Citing financial concerns and time constraints, the Undergraduate Council Sunday night narrowly voted down a resolution to produce student-oriented guidebooks to the Houses.

The books, intended to help first-years select houses for next month's lottery, would have cost the council a maximum of $2,100, said Hassen A. Sayeed '96, chair of student affairs committee. Sayeed was one of the resolution's three sponsors.

The resolution failed by a vote of 25-21.

The guidebooks would have included two or three page descriptions of each house, written by a member of the respective house committees, Sayeed said.

Jennifer W. Grove '94, a Kirkland House delegate and former chair of that house's committee, spoke up against the resolution at Sunday's meeting.

Grove said student-written reports in previous editions of the administration's Inside the Houses guide were both hard to compile and unhelpful.

"It was always hard to get people to write them, which puts a time constraint on the U.C.," especially with the housing lottery approaching rapidly, Grovesaid in an interview yesterday.

She also said the descriptions written bystudents in the guide inevitably "sounded prettymuch the same."

"There wasn't really anything to distinguishthe houses from one another," Grove said. "Theyall pretty much said, 'my house is a cool place tolive."

But Sayeed defended the resolution, saying thebooks could have been helpful.

"Those pithy paragraphs in the official guidearen't very helpful," Sayeed said.

Justin C. Label '97, the student affairscommittee vice-chair who cosponsored theresolution, also said the spirit of the housescould have been effectively conveyed in thereports.

"What [the administration] chose to eliminate[form this year's guide] was probably what wasmost helpful to the students--the unofficialstudent perspective--what the mystique andcharacter of each house is," Label said yesterday.

Label noted that the student affairs committeeplans to continue work on the guidebooks for thefuture.

"We still think the idea is a good one, and weplan to get it through next year," Label said.

The guidebook resolution was the only one onSunday night's docket.