Warning to readers:  This will be a rant, but I think it justified.

As I was perusing the Oxford University Press catalogue of new publications yesterday, looking for things I should recommend for library purchase, I noted with interest the publication of two further volumes in the Oxford Apostolic Fathers series, one volume on Polycarp (letter & Martyrdom) and one on Diognetus.  I was “flabbergasted”, however, to note that the one is priced at £140 and the other at £100, each of them a modest-sized hardback volume of ca. 250 pages.  (You can see the volumes in this series here.)  I don’t mean to pick on OUP.  I merely cite this instance as illustrative of the problem.  Unfortunately, this sort of pricing is all to common now, especially (for some reason) among European publishers of academic books.  The reason is that the publisher decides to produce a very small…