This article explores how librarians have responded to publishers’ control
over book prices in two different, yet related, historical periods. It historicizes the net price
system, a book-price control system in the early twentieth century, within debates by librarians
about library book buying and price negotiation practices. Turning to similarities in
current e-book pricing, the article focuses on how publishers reduce the “fragility” of books
as cultural commodities in either paper or electronic format, and then explores how libraries,
publishers, and distributors gain power in library book pricing.