Henry Kimpton 14 Mosby (9), Lea & Febiger (5)
7. Edward Arnold 13 St. Martin (1), Williams & Wilkins (12)
8. Bailliere, Tindall & Cassell 8 Williams & Wilkins (8)
8. Routledge & Kegan Paul 8 Aldine (1), Humanities (6), Sage (1)
9. Pitman Medical & Scientific Publishing 7 Lippincott (6), Raven (1)
10. Lloyd-Luke 5 E. Licht Pub. (1), Yearbook Medical (1),
Williams & Wilkins (3)
Other 28 Publishers 51 Academic (1), American Elsevier (2),
Archon (1), Atlantic Monthly (2),
Barnes & Noble (7), Basic (4), Beacon (1),
Cowles (1), Davis (1), Doubleday (3),
Dufour (1), Hafner (1), Lippincott (4),
McGraw-Hill (3), Macmillan (1), Oxford
University Press (4), Saunders (1),
Scribner (1), Springer Verlag (2),
Transatlantic (1), Univ. California Press
(1), Wiley (2), Williams & Wilkins (6)
* The following publishers have both U.S. and British addresses; therefore, for the convenience of data
collection, their publications were recorded and considered as "American" in Appendix I only: (1) Academic
Press; (2) Cambridge University Press; (3) Oxford University Press; and (4) Pergamon Press.
t Not including Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and Pergamon Press.
Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 62(3) July 1974 305
 CHING-CHIH CHEN
a I~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
7-
w
I_
x
m P
0
CD
0n
0
Cl) I~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
l ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I
l ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~I
,.- i,
4 8 12 16 20
BOOK PRICE PER VOLUME (DOLLAR)
FIG. 1.-Price distribution of books available in the United States and reviewed in 1970.
hensive checking, prices of 1,077 books were
recorded and tabulated, and are presented in
Figure 1. Despite the wide range of prices,
which vary from less than $2.00 per volume to
$80.00 per volume as shown in Figure 1, the
mean price per volume was calculated and was
found to be P= $16.20. Since Pis known, it is
easy to derive the standard deviation a (a =
$9.42). The distribution curve suggests, then,
that most probably (68% confidence) United
States biomedical books reviewed fall within
the price range between $6.78 to $25.62 per
volume as indicated in Figure 1.
It is worth noting that the mean price was
based on price data for 1,077 hardcover books
excluding government publications which gen-
erally are considerably less expensive (about
$3.50 per volume as shown in Appendix I). It
should also be pointed out that United States
hardcover trade biomedical books are generally
more expensive than university press publica-
tions. Appendix I shows that the average price
per volume is $16.65 for trade biomedical
books while it is only $10.84 for university
press publications. Appendix I also indicates
average price for each individual publisher.
Those figures for publishers producing fewer
than twenty book titles should be used cau-
tiously because of small statistical samplings.
306
= MEAN PRICE = $16.20
rG= STANDARD DEVIATION - $9.42
24 28 32 36 40 44 -*8o
It is most interesting to find that the average
price of books available in the United States
and reviewed in 1970 is remarkably close to
that of all medical books included in the
publishing records. According to the 1972
Bowker Annual of Library and Book Trade
Information, the 1970 average price of U.S.
hardcover trade medical books is listed as
$18.05 per title (5) and the 1971 figure is
$17.58 per volume (5, 6). The $18.05 figure is
higher than the $16.65 of this study; neverthe-
less, per title cost is expected to be higher than
per volume cost. Even at $16.65 per volume,
the biomedical books are generally much more
expensive than most of the hardcover books in
other subject areas, because an overall average
price of $11.66 per volume was shown for all
hardcover books (7).
Of the eighty-eight biomedical books origi-
nally published in Great Britain but reprinted
by Williams & Wilkins, the average price was
$14.83, while $14.82 was the average price per
volume for the thirty-three books reprinted by
Davis. These are considerably higher than the
average price indicated for British medical
books in 1969/1970 (3f 50 p) and in
1970/1971 (3£ 77 p) (8). Therefore, we may
assume that American biomedical reprints cost
considerably more than the British originals.
Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 62(3) July 1974
 BIOMEDICAL BOOK REVIEWING-PART IV
7. Biomedical Paperbacks Reviewed
Of the 1,674 biomedical books available in
the United States, only thirty-nine were found
to be paperbacks, a very small percentage
indeed. In fact, only fifty-one paperbacks in
medicine were printed in 1970 (9). The
thirty-nine paperbacks reviewed in 1970 were
published by thirty-one of the 161 American
publishers.
