Textbook prices are becoming an ever-growing worry for students. To alleviate frustrations among the student body, the Student Government Association recently launched PirateSwap.com, a site offering a way for students to purchase books from their classes at cheaper prices than the bookstore offers.
One of the issues brought up in SGA election campaigns last semester was the steadily increasing prices of textbooks. The students of Row B, Sheena Collum, Gregory Demers, Santino Certo and Jennifer Martinez, sought to find a solution to this problem. During the fall semester, the SGA viewed proposals to aid in its search for an answer. Among the submitted ideas came PirateSwap.com, a unique Web site no similar universities have.
Approved unanimously by both the Senate and Executive Board last November, PirateSwap.com allows students to connect with each other in order to buy and sell used textbooks. Money transactions will not be run through the site; instead it will be up to students to negotiate prices on their own time.
Prospective buyers and sellers communicate through the site and establish the trade off elsewhere. The SGA hopes the site will bring these types of students together.
“The new system will only work with the support of students and faculty,” SGA President Sheena Collum said. “Students need to take the time to log in and sign up for the new book swap and sell their books online.”
Collum said the responsibility also falls to the faculty.
“Faculty need to find a book that is best for their class and stick with that specific text for a few years without changing the edition,” she said.
The site offers benefits for both buyers and sellers. While anyone can browse the database of available textbooks, a Seton Hall e-mail address is required in order to post an offer for selling a book.
Initial contact between buyers and sellers is guided through messages on the site and done anonymously. This is done to protect email accounts. The seller can either choose to respond to the buyer, or ignore it.
PirateSwap.com is not looking to put the bookstore out of business, but instead to provide some healthy competition.
“The Student Government does not by any means want to undermine the efforts of the bookstore to provide students with the necessary supplies,” Collum said. “However, in our roles we must do things that are most beneficial to the general student body such as providing competition.”
Brian Radigan can be contacted at radigabr@shu.edu.
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