Many returning upperclass students--possibly a majority--did not receive Harvard course catalogs in time for school this year, forcing them to secure their copies at today's already rushed registration.

Harvard officials are quick to avoid blame for the catalog mixup, eventually passing it on to Pamela L. Green, mail communications production coordinator for the Office of University Publications (OUP). Green is reportedly investigating the delay but did not return repeated phone calls yesterday.

For students, the missing catalogs meant the portentous possibility of attempting to go course shopping without a shopping list.

Students who do not live on the East Coast were less likely to be affected, but mailing catalogs closer to home proved problematic.

"I couldn't believe I didn't get a catalog," said Mark C. Alonge '96, who lives on Long Island, New York. "And of 7 people I asked, 5 hadn't gotten them. All of us who didn't get books are from the East Coast, too."

"You'd think that it would be the other way around, since we're so much closer to school," he added.

University officials say the catalogs were mailed second class on August 9, 32 days before the houses opened on September 10. According to an employee of the Harvard Square branch of the Boston Post Office, second class mail should take between 5 and 7 days to arrive at any destination in the continental United States.

Associate Registrar Thurston A. Smith said that mailing catalogs first class would be prohibitively expensive. Heattributed this year's delay to a "calculated riskthat the University takes when we mailpublications second class."

However, inconvenienced and irritated studentssaid that in past years they have always receivedtheir catalogs by mid-to-late August.

"I didn't receive one on time this year," saidWeymouth, Massachusetts resident Terrence C. Boyle'94. "I've always received them much earlier, butfortunately I live close enough so that I was ableto go home and get it when it did arrive."

Smith insists that this year's distributionprocedure echoes that of previous summers.

"We mail (the catalogs) out as soon as they'reavailable, which is generally in the first week ofAugust," Smith said.

He told The Crimson Wednesday that all catalogswere picked up together by University MailServices and delivered to the mail communicationsdepartment of OUP.

"We sent them to OUP, so if there was a problemit didn't originate here," Smith added.

An employee at the Office of the Registrarconfirmed that there was a complication this year.

"We've had dozens of students coming in everyday to get catalogs, complaining that they neverarrived at home; that's not supposed to happen.And [the students] do seem to be overwhelminglyfrom the Northeast.