Just like several thousand other college students in 2004, Kali Donovan was wasting time on the Internet when he stumbled upon the recently created Facebook and signed up.

However, unlike the majority of people who have registered on the popular social networking site, Donovan, now a senior at Stanford majoring in political science with a minor in computer science, had some plans of his own for a Web site.

"Facebook came out when we were sophomores and it wasn't particularly attractive or particularly complex and I thought, 'Well I could do that,' and it was actually in the back of my head," Donovan said.

Now, three years later, he is the creator of thehappyzork.com, a student-to-student used textbook selling service that began in December at Stanford and Santa Clara University and expanded to the UW last week.

The site operates as a kind of cross between Craigslist and Facebook, allowing students to buy and sell their used textbooks at prices they think are fair.

What separates Happy Zork from other online used booksellers, aside from the fact that there are no fees to sign up, sell and buy, is the sense of community afforded by users creating profiles similar to those on MySpace and Facebook, complete with pictures and personal information.

"The point is buying books from your peers," Donovan said. "I'd be a lot more likely to buy a book from you if I know, hey, here's your face, you look familiar, you look like a real person. So if you have the profile it really makes the peer-to-peer element stronger. I wanted it to be a community and not just a Web site."

Donovan said familiarity between the buyer and seller isn't the only part of the equation at Happy Zork that benefits users.

Since people must be students at the university to sell books, the time between when the transaction is finalized and when the book and money change hands is often much shorter than national sites that ship the books across the country.

Also, to ensure a fair price, Happy Zork lists the used and new prices from Amazon alongside the seller's posted offer.

As for the free part of the deal, Donovan, who is looking forward to a career in computer science, said he built the site to add to his portfolio, though he is considering expanding advertisement availability in the future.

"[At] a number of other sites, you have to pay," he said. "I don't think you should have to pay for the privilege of trying to sell a book."

Matt Maloney, a senior at the UW, said he turned to sites like Amazon.com and Half.com because of high prices at the University Book Store, but met with mixed results.

"Most of the time I was happy with the service, but sometimes it took longer than I expected to get the books, and sometimes the seller canceled the order," he said.

Bryan Pearce, CEO of the University Book Store, cautioned students to remain wary of the problems associated with third-party booksellers, noting that these sites often sell incorrect editions or poor copies of books and that there is an inability to return merchandise.

"We recognize that if price is the only consideration, some students will go bargain hunting and may find a cheaper price on a book," he said in an e-mail. "However, value goes way beyond price and it's clear that the Bookstore offers UW students the best overall value and much lower risk."

Also, Pearce said rising textbook costs can be attributed to a variety of factors, though one of the biggest problems is the treatment of the used book trade by publishers.

"It starts with the publisher," he said. "Everything starts with new books, and that's where the price has been going up dramatically. A lot has been done by publishers to restrict the used book trade. Publishers don't like used books but students do."

For Donovan, however, the problem is one that can be solved.

"Regardless of whom you blame, the fact is students are buying textbooks for extremely large amounts of money," he said. "It's a large portion of the student budget, and then at the end of the quarter you sell some of those books back for a tiny percentage of that. If there's a way a seller can sell a book for more than what the Bookstore would buy it back for but less than what the Bookstore charges for it, then in that exchange, the seller and the buyer, who are both students, are benefiting."

Reach reporter Keegan Hamilton at news@thedaily.washington.edu.