Sir, - It would be difficult to find an article in the archives of the TLS that contains more hyperbole and hollowness than Keith Thomas's defence of the Oxford University Press (Commentary, February 5). In it, he speaks of its "world-wide influence" as a reference publisher and its "key educational role" as a school publisher.
A substantial part of the Press's revenue comes from selling translation rights to foreign-language publishers, for whom the brand name "Oxford" is often the most valued part of the package. However, since the Press is now driven solely by market forces, "responsibility to its customers" (to quote Professor Thomas again) has been discarded. For instance, what can anyone who consults the recently published Oxford Paperback Encyclopedia make of the fact that in it, Czech literature gets greater coverage than English literature, and that Russian literature gets a full half as much again? The answer is that the entries in the paperback encyclopaedia are loosely based on the Oxford Illustrated Encyclopedia, produced and published in-house in 1993. Determined to reduce its overheads by closing down the encylopaedia department (of which I was managing editor), the Press "outsourced" the 2-million-word database to a cut-price packager, with a brief to compile a second generation of spin-off encyclopaedias under OUP's imprint.
The Delegates, including Keith Thomas, have shown little concern that the skills of the jobbing editors might fall short of the expertise of the Press's own staff; so great has been their drive to make money that academic standards are now at an all-time low. To return to the packagers' "Oxford" encyclopaedia, we are informed that English literature began in 1475 - thus lopping off a full 900 years of our literary heritage. The contractors have failed to pick up the original entry's cross-references to Old English and Middle English literature, and have scrapped the former altogether. Pre-eminence has thus, by default, been given to less developed literary cultures such as the Czechs'.
If, as one of its current flyers claims. Oxford sells "the world's finest and most trusted Reference Books", then our country is ill-served. Britain's greatest contribution to world culture is its literature, and Oxford is making a mockery of it. For this and many equally cogent reasons, and because other publishers are struggling to sell good books without the financial privilege bestowed on the Press, its charitable status should be removed.
BRIDGET MARTYN, 8 Jeune Street, Oxford