Book exchange online for student use
Fall semester is almost over, and students are starting to save for the books they have to buy for spring semester.
Some students don’t know there is an alternative to the bookstore on campus to save money when buying books. The book exchange is a Web site that gives Utah State University students the opportunity to sell and buy the book they need for class.
Alyssa “Al” Lambert, Associated Students of USU student advocate, is helping to promote the site. She said her function at ASUSU is to show students what resources they have on campus. She said it’s important to inform students about the book exchange since most of them have never heard about it.
Students don’t have a lot of places to buy books in Logan, Lambert said, so the book exchange is a nice alternative to compare prices.
“Students are poor – whatever we can do to help them save money [is] a good thing,” she said.
She also said the Web site is an “unmoderated venue,” which means the users are responsible for all the transactions made within the site. Lambert said the book exchange tries to facilitate communication with students.
“The cool thing about the site is that it’s only used by USU students, so all the books there are adopted by the university,” she said.
The Web site is cheaper then the other ones that offer the same kind of service, Lambert said, because students don’t have to pay shipping fees.
The Free Software and Linux Club is responsible for the administration of the Web page. Kyle Waters, a public relations representative for the club, said because of student input, the Web page will have some changes that will start next week and end after Christmas break. The objective of these changes is to make the site more user friendly.
The first change will be in the URL. The Internet address now is http://bookexchange.usu.edu, but the official name of the program is ABAY- Aggie Online Marketplace. Lambert said students don’t associate the book exchange with the marketplace and this creates confusion. The new URL is going to be http://abay.usu.edu, to make it easier for the students to associate them both, Lambert said.
Lambert said she is also trying to put more accessible links for the book exchange page in the A-station home page. She said if students could find it easier, they would use it more.
Waters said many students have asked for a tutorial explaining how to use the page and he also said this new tool should be online for users next week. Another change is that the announcements for the books will be taken out automatically after a couple of weeks they were posted, he said.
“One complaint we had is that the classifieds are there for a long time, because people don’t take their ads off,” Waters said.
The Web site is designed to help students find what they need. Students can look for ads according to the date they were posted, by subject, department or key word, according to the Web site. Also, according to the page, students can register and receive e-mails when books of their interest are posted.
Lambert said the Web page also has a space for general classified ads and rides for students coordinate to carpool home, but they haven’t been used for more than a year. She said those links are unnecessary because other places in the university have them posted.
“We want this Web page to be only for books, there is no other place on campus students can do that,” she said.
Waters said students’ input are always welcome and any comments should be addressed to the Ombudsman Office. Students can access the page through the ASUSU Web site or through the index on USU’s homepage.
-acantunes@cc.usu.edu