If you had questions about finishing your degree, you could consult your adviser. If you were looking for a cheap sushi restaurant, you could grab the yellow pages. If you needed information about apartment rentals, you could visit Web site after Web site searching for advice. Or you could pick up the Not For Tourists Guide to Seattle — UW Edition and find all of the above.

For about 30 years, the Graduate and Professional Student Senate (GPSS) has been writing a “Guide to Life” to help new students get accustomed to campus and Seattle living, but the 2009 edition was given a new look, a new publisher and more.

“We wanted to update the GPSS ‘Guide to Life,’” graduate student Anna Batie said. “Quite a bit of information was out of date, and it wasn’t really that fun to read. It read more like an academic text than a hip, fun guidebook.”

This year, the New York-based guidebook company, Not For Tourists (NFT), agreed to enter into a partnership with GPSS and use the “Guide to Life” as a fifty-page introduction to its Seattle book.

“We had to go through several drafts and make sure we had the most up-to-date information we could,” GPSS secretary Lindsay Alane Morse said. “Things are always changing on and around campus. For example, for our next edition, the HUB will be closed for remodeling, and we will have to take that into consideration when advising students what to do and where to go on campus.”

Unlike past guides, which were geared mainly towards graduate and professional students, for this edition GPSS teamed up with ASUW to create a special section just for undergraduates.

“When asked if we wanted contribute, we were happy to work on this project,” said Phuong Nguyen, the 2008-2009 director of faculty, administration and academic affairs. “We truly felt this would be beneficial for incoming students and students in general. Overall, we wanted to provide information that we have found useful as undergrads based on our backgrounds from different parts of the campus community.”

The undergraduate section has a variety of tips, such as how to get an add code for a class that is full and how to check out laptops and projectors from Kane Hall. The guide is written in paragraph form but is full of maps and diagrams, including a map of local bus routes.

GPSS members are making a list of content suggestions for future editions and invite all UW students to send them their tips by e-mail to ensure nothing useful gets left out.

“This is a project that will need to evolve in the future, as the campus and surrounding communities evolve, too,” Morse said.

The guides are sold directly to graduate and professional student programs for $10, so they can easily be distributed to students. They are available to other members of the campus community now at the University Book Store, including its HUB branch. Though Not For Tourists usually sells its guidebooks for about $20, UW community members can purchase them for $13.

GPSS does not make any profit from the sale of the books, but NFT does donate 50 cents from each book sold to support students. Morse said GPSS isn’t sure where the proceeds will go yet, but thinks they may be put into a scholarship fund for needy students.

Reach reporter Katie McVicker at news@dailyuw.com.