Book.ly is making back-to-college a little less painful.

TNW Quick Hit

book.ly is a web-based application that will find your school’s textbooks and get them to you on the cheap.

Love It: Did you see the part where we said cheap?

Hate It: A decent chance that your school isn’t yet supported.

Overall: 4/5

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Let’s face it, one of the worst parts about going back to university is buying the books. You know it’s going to be expensive, and you know that you’re not going to get much of it back when the semester is over. New brick-and-mortar stores are popping up all the time, but book.ly is hoping to grab a share of their market.

Right now book.ly only supports around 500 universities. However, the site encourages you to email them if your school isn’t on that list. Honestly, that’s the only part that we can fault. Otherwise, it’s a great service and we could all use a few extra bucks.

book.ly is dead simple to use. Just look for your school and then look for your books. Beyond that simplicity, though, the site offers a pretty cool value-added bonus. You can actually set up a fundraiser using book.ly and the site will share 20% of its profits with you.

The site claims to save students up to 40% on textbooks, so it’s certainly worth a look.