Matt Gentry | The Roanoke Times

Virginia Tech students Amanda Kerns (left), a sophomore physiology major, and Katherine Roach, a sophomore biology major, go over the list of text books that they need for classes in an isle of the Tech Bookstore on South Main Street in Blacksburg Wednesday. The two were trying to figure out ways to share books, used books, and use online resources in an attempt to save money.

What a difference a week makes.

Before Virginia Tech's incoming freshmen started arriving Aug. 16, every available inch of space in the Tech Bookstore on South Main Street was filled with boxes of textbooks waiting to be picked up by students who reserved them. The shelves in the back of the off-campus store were weighted down by thousands of other textbooks, used and new.

But by Thursday, the white boxes were gone. Students had picked over the shelves. Most used books -- the cheaper alternative to the shrink-wrapped new versions -- were long gone.

"Tuesday was just crazy, like if you turned on a switch," said Jerry Diffell, the manager of the Tech Bookstore. The store is owned by the Nebraska Book Co., one of three major players in the college bookstore market.

College bookstores nationwide have their highest volume of business between the few days before school starts in the fall and the first week of school. The spring rush is big, too, but can't compare with fall.

This year, in one week's time, 80 percent of Diffell's textbook stock found a home in Tech dorm rooms or apartment complexes around Blacksburg.

To get ready for the rush, Diffell hires about 20 part-time workers in the weeks leading up to the first day of school.

During the bookstore's extended hours, the part-timers work the registers and help students find their textbooks by deciphering the abbreviations for every discipline on campus: PSCI stands for political science, PAPA for public administration and policy, and WS for women's studies.

When business is really hopping, all nine registers are manned and one employee will play traffic cop for the lines of book buyers.

"People will come in in little spurts. There will be a whole bunch of people one moment, and then there will be a lull," said Caroline Byers, a Blacksburg High School student working the register Thursday.

Byers is the third sibling in her family to work at the Tech Bookstore.

In addition to ringing up customers, some of the part-time employees also dispense some words of wisdom.

"You can tell when someone is a freshman," said Heather Haas, a sophomore at Radford University who lives in Blacksburg. "We give them advice about courses and whether they really need the books the university says are suggested."

At Tech's University Bookstore on campus, the beginning of the school year is just as hectic.

The independent, nonprofit store usually begins planning for the fall rush before the end of spring semester. It hires temporary help as early as July, when the university holds orientation sessions for incoming first-year students, said Dave Wilson, the academic division manager at University Bookstore.

Like Diffell's store, the University Bookstore allows students to reserve books when they find out their class schedules. The store also takes orders for computers and begins distributing them to students the week before school starts. Tech requires students to have their own personal computers.

Allowing students to reserve books online is one service that helps the on-campus and off-campus stores compete with the online person-to-person sales of textbooks that have become commonplace.

With individual texts costing as much as $150, students turn to Web sites such as half.com and others, buying used books directly from other students.

Diffell said he has noticed a different dynamic in the industry because of rising book prices. But Wilson said he doesn't think it has affected his store too much.

"There are always other sources," Wilson said. "We haven't seen much of a loss due to pricing concerns."

Wilson said the University Bookstore discounts its textbooks about 10 percent off the national price to stay competitive.

Now that the big rush for textbooks is mostly over, the bookstores are gearing up for another, smaller rush -- the one that comes with the beginning of Hokie football season.