Two Kansas University graduate students were griping about the high cost of textbooks a few months ago when their complaining sparked an idea: What about textbook rentals?

After dozens of nights spent scheming and toiling on their idea, Vinod Muralidhar and Karthik Varadarajan, both computer science students, have launched Hawzo.com.

The Web site incorporates various elements similar to those found on eBay.com, Amazon.com and others.

Here’s the premise: Students have loads of books. A student might want to keep a special book, but it’s not needed at the present. So, why not rent the book to someone else while the book’s owner isn’t using it?

“You earn money from something that’s lying idle most of the time,” Muralidhar said. “The beauty of the whole thing is you are not just a lender, you are also a borrower.”

Hawzo.com is a free site that facilitates the book exchange. The name is short for hawk zone. Hawk, as in stuff students can hawk to others. Or, as in Jayhawk.

Book rentals vary. An 800-page book valued at $40 by the lender will cost $2.66 to rent for 60 days. The $2.66 would go to the book’s owner. Muralidhar and Varadarajan take no cut of the rental fee. Instead, they hope to build enough traffic on the Web site to eventually sell advertising.

Kansas University graduate student Vinod Muralidhar distributes fliers outside the Kansas Union on Tuesday afternoon to promote his textbook-rental Web site, Hawzo.com.

“Books as you know are very, very expensive right now,” Muralidhar said.

College textbook prices have soared at twice the rate of annual inflation over the past two decades, according to a 2005 report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. The average estimated cost of textbooks and supplies was $898 for first-time students at four-year schools in 2003-04, the report said.

Muralidhar and Varadarajan said they hope such prices will send students to their Web site. The concept hasn’t quite caught on yet.

The site launched Aug. 22. Of about 100 available books, only one has been lent so far.

“I think they are a little apprehensive because this is a relatively new concept,” Muralidhar said.

• Hawzo.com

The site tracks reviews of borrowers and lenders.

If a student doesn’t return a book after the rental time is up, there is a penalty fee of $1 a day paid to the lender. If a student is responsible for multiple problems, Muralidhar and Varadarajan can cut that student’s ability to use the site.

Muralidhar and Varadarajan are testing the concept with KU students, but they have dreams of expansion – casting a net that’s wider than the university, expanding beyond books to other items such as lawnmowers, bicycles or luggage. In that system, the site could collect credit card information to help make sure lent items were returned.

“For the first time, we’re doing something that’s going to reach the people,” Varadarajan said. “It’s real-world experience.”