Juan Carlo / Star staff Chase Linsley, a senior at CLU majoring in bioengineering, carries the textbooks he recently purchased for school. His total cost: $850. Linsley says the new legislation "will help students make an educated decision about where they're buying their textbooks."

College bookstores will have to disclose how much they mark up textbooks under legislation signed by the governor this week.

In addition, publishers will have to list any significant revisions they've made in the latest editions of their textbooks, either on the covers or within the books.

The changes, which take effect in 2010, come amid frequent complaints from college students about the price of textbooks, which routinely cost $500 or more a semester.

Chase Linsley, 21, a senior at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks, said textbook pricing has always been a mystery to him, so the changes "appear to be a step in the right direction."

"This will help students make an educated decision about where they're buying their textbooks," Linsley said.

The new law, Assembly Bill 1548, was one of two bills addressing the cost of textbooks introduced in the Legislature this year.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed the other, Senate Bill 832, which was similar to AB 1548 but also required publishers to estimate when a textbook would be revised again.

The two California bills were among 86 nationwide that dealt with textbook costs, according to the National Association of College Stores.

"We'll probably continue to see more legislation until we see something that controls pricing," said Pam Wick, regional manager for the Follett Higher Education Group, which runs bookstores at CLU and CSU Channel Islands in Camarillo.

Textbook costs almost tripled from 1986 to 2004, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office. In 2003-04, college students spent nearly $900 a year on textbooks, according to that report.

Publishers say costs are going up because textbooks now often come packaged with CDs and workbooks that are expensive to produce.

An art history book, for example, might be packaged with a CD of paintings. A Spanish book might include interactive conversation CDs that students use instead of going to a language lab. An algebra book might be linked to a Web page where students can do homework that's graded online.

Professors decide how many of those additions they want, and that determines the cost of the book, said Bruce Hildebrand, executive director for higher education with the Association of American Publishers.

"The supplemental material has evolved as technology has evolved," Hildebrand said. "Students learn differently now."

On top of that, there's the markup that college bookstores typically take on textbooks — about 22 to 25 percent, said Charles Schmidt, spokesman for the college store association.

"That's about the same as Wal-Mart and lower than other stores that college students frequent," he said.

But Haco Hoang, a professor of political science at CLU, believes new technology and markups don't entirely explain the spike in textbook costs.

"I rarely assign textbooks anymore because I have found that price gouging is an issue," Hoang said.

Instead, she takes advantage of journal articles that are available free online. And she uses her lectures to cover the material presented in textbooks.

"I don't find the quality of textbooks high enough to justify that spending," Hoang said.

She said students appreciate that she realizes how much textbooks cost. Because professors get free copies of textbooks to review, she said, they might not always consider cost when they add them to their syllabus.

Students also complain that publishers regularly print updated versions of books with only minor revisions, then charge more for the latest edition. When professors select books for their courses, they often require students to buy those updated editions, even though a similar earlier version of the textbook would cost less or be available on the used market.

Students, meanwhile, have their own ways of coping with pricey textbooks, said Chelsee Bente, a junior at CSU Channel Islands majoring in history and political science.

They might compare prices and buy their books online, or look for used books in the campus bookstore, she said. They might share a book, or take their chances and not buy it at all.

Some professors try to keep costs down, Bente said. They'll look for less expensive versions of a textbook or tell students they can share with someone if they can't afford a book.

Still, Bente spent $60 last semester on a workbook in which the professor used only five pages. In another class, she spent $90 on a book that came with a CD, which the professor didn't use at all.

"Some books seem reasonable to me," she said. "But it's high on some, and that's what really kills."