Professors also complain about the store's ordering process for textbooks, some saying they use the Coop only as a last resort.

The Coop was founded in 1882 by Harvard students wary of Square merchants who gouged prices for textbooks and firewood. Firewood is no longer sold at the Coop, but students are still complaining about the high prices of texts.

Store officials insist they keep the price of textbooks as low as possible. The cost of the labor needed to meet unusual textbook requests, though, jacks up the price.

"Textbooks are a high maintenance business,' says Murphy. "It takes a lot of people to run it."

Faculty members say the Coop does a good job handling requests for the big Core courses. But the store often fails to deliver enough books for some classes, and regularly has trouble getting books for smaller classes.

"They have not established a relationship with the professors," says Jorge I. Dominguez, professor of government. "The Coop doesn't believe our estimates of the number of books needed, and they shave [the estimates] when they order."

But Lowell House Master William H. Bossert, a Coop stockholder, defends the store's textbook department.

"I looked very closely into the textbook operation a few years ago," says Bossert, Arnold professor of science. "And I found the real problems with the textbook operation were with the Harvard faculty."

Murphy says the University could make the life easier for his busy textbook department by establishing an office to coordinate requests.

Students must understand that textbooks are only part of the business, he says. He gently reminds students that they constitute only part of the Coop's membership.

"If students don't feel like we're serving their textbooks needs, they must remember there are other members we need to service."

Murphy says the Coop needs to sell Harvard insignia items and other tourist goods to support departments like textbooks.

The Coop--which employs about 550 people--does not have a bureaucracy, he says.

"Before, when I was in a big company, I could pick up the phone an talk to the expert on an issue," says Murphy. "Now I have to become the expert in everything."

One Filene's official, who requested anonymity, says the Coop is too inefficient and too small to pose any real threat to other department stores.