Never again will we wait in line in the middle of May with roughly 200 pounds of textbooks to return. Never again will we make out a $400 check to the Hornet Bookstore and write “I hate school” on the memo line. Never again will we return eight books that originally ran us $375 only to get $43 back.

At least, that seemed like the idea last week, when the Associated Students, Inc. Board of Directors entered a contract with textbook auction Web site BIGnerd.com. The company, founded by Sacramento State alumni Terry Donohue and Ryan Gillette, could help provide much-needed relief from the inequities and inconveniences students face at the Bookstore.

The deal isn’t likely to provide immediate profits for ASI, however. The two-year contract requires ASI to promote the Web site on campus at a cost of $2,500 per year. ASI is allowed to use the BIGnerd brand and logo in its promotional efforts. To recoup its promotional costs, which must be spent regardless of program’s success level on campus, Sac State students have to provide $187,000 in sales each semester.

On the bright side, the Web site’s registration process is fairly painless (make sure you have a credit card, though) and there are already 21 books being sold by Sac State students. With the right kind of promotion, this thing can take off.Joshua Wood, ASI vice president of university affairs and the chief student organizer of the BIGnerd /ASI partnership, is reserving judgment for a later date.

“By the end of next year, I hope we’ll break even,” Wood said. “We should have four to five thousand students using it.”

What’s more, Wood has proposed using any extra revenue the venture creates to build up a student scholarship fund. The plan provides a great safety net to protect the potential surplus from the grubby hands of future boards.

Cynics might point to last year’s debacle with Web designer Six-One-Nine, when there was no contractual deadline for the company to complete ASI’s Web site. But Wood — who joined ASI’s Finance Director Randy Morgan and Executive Director Patricia Worley in patiently negotiating the deal with BIGnerd — said that both parties were determined to avoid a repeat of the Six-One-Nine episode.

Noticeably absent from the BIGnerd proceedings was ASI President Peter Ucovich, who campaigned last year for a campus book exchange program that would happen under his watchful eye. When talking about the exchange program in early February, he wasn’t sold on the BIGnerd project, citing a concern over the lack of business it generated in December and January.

This contract cannot be what Ucovich imagined as his big, fancy book exchange; it’s a localized eBay, more or less. No doubt the man is busy (he’s graduating this semester — along with all of his presidential and committee duties, the man hardly stops moving), but didn’t he have time to at least get involved with what should have been his pet project?

At any rate, he didn’t, and this is what we have. It looks promising, however; beyond any benefit the contract can give ASI and BIGnerd’s proprietors, it can benefit students greatly. Down the line, BIGnerd.com’s success could force the CSUS Foundation to rethink its Bookstore buyback policy — and actually give students a decent amount of money for their used books.

BIGnerd.com may not be what we dreamed of, but it’s still something nice to wake up next to. Use the service — if not to help ASI, then to help two alumni entrepreneurs and yourself. Walk up to the line that forms at the Bookstore in May and tell everyone about it. When more people use it, more books will be available, and the cheaper they’ll be.