Four months after Zack Crowther sold a cognitive science book on Northwestern’s Online Book Exchange, his entry still is listed on the site.
“Somehow the site is broken,” said Crowther, a McCormick junior. “It won’t let you take your entry off.”
Crowther said he sold the book at the beginning of Fall Quarter, two or three days after posting it. He has removed old entries before, but when he tried this time, he said he got an error message. Four or five students have tried to contact him since he sold the book, he said.
An outdated entry like Crowther’s is just one of many problems students face when using the online book exchange. The site, created by Associated Student Government and accessible through HereAndNow, allows NU students to search textbook postings by subject only.
But the book exchange at Yale University has none of these problems. Designed by senior Alexander Clark, the Yale site was founded in Fall 2002 and allows students to search for books by title and author, subject or ISBN number. Like the NU book exchange, there are no shipping costs or service fees. And because students price their own books, they receive all profits.
Clark said he used his own knowledge of problems buying and selling books to design the site.
“I was trying to figure out what I would want as a student,” Clark said. “That’s the nice thing when you’re developing for your own market, because you know what you would want as a buyer and a seller.”
The site has more than $100,000 worth of textbooks for sale, and more students are using the site every semester, Clark said.
Adam Forsyth, ASG senator and member of the student service and technology committees, said ASG has considered overhauling NU’s book exchange system. The Weinberg junior said the group would like to add entry expiration dates, a ranking system for book quality, pictures of posted books, an auctioning system such as eBay and a possible search by ISBN number. ASG knows the NU book exchange is an older site with older features, Forsyth said.
“The way (the book exchange) is now, it is very much like looking through the page with the classifieds,” said Forsyth. “With the Internet, you can do a lot more things with matching the things you want to buy with the things you want to sell.”
Forsyth said he does not know why an ASG attempt to overhaul the exchange last year never was completed.
Some students, including Shelby Clark, said they would continue to use the NU book exchange even in its current form to avoid selling books at Norris.
“You get nothing (at Norris) — it’s a joke,” said Clark, a McCormick senior. “I’d rather keep my books than sell them to Norris.”
Charles Depondt, textbook manager at Norris Bookstore, said he realizes some students are frustrated with the store’s buy-back system and have turned to services such as the NU book exchange.
“Whenever someone spends $100 for a book and gets $10 for it, they can’t be happy,” Depondt said.
Despite complaints, Norris saw a 20 percent increase last year in student buy-backs, Depondt said. He attributes the increase to changes in advertising.
Weinberg freshman Geoff Tresley said he probably will sell his books at the Norris bookstore instead of online.
“I’m just at Norris a lot,” Tresley said, “so I find it would just be easier to resell it there.”
