STANDING IN THE fall semester textbook buyback line only a few weeks ago brought about an all too familiar sensation for me. Some might refer to this sensation as deja vu. While attempting to understand my confused familiarity, I naturally attempted to piece together the puzzle that had led me to a world of such striking unknowns.

Had I done this before?

I soon came to understand that it was not the act of standing in line that was familiar to me. Rather, it was the anxious “I’m getting ripped offâ€Â sensation that I had felt while purchasing those same texts only a few months prior.

At this moment, I realized that something in this equation was wrong.

Typically, one feels as though he or she is getting “taken for a rideâ€Â when kissing hard-earned money goodbye, and not the contrary.

Dubious of the system, I attempted to conceptualize the transaction.

When one purchases a textbook, he or she is not merely buying some words thoughtfully strung together into sentences and paragraphs that help them “not fail a class.â€Â

When one purchases a textbook, he or she is buying information and knowledge. Granted, editors, authors and publishers should be compensated for their work, as I expect to be compensated for bussing tables at the restaurant where I am employed.

To the student body, we are purchasing knowledge, a concept more than a commodity to be bought and sold.

To complicate this equation further, I buy “used informationâ€Â — that is, information that someone else has already read or not read depending on one’s work ethic — for cheaper.

Somehow, the previous reader̢۪s eyes have devalued the information that I am buying, making it more affordable for me.

Regardless, an anthology will still cost around $40 used and worth about $16 upon me selling it back. How are these prices negotiated?

Sparing you a long-winded lesson on neoclassical economics, the pricing of textbooks is dictated by the textbook̢۪s publisher and the demand of the textbook in the world of academia.

In a 2005 Los Angeles Times article investigating this textbook debate, Kathy M. Kristof paraphrases J. Bruce Hildebrand, the executive director for higher education at the Association of American Publishers in Washington, as explaining “the costs largely reflect professors’ demands for constant updating, photographs, graphics and interactive tools that can help struggling students at any hour of the day or night over the Internet.â€Â

The debate that surrounds this argument is built upon a vast amount of professors around the entire country who contend that they have no real options presented to them when it comes to requesting textbooks.

It seems that the “cheaperâ€Â versions of these textbooks that exclude the “extra stuffâ€Â are not as readily available for professors to request as the publishing companies suggest they might be.

While these cheaper or slightly older textbook editions might be available, they are not easily accessible. Educators are seemingly forced to “jump through hoopsâ€Â to order these books making them more trouble than they are worth (assuming that they are even notified of a cheaper version’s existence, which the publishers might conveniently neglect to communicate).

On a personal level, in every course that I have taken at Fresno State, my instructor has gone over the syllabus and apologized for the textbook prices and “wishes that they could be cheaper.â€Â

This tells me that the university is not completely to be blamed for the lightening of my wallet. Still, after gazing at the balance in my bank account after textbook sales, I sleep no better knowing that the publishers might be to blame.

Luckily, we have options. For the past four years, my colleagues have suggested that I purchase my textbooks online. Not being the most technologically inclined student at Fresno State, I had ignored their promises of savings and fortune.

The fall 2007 semester was different. Disillusioned by the entire industry, I decided to test the waters and boldly found my way onto Half.com, one of the many Web sites carrying discount textbooks that the information superhighway has to offer.

Careful not to get carried away, I decided that “baby stepsâ€Â would best suit me, baby steps that resulted in the purchase of only one book. Quoted a whopping $24 at the Kennel Bookstore, I was only charged 75 cents by my new online academic companion.

I have resolved never to return to traditional book buying again.

While the textbook debate might never cease to exist, and that “I’m getting ripped offâ€Â feeling might always be familiar when buying and selling your textbooks on campus, I have found that it’s best to understand that nobody should feel trapped.

When being overcharged for “knowledge,â€Â you might want to tap one of the largest sources for knowledge that exists: the Internet.

Even if you don’t find that “deal of the centuryâ€Â that I found, you will undoubtedly find that “waiting in lineâ€Â is much quicker online — and you can surf Facebook while you do it.