A lot of college kids started school this week. I wanted to swing by Harvard while I was in Boston, you know, to grab a sweatshirt or something, but didn’t have time. It’s probably for the best, because one of my Boston coworkers said that the college campuses are a madhouse right now, and it’s UHauls as far as the eye can see. The long lines and constant hurry up and wait – that’s the part of school I hated. (Besides the studying and reports and tests.)
To add insult to injury, when you’re done standing in a long line, you’re rewarded with another bill. There are fees to park, fees for classes and labs, and let’s not forget one of the biggest fees of all – textbooks. Regardless of whether you go to an Ivy League school or your local community college, you’ll spend hundreds of dollars each semester on textbooks, with the promise of being able to sell them back to the bookstore once the semester is open. How many times have you done that, only to receive $20 on a book that cost you $100? Or to be told that book won’t be reused, so you can’t even sell it back?
A new site called socialbib is hoping to put a stop to the textbook madness that most college students deal with each semester. Socialbib is a textbook trading posts where students can exchange textbooks they no longer need for new books. It’s completely free too! The idea is simple – you create a listing with the textbooks you no longer need, and give them to someone who does. If you need books, you can browse the listings people have created, and get your book for free. It’s so simple, yet genius!
The creators of the site have put in a few safeguards to eliminate fraud, for example, students are required to create their profile with their school email address. You can rate the users you deal with to help others avoid bad eggs. If you can’t meet someone in person to exchange books, they suggest using media mail, which is super cheap – even for a college student living on a diet of raman noodle.
I wish something like this had existed when I was still in school!
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Comments
Isn’t it amazing how when there is a problem, minds get together and come up with a terrific solution. This is great, I’ll pass the link on to my granddughter. Isn’t it sad that are government isn’t able to find simple solutions for complex problems, Reduce taxes and have us respect them instead of dispise and not trust them, as so many do…?
Dorothy from grammology
I used a more local service that did this exact same thing, but back in 2000. Often a simple forum set up for a particular school can give you a plethora of leads for textbook trading.
Or you could just copy the parts of the book you need and return it.
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