Fig. 1. Price increases of hardbound books and of science and technology journals, 1970 to 1990 (not adjusted for inflation) (Cummings et al. 1992). Increases in book prices tended to follow the Consumer Price Index (dotted black line), whereas journals did not. In constant dollars, book prices increased by 9%, whereas journal prices increased by 230%.

{[Data for this graph are from Fig. 6.3 and Appendix Table 6.1 of Cummings et al 1992 and from the Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI (http://stats.bls.gov/). The spreadsheet for this graph is at http://tjwalker.ifas.ufl.edu/cost1.xls]}