Inter-Residence Hall Association officials are hoping students can buy, sell and trade — and save money — with a revived book exchange venture.

The IRHA Book Exchange is an opportunity for students to sell or trade their textbooks to other students by way of a listing. IRHA held the book exchange for residence hall students in 1986. Rob Wiese, president of IRHA, brought the program back to life this year.

“A lot of the programs we do are educational and entertaining, but this is something we are doing to save people money. It is more of a service,” Wiese said. “I just thought it would be a good idea to bring it back.”

The listing begins in the residence hall post offices. Students can pick up a form on which they indicate the books they wish to sell, the course number, their asking price and their e-mail address.

Students leave the form at the post office and Wiese will make regular rounds to collect the lists. He’ll then compile the information.

Wiese said he will send an e-mail message that includes all the available books, their prices and the book owners to all students who turned in forms and anyone else who wants to receive the list.

Lists are likely to be posted in the Memorial Union as well, he said.

Wiese said he hopes students will take advantage of the program. He said IRHA officials tried to get the project going at the end of the spring 1996 semester — with shaky results. But Wiese said he thinks the lack of participation was due to the timing of the sale.

Because of the spring semester craze and the uncertainty of text selections for the fall semesters, Wiese said the service will only be provided between the fall and spring semesters, if it continues beyond this academic year. The IRHA Book Exchange will run until the end of the semester and for the first three weeks of the spring semester.

Wiese said this is a pro-student operation, not pro-book store. He said textbooks are “already way overpriced.”

Anyone interested in finding out what books are compiled on the list can contact Wiese via e-mail at [email protected].