Technological Transition

Despite UC Books’ past failures, council members say they have several innovative ideas that could improve the service.

Gusmorino says he would like UC Books to allow students to sell used books to each other directly, following the model of UC Marketplace, a council-sponsored website where students can exchange used books, furniture and other items.

He calls the exchange of books within the Harvard community “an area where there’s a lot of room for progress.”

But Gusmorino says this book exchange would require new technology.

But council member Jared M. Gross ’03, who is also a Crimson editor, says the problem with introducing an internal book exchange would not be technology but the service’s overall effectiveness.

“It seems to me that the technology is already in place,” Gross says. “On the other hand, I really can’t imagine it being that big because again I’m not sure people hold on to their books that long.”

Gross says students might choose to sell their books back to the Coop rather than wait an entire semester for students to buy them.

“If I was interested enough in the book to hold on to it for six months, I would probably want to keep it,” he says.

Another proposed innovation for UC Books would allow students to directly enter in the ISBNs of books they need. The site would then list online prices. Currently, students can only search for books that council members have already linked to the UC Books site.

But Gusmorino says that expanding the scope of UC Books in this way will likely involve technology that has not yet been developed.

“We’ve had version 1.0 and 1.2. It’s time for 2.0,” Gusmorino says.

Leadership?

While technology poses one problem for the future of UC Books, council members say that Gusmorino’s upcoming graduation is even more of a threat.

Without the technical expertise of its former president, some council members say UC Books could fail—and Gusmorino says he agrees.