So the bookstore wouldn’t buy back half of your books again, and the ones they did gave you just enough cash to eat dinner. Every semester, Fairfield students relive the same story. Wouldn’t it be great if there were another way?
Now there is. The Mirror, in association with FUSA, has recently launched MirrorList.com, a place where students can browse and list textbooks for free.
But MirrorList.com is more than just a book exchange; it functions similar to the immensely successful Craigslist.com, but is specific to Fairfield.
Users can post and browse job and housing listings and sell and buy everything from textbooks and calculators to concert tickets and cars. The Web site also functions as a central source of information for student organizations, special events and even dating services.
The FUSA Senate has sponsored the FUSA book exchange on Stagweb since 2004, but with the advent of MirrorList.com, the service may be seeing its final days.
Senator Chris Pace ’08, who functions as the point person for the senate’s current system, explained: “While the current system has hundreds of listings, many are out of date and the selling rate is rather low because of lack of popularity. Theoretically it’s a great system; people just do not know about it. It will be interesting to see the student response to the new site.”
Students also voiced their disappointment with the FUSA book exchange.
“I tried that FUSA book exchange thing and it was pretty ineffective because if the person doesn’t search for the exact thing you listed the book as, nothing’s going to come up,” said Michelle Gingras ’08.
Unlike the FUSA book exchange, MirrorList.com does not require access through Stagweb and is therefore open to the general public. Because of this increased visibility, the site only provides a user’s e-mail address once a buyer initiates contact through a Web site and the seller chooses to respond, which ensures privacy.
MirrorList.com is hosted by CampusAve, which hosts similar sites for colleges and universities such as Boston College, Northeastern and St. John’s.
“While MirrorList is a reasonably small source of revenue for the paper, it is really more about affording the University community, and more importantly the students, a centralized information center,” said Mirror CFO Timothy Lund ’07.
Initial reactions from the student body have been positive.
“It’s a useful and accommodating way for students to access a variety of resources relevant to their every day lives,” said Kate Brady ’07. “It’ll be nice to have everything in one location.”
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