Holman is a member of The Dartmouth photography staff.
The site resembles the classified site CraigsList, but is notable for its exclusion of dating or personal services.
"I had all this stuff I wanted to get rid of, but I didn't have any place to sell it," Holman said. "I had a huge pile of textbooks that I was going to have to put right back into storage because I had nothing to do with them."
Holman then called Santamaria, who is taking a leave term in Florida, and suggested they create a web site to fix this problem.
The two seniors worked on designing the site for the rest of the weekend, before sending an e-mail to campus Sunday evening.
More than 3,000 people visited the site within the first 24 hours, approximately 90 of whom registered.
"People are definitely interested, but one thing we have to work on is getting people who visit the site to actually register," Holman said. "That's the only way it's going to grow."
The web site will be available to anyone with a valid e-mail address not only Dartmouth students. The web site's creators hope this feature will help the site develop a broad user base.
"I'm hoping that by connecting students with not only each other, but professors and local residents in the surrounding area, it will bring all of us out of the little Dartmouth bubble we live in," Holman said.
The web site contains both a "Buy/Sell/Trade" section and a "Services" category. Users can search for textbooks, electronics, furniture, sporting equipment, clothing and other items. They can also search for tutoring and babysitting opportunities, technology assistance or post in the "I'm Hiring" forum.
Although the web site resembles CraigsList, DartBarter has more of a "forum-style, buy and sell community feel," Holman said.
Since the web site only targets a small community and sales will occur face-to-face, the creators hope users will feel more comfortable with DartBarter than with other web sites.
"You're not going to be paying with PayPal or sending a money order, so while the potential for scamming is technically still there, it's greatly reduced," Holman said.
The New Hampshire CraigsList site does not feature a category that specifically includes Hanover or the College, although there is a category for Manchester and Concord.
"We all accumulate so much stuff, and there are other people who might want to buy some of it," Santamaria said. "We hope this web site will benefit both the buyer and the seller and just be great for the overall community."
Holman said many students have expressed frustration with the compensation Wheelock Books provides when it buys back books at the end of terms.
"It didn't matter if you had only used the textbook once, you still got next to nothing for it, and it was just ridiculous," Holman said.
Wheelock Books could not be reached for comment. In a 2005 column in The Dartmouth ("The Truth About Textbook Pricing," Oct. 10, 2005), Emma Sloan '05, the manager of Wheelock Books at the time, addressed criticism of her store's buy-back policies.
"The buyback process is meant to be a service that allows students to recoup a small amount of money for books that they do not want to keep and do not wish to go to the trouble of selling in a manner that would give them a higher return," Sloan wrote.
Holman added that the web site may prove particularly useful given the current economic climate.
"If we can find a way to help people save money, especially given these financial times when everyone is trying to save everywhere they can, it's a really exciting thing to be able to do," Holman said.
The two creators hope that the web site becomes a permanent fixture within the Dartmouth community.
"We're graduating this spring, but it would be really cool to come back in 20 years and see that people are still using the site," Holman said. "To have that kind of lasting impact on the Dartmouth community would be great."
While the two creators do not plan to have a huge administrative web presence, they will monitor the site daily to check for rule violations.
"We are going to make sure no one is selling alcohol, drugs, sex or other inappropriate things like that," Holman said.
While there are no immediate improvements planned, the two seniors said they are open to suggestions from students.
"We want to make it the best possible site and make it as user-friendly as possible so that more people will sign up," Santamaria said.
Although many of the students interviewed by The Dartmouth said they were enthusiastic about the idea of the web site, several, like Isabel Costantino '12, said they are unsure whether it will succeed.
"It's great in theory, but I don't know how good it will actually be in practice," Costantino said. "If a lot of people start using it, it will be really helpful. If not, it might be more convenient to just keep going to Wheelock Books because then you know you can buy or sell what you need without the uncertainty factor."
Darneesh Thornton-Johnson '10 said that there is a "huge need" for a web site like DartBarter.com.
"Our textbooks right now are so expensive, and when you try to sell them back to Wheelock, you get virtually nothing," she said. "Hopefully, this new web site will prove really helpful."
This is not the first web site-venture for either senior, as Holman has his own photography web site and Santamaria previously created his own tutoring web site.
To help cover the nominal costs of operating the site, the homepage features Google advertisements.
Holman said that the pair is not looking to make a profit and will not sell other advertising.