The price range of these thirty-nine paper-
backs is quite reasonable, ranging from $1.00
per volume to $10.00 per volume. The average
price of these thirty-nine titles is $3.82 per
volume. This is much lower than the average
price of trade paperbacks in 1970 ($6.91) (7),
but higher than the average price of mass
market paperbacks in 1969 ($1.46) (7).
CONCLUSIONS
All the quantified findings mentioned above
obviously have significant implications for
biomedical librarians. They provide much
needed information for biomedical selection
and acquisition processes.
The cost figures of biomedical books can also
Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 62(3) July 1974
guide medical library administrators and acqui-
sitions librarians in planning reasonable and
adequate book budgets for their libraries to
keep up with worthwhile current biomedical
publications.
REFERENCES
1. CHEN, CHING-CHIH, and WRIGHT, ARTHUREE
M. Current status of biomedical book reviewing:
Part I. Key biomedical reviewing journals with
quantitative significance. Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc.
62: 105-112, Apr. 1974.
2. CHEN, CHING-CHIH. Current status of biomedical
book reviewing: Part II. Time lag in biomedical
book reviewing. Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 62:
113-119, Apr. 1974.
3. CHEN, CHING-CHIH. Current status of biomedical
book reviewing: Part III. Duplication patterns in
biomedical book reviewing. Bull. Med. Libr.
Assoc. 62: 296-307, July 1974.
4. The Bowker Annual of Library and Book Trade
Information 1971. New York, Bowker, 1971. p.
72.
5. The Bowker Annual of Library and Book Trade
Information 1972. New York, Bowker, 1972. p.
185.
6. Statistics 70-71: Index of Prices. Publishers
Weekly 201: 62-63, Feb. 7, 1972.
7. Price Trends. Publishers Weekly 199: 51-52, Feb.
8, 1971.
8. Bowker 1972. Op cit., p. 184.
9. Bowker 1971. Op cit., p. 91.
307
 CHING-CHIH CHEN
APPENDIX I
RANKING OF AMERICAN PUBLISHERS BY NUMBER OF BOOKS REVIEWED WITH
INFORMATION ON AVERAGE PRICE
No. of Books Average
Rank and Publisher Reviewed Cost/Vol.*
Trade Publishers
1. Williams & Wilkins
Own Publications 90 1 178 $15.50
Reprints 88
2. Charles C Thomas 159 17.77
3. Academic Press 107 16.85
4. Springer Verlag 93 20.72
5. Appleton-Century-Crofts 60 13.80
6. F. A. Davis
Own publications 25 58 13.83
Reprints 33
7. W. B. Saunders 57 20.59
8. Grune & Stratton 52 17.02
8. John Wiley 52 18.15
9. C. V. Mosby 48 21.06
10. American Elsevier 47 20.85
10. Little, Brown 47 14.66
11. J. B. Lippincott 46 17.33
11. Pergamon Press 46 17.95
12. Harper & Row (and Hoeber) 35 14.22
13. A. J. Phiebig 34 17.00
14. Macmillan 26 10.42
15. McGraw-Hill 25 18.18
16. Yearbook Medical 22 15.77
17. Lea & Febiger 21 16.65
18. W. H. Freeman 14 7.33
19. Prentice Hall 12 8.83
20. Warren H. Green 11 18.25
21. Barnes & Noble (distributor) 10 14.44
22. Aldine 8 12.05
22. Basic Books 8 6.68
22. Doubleday 8 7.46
22. Plenum 8 22.83
Other 81 publishers 188
Total: 109 publishersf 1,479t 16.65 (mean)
University Presses
1. Oxford University Press 33 13.10
2. Harvard University Press 22 8.10
3. Cambridge University Press 12 12.12
4. Johns Hopkins University Press 11 9.50
5. Columbia University Press 9 9.17
5. University of California Press 9 14.00
Other 26 presses 51
Total: 32 presses 147: 10.84 (mean)
Learned & Research Societies & Institutions
1. New York Academy of Science 7 22.80
2. Wistar Institute Press 3
Other 9 organizations 10
Total: 11 organizations 20 §
Government Agencies 28¶ 3.50
* Average price per volume was based on price information of 1,077 of the 1,674 titles available in the United
States (every two out of three titles). Excluding government publications, the overall mean price of 1,646 books
is $16.20 per volume.
t This is 88.35% of total (1,674).
4 This is 8.78% of total.
§ This is 1.199% of total.
¶ This is 1.67% of total.

308 Bull. Med. Libr. Assoc. 62(3) July 1974