Bookswap Please
*Update* Cooper informs me that there will be a bookswap on one.berkeley.edu next semester, and that there was one this semester. I never heard about the one that occured at the beginning of the semester, and I'm really enthusiastic about this whole book swap thing, so I can't imagine there was a lot of publicity. My fear is that come spring there will be another book swap and it will go poorly and students will continue to get ripped off. I'm going to have to find out who the project director is of the one.berkeley.edu bookswap and see if they have any information on what their plans are. I still welcome your comments on this Rebecca. */Update*

Rebecca C. Brown over at Caljunket is apparently involved in a redesign of the ASUC webpage. She has a request for her readers:

Yep, my webmaster and I are starting asuc.org from scratch. 'Cause right now it's really ugly and unsalvagable.

So, what do you want to see on the new asuc.org? What features or links or services could make it better? Thanks for your input.

Since I have my own blog, I'll answer here rather than in her comments. I want one thing from the ASUC: an effective reliable way to buy and sell books for classes. Misha's set-up on Sproul is largely ineffective, and sign up sheets placed out for a couple of days are clearly not the way to facilitate the large scale exchange of books between students. There is comegetused.com, but I can rarely find any of the books I need there, and most students I've spoken to haven't ever bought books there.

That leaves us with the option that most students use. We buy our ridiculously expensive books from either Ned's or the ASUC Bookstore. Then, at the end of the year, we go sell the books back, getting at most 50% of the original cost, and usually less than that. Then the bookstore resells the books for 75% of their original cost. Students lose out twice. We get less money from the bookstore than we could from other students, and we end up paying more to the bookstore than we would pay to other students.

That money goes to profits for the store and for paying workers to stand around and handle our transactions, when that process could occur just as easily online. I would like to see the ASUC put some substantial effort into making it easier for students to buy and sell school books, either through developing their own online exchange forum or putting an effort into publicizing comegetused.com.

This would serve as a substantial benefit to students, realized every year as extra money in our pockets.
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