State Assembly members are one step closer to permanentlylowering textbook prices for California college students.

Assembly Bill 2477, a textbook bill, passed through the HigherEducation Committee April 1 and will be heard in an AppropriationsCommittee on April 28.

Democratic Assemblywoman Carol Lui is one of four co-authors ofthe bill.

Lui and other Assembly members have been meeting regularly withpublishing companies to negotiate changes in the way textbooks arepackaged, priced and sold.

“The purpose of these gatherings is to meet and see ifthere is a collective solution that can be reached,” saidCandace Chung, a spokeswoman for Lui.

Typically these meetings consist of publishers, co-authors ofthe bill, students and faculty. The last meeting, which took placein March, consisted of about 40 people Chung said.

Also in attendance at these meetings are representatives fromthe California Public Interest Research Group.

One of the publishing companies being targeted by the group isThomson Learning, a large publishing company that distributes booksin Europe, Asia and the United States. Several of their books arefor sale in the Hornet Bookstore.

A letter, which originated at UC Davis, was signed by more than500 college faculty and staff from across the country and sent toThomson requesting cheaper textbooks.

The letter requests that new editions not be printed until”significantly new content … would justify anupdate,” as well as the establishment of a fair pricingscheme.

Thomson was cited in a report, released in late January, fromthe research group detailing tactics used by publishing companiesto raise textbook prices and keep them high titled “RipOff101.”

According to the report the Thomson Web site offers aMathematics book for $126.36 in the United States, but only $59.36in the United Kingdom.

The CEO of Thomson Learning, Ronald Schlosser, did not returnphone calls before press time.

The Hornet Bookstore offers ways for students to save money,such as buying used books, but because bookstores have no controlover which text a professor chooses, they can do very little todirectly affect the price of books, said Julia Milardovich, theHornet Bookstore Director.

“Used books are the best way to save money,”Milardovich said

If the bookstore has received an order from a professor,students will then receive 50 percent of the new price of the book,whether they bought it new or used, when they sell it back at thesend of a semester.

However, at the beginning of the semester students receive awholesale price for books they sell back.

This can be anywhere between 10 and 20 percent of the new pricedepending on national demand for the book. This is because booksbought back at the beginning of the semester are shipped to otheruniversity bookstores that are still in need of the book.

“We have been watching the legislation very carefully. Wehave voiced our concerns to publishers, especially about thedifference in price between books in European and the UnitedStates,” she said.

Buybacks at the Hornet Bookstore begin May 17.