TechLarry, what you're paying for is paper. Lots of heavy paper and the distribution/inventory carrying costs that go along with it.
In many cases, the content of these books will be available for free or cheap as long as you don't insist on lots of heavy paper. You've always been able to access the entire text of Microsoft's resource kits on the web (see http://www.reskit.com/) and many of the utilities are freely downloadable, too. The rest of the utilities are readily available with a TechNet subscription. The standard EULA for a TechNet subscription allows you to copy and share the utilities and service packs internally within your organization (but not necessarily the "Technical Information" or TechNet "Plus" [beta] discs unless you have a volume/server license).
Also, if you have volume licensing you can get MELL, which delivers almost all of the MS Press business/developer titles (sorry, no home/game books) in electronic form, great for searching and for carrying an entire library in your carry-on bag. See http://www.microsoft.com/mspress/business/ for info. It's not just a bunch of CHM files like you sometimes get on the CD with the books; there's a whole scheme for deploying on a network. You can even download a small demo. This site makes it sound like it's only available to high-volume EA/Select accounts, but it's also available via Open Business, which almost any Mom & Pop can qualify for. The entire IT Pro library costs about $320 through Open Business. This includes all new editions/releases for 2 years. The Developer library costs about the same as the IT Pro. The Desktop Apps library is about $45 for Open Business. Other volume licensing programs will have lower prices. For example, with Open Academic, $320 becomes $130 and $45 becomes $20.
Sorry if this sounds like an ad, but I really think this is a great deal compared to the alternative. At one company I used to work for, the company would buy relevant books that people requested, with the intention of building and maintaining a library. Of course the books would always wander off without a trace, sometimes permanently, until the company simply stopped buying.
There is some duplication between MELL content and MSDN Library/TechNet, but not very much.
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