This just in: Several big conglomerates seem to be gobbling up major American publishers. Should we be concerned? “It is either the apex or the nadir of a tremendous change in the industry and maybe the culture,” says one editor … from Harper & Row. The New York Times of April 5, 1987 takes a look at the early stages of life as we now know it in an article by William Glaberson entitled “Will Takeovers be Bad for Books?”