Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 also praised the Coop's selection over online book sellers.

"The Coop will order *every* course book for *every* course at Harvard," Lewis wrote in an e-mail message. "Some 200-level course in advanced Tibetan needs five copies of an obscure paperback published in Katmandu, the Coop will order them--and absorb all the risks and costs of returns, short sales, faculty anger when 7 copies are actually needed."

On the other hand, Limespot.com--which allows students to search multiple vendors for the best prices--admits that its search engine is limited by the books that its vendors offer.

Liang Weng, chief technical officer of Limespot.com, says the company has plans to set up a site location where rare books would be more accessible, but that he could offer no specifics as to how they plan to do so.

However, some online sites, such as VarsityBooks.com, claim that they can match that service.

"We carry over 350,000 titles of textbooks and trade books. Because of our extensive inventory we most likely have the rare books that students need," writes Jodi Gershoni, communications director at VarsityBooks.com, in an e-mail message.

Lewis, however, expressed skepticism over such claims.