Doing the required reading will hurt more than ever this year.

Textbook prices at Harvard and across the country have been rising at an alarming rate, faster than inflation, and will hit a high again this year.

According to a study by the College Board, textbook costs have increased nearly 90 percent during the past decade. A similar study by the National Association of College Stores puts the figure at 104 percent.

"People coming to the campus for the first time are definitely shocked," says Charles A. Thodt, director of information and research for the association.

James M. Rosen, the Harvard Coop's textbook buyer, says students will pay 5 percent more for books at the Coop this year than last year. Other college stores are hiking prices an average of 9 percent.

"In the past three years, textbook prices have gone up in excess of the rise in the cost of living," he says. "It's fair to assume that it's going to continue on up."

Harvard's financial aid office estimates that undergraduates will spend $1736 on textbooks and other personal expenses this year. That's up from the $1620 budgeted last year, and the $1545 the year before.

Rosen, who has been buying books for the Coop since 1985, says publishers are making more money at students' expense.

"It's my belief that their profit margins are greater than 10 years ago," he says.

But officials in the publishing industry say students are getting better quality textbooks for the extra cash.

Nicholas A. Veliotes, president of the American Association of Publishers, says the modern textbook costs more to produce because there are more photos and charts.

Veliotes says developing a textbook is a risky venture which requires a "tremendous investment of time and money," especially with "the complex, graphic, audiovisual, and other support materials that now make up the modern package."

Better books or not, many students prefer the cheaper used books.

Rosen says used book sales at the Coop haveskyrocketed over the past five years, increasingmore than 300 percent. Bookstores are respondingto the demand by stocking more used books, butthey can still be hard to come by.

Higher book costs have also prompted professorsto tighten up reading lists or offer sourcebookswith passages taken from several books.

"In general, professors have been veryconscientious in getting the least expensiveeditions," says Jones Professor of Classical GreekLiterature Gregory Nagy.