The inevitable, pocket-wrenching doom that is the purchasing of textbooks is here again. While many students flock to local bookstores, others fill up online shopping carts at Internet textbook companies.

“Buying books online is a lot easier because you don’t have to wait in line or go to three different bookstores because one doesn’t carry your specific text book. Also, it seems like you can get them cheaper online,” said Meghan Armstrong, San Antonio senior.

Convenience may sometimes outweigh price, but students generally search for the cheapest deal. In order to cater to the thrifty KU student, two alternative options are available. The Student Senate Online Book Exchange and Hawzo are two KU services geared to provide students with the most inexpensive options.

In Spring 2004, Student Senate started an online book exchange for students to buy and sell used textbooks. The service went mostly unused and now, a year and a half later, the Student Senate Web site is temporarily shut down while they work on revamping its service to attract more users.

“In order to get the book exchange more integrated, we have been working with Academic Computer Services to launch a new site by the end of fall semester,” said Student Body President Nick Sterner. “The new site will be incorporated with Kyou portal, which ideally will enable students to view their classes and the textbooks they need at the same time.”

Until the book exchange relaunches, students will be able to use Hawzo at www.hawzo.com. Hawzo, an online marketplace for borrowing and lending textbooks, was created by Vinod Muralidhar and Karthik Varadarajan, two KU computer science graduate students from India.

Muralidhar and Varadarajan have worked in cooperation with other University groups in order to keep the site as KU oriented as possible and to help ensure its success. They are working with the School of Engineering for logistic support. Last week, they registered a new student organization called BLAB, which stands for “book lending and borrowing.”

“We formed this group primarily as a means to involve and interest more and more people into our Web site,” Muralidhar said.

They developed the idea of a book exchange after several failed attempts to borrow seniors’ books for advanced courses.

“We were discussing the increasing cost of books and wanted to try and borrow them instead. It was hard because we didn’t know who to contact or people we knew had moved,” Muralidhar said.

The site is designed to provide students a place to find books at a minimal price. Hawzo is ideal for students who keep books as a reference for advanced courses or job interviews. Todd Peters, Wichita senior, said he prefers to keep his pre-med books as a reference for graduate admissions tests.

“These books lie stagnant on the student’s shelf with no use for him/her during those intermittent periods,” Varadarajan said. “Our Web site will serve to make maximum use of those unused resources.”

Like the Student Senate book exchange, Hawzo allows the lender to set the value of a book and list it for a prospective borrowers. Based on that value, a lending fee is calculated at about 7 percent for each two-month loan period. For example, a $100 book would cost about $20 for a six-month loan. The percentage was based on the price Muralidhar and Varadarajan would be willing to pay to borrow a book. Students can borrow a book for as many two-month loan periods as they want.

“We chose two months because we want to protect the current condition of the book as much as possible, but there is no problem renewing the loan,” Muralidhar said.

The exchange of the book is done by postal mail. Muralidhar and Varadarajan are considering creating a drop box on campus to make the process more convenient.

Hawzo users will make their payments with PayPal, paypal.com, an online service with a broad customer base. This service allows the buyer and seller to make the transaction with either a credit card or a checking account.

“PayPal is used by about 50 million people right now, so I figured that customers would know this service is safe and that their money is not being misused,” Muralidhar said. He added that it could be changed later based on user request.

More changes may be made to Hawzo when the Student Senate’s book exchange reopens.

“If after the six-month period the site is still running well, we will integrate it with Student Senate so that our site will be part of KU and will continue when we leave the university,” Muralidhar said.

The possible collaboration between Student Senate and Hawzo’s creators could give students the ability to both sell and lend books on a single site.

­— Edited by Katie Lohrenz