In an effort to combat this trend, IU Student Association recently partnered with texts.com, an online student textbook exchange.
Texts.com is a book search website where students can search for new, used and rental books, IUSA Chief of Partnerships and Special Projects AJ Gauthier said.
“The unique thing about texts.com is that it aggregates data from across the web to give you the best prices,” he said. “And the unique thing about our partnership with texts.com is that the indiana.texts.com link gives you all of that, but it also contains student ?listings.”
Students looking to purchase books can search for specific books or browse campus listings. Once they have found a book, students can then compare the prices offered by classmates to the prices offered by traditional booksellers.
Students looking to sell books can list the book’s condition, the associated courses and the associated professors.
“Amazon may be quick, but it won’t have some of the textbooks that are personal to IU,” Gauthier said.
The website provides a suggested price based on shopping prices and buyback prices but allows students to set their own price.
“So it moves away from our traditional model where we’re listing books on Facebook or listing books on IU classifieds,” Gauthier said. “It gives students a centralized place to communicate books with each other as well as search for books on other websites at the same time.”
The website comes with the promise to “never overpay or under-sell” because it allows students to compare the prices offered by classmates to the prices of traditional booksellers and then set their own.
Peter Frank, co-founder and CEO of texts.com, reached out to IUSA President Andy Braden about a partnership between ?texts.com and IUSA toward the end of last academic year, Gauthier said.
After a semester of collaboration between Frank and IUSA as well as IU administrators, the partnership between texts.com and IUSA passed IUSA Congress toward the beginning of the spring semester, ?Gauthier said.
“We want to move toward a centralized database for students to buy and sell textbooks, and texts.com is a step in the right direction,” he said.
IUSA has since publicized the website on social media and has handed out promotional business cards and T-shirts. Gauthier said IUSA also hopes to publicize the website on ?PowerPoint slides in lecture halls and to hold promotional events during ?Little 500.
“Any form of publicity that we can get, we’re going to leverage,” he said. “It’ll catch on eventually because it’s such a convenient ?system.”
Gauthier said once IUSA gets the word out, students will appreciate the user-friendly experience. He said he recognizes, however, that it will not be easy for IUSA to get the word out.
The website is currently open for students to become familiar with and use to exchange textbooks.
Students can sign up on the website by using their IU email address and creating a username and password.
Currently, the service is only set up for ?IU-Bloomington.
“I see it as revolutionary,” he said. “If it actually catches on, it will be helpful for students. And that’s the goal here.”
