"It's scary to have massive chains dictating what kind of artistic content you have access to," she says.

But Powell argues that the Coop's affiliation with Barnes & Noble was prompted not by profit motive, but by member demand.

"They wanted the Coop to be more of a bookstore and less of a department store," says Powell, referring to the results of a 1994 survey.

And he adds the change is not as drastic as some have made it out to be.

"The Coop has always had a large trade bookstore," he says. "The only thing we did in terms of major changes was put the bookstore in front."

The 1994 survey also indicated that members wanted an increased selection--one which Barnes & Noble was able to supply.

"We try to have the best selection in town," Powell says.

Still, even with the Coop's new customer-friendly approach, students are still complaining of its high prices.

Powell says this can be explained because "in the book industry, the more you buy, the more it costs." Buying a large quantity of a particular title causes distributors to assume that the book is being used as a textbook, he says, and actually leads them to charge a higher price than usual.

This discrepancy explains why the identical edition of a book can be priced lower in the Coop's trade section than in the textbook section.

"We try to catch those discrepancies, but our system is not yet set up for that," Powell says.

But the Coop is not profiting from the expensive books, Sullivan says.

The store's main source of profit comes not from its textbook division but from other wares, such as trade books, clothing and dorm room furnishings.

"It's done as a service," Sullivan says of the textbook floor.

And for those who doubt that the Coop is passing along the best price it can?