Correction Appended: In this story it was incorrectly stated that the University's Textbook Task Force plans to develop a website which would allow professors to create custom textbooks. As of yet, they are looking to develop an online marketplace for professors to post reading lists, and booksellers and students to buy and sell books.

High textbook prices might be the result of a "broken" market system that state or federal legislation can't fix, said a congressional advisory committee in its report to Congress in May.

The Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, an independent research panel organized by Congress, said high textbook prices could be blamed on a "producer-centric" market that doesn't allow consumers to influence how products are formatted and sold.

Instead of regulating the textbook market, which the report says would be ineffective, the committee recommends an online marketplace where professors nationwide can order custom-made electronic or print copies of texts for students to purchase.

According to the report, these texts consisting of material from several publications would eliminate the cost of chapters that professors don't plan on covering, while protecting copyrights.

The University's Textbook Task Force, which has been investigating how to reduce the cost of textbooks since 2006, proposed a plan to digitalize much of the campus textbook market in its report to the Senate Advisory Committee on University Affairs in May.

In the long run, the task force said it would also like to establish a website for instructors to compile parts from several texts into one volume so that students won't have to purchase more than one book for a course.

But Statstics Prof. Brenda Gunderson, chair of the University's task force, said many publishers already have options for professors to buy customized textbooks and the opportunity is largely overlooked.

She said that while custom textbooks allow professors more flexibility in choosing material to cover, a textbook specifically designed for one course during a certain semester is not easily sold back.

"The cost of the customized version that is not able to be sold back used could be more than the cost of the full text that students would be able to sell back," she said.

Michelle Cooper, director of policy research for the congressional advisory committee, said the details of the committee's proposed plan need to be investigated to prevent such situations.

California State University is in the process of implementing an online text customization system similar to the one planned by the University's task force.

The congressional advisory committee's report said effective short-term actions other universities have taken to ease the problem include encouraging professors to order books earlier, informing students of the cost of textbooks and promoting used book sales and the use of library resources.