BookRenter.com, A Service of Rafter Inc., Wins About.com 2012 Readers' Choice Award for "Best Website for Renting College Textbooks"

NEW YORK, NY and SAN MATEO, CA--(Marketwire - Mar 30, 2012) - BookRenter today announced that it has been selected as the About.com 2012 Readers' Choice Award for "Best Website for Renting College Textbooks." Now in its fifth year, the About.com Readers' Choice Awards honor the best products, features and services across more than a dozen categories, ranging from technology to hobbies to parenting and more, as selected by its readers.

"This year's Readers' Choice Awards program had a record number of nominations submitted across dozens of categories and featured hundreds of finalists," said Margot Weiss, managing editor, About.com. "We are thankful to all our readers for their participation and congratulate BookRenter on their success."

"We started BookRenter to help students, so it's wonderful to be chosen by the About.com readers, many of whom are parents and students, to win this award," said Mehdi Maghsoodnia, CEO of Rafter, Inc., owner and operator of BookRenter.com. "This kind of recognition motivates us to improve our services to help even more students get affordable access to educational content. We are equally excited to see the same technology and quality of service that powers BookRenter being deployed by hundreds of universities across the US to provide affordability and accessibility to students on a local level."

BookRenter.com offers students the ability to save up to 80 percent on their textbooks, saving them hundreds of dollars each year. BookRenter is owned and operated by Rafter, Inc, an education technology company that offers the world's first cloud based Course Materials Network for students and colleges.

To view the award and all award winners, please visit http://awards.about.com.
Follow About.com on Twitter and Facebook.

About BookRenter.com
BookRenter.com founded the first textbook rental service in 2006 with a mission to make education more affordable by allowing students to rent textbooks for up to 80% off the retail price. BookRenter.com helps students find the best price, highest quality books, and most flexible rental experience through their campus store or online at www.bookrenter.com. Offering more than 5.5 million titles and serving millions of students on over 5,000 campuses, BookRenter.com has saved students more than $180 million dollars on their textbooks. And every time we rent a book, BookRenter.com makes a donation to First Book to put new books in the hands of children in need. With offices in San Mateo, California, BookRenter.com is a service of Rafter, Inc., a private company. To learn more about how to use BookRenter.com for all of your textbook rental needs, please visit www.bookrenter.com.

About The About Group
The About Group comprises the websites About.com, ConsumerSearch.com and CalorieCount.com. About.com is a valuable platform for content that helps users solve the large and small needs of everyday life. ConsumerSearch.com analyzes expert and user-generated consumer product reviews and recommends the best products to purchase based on the findings. CalorieCount.com is an online resource that helps users solve the everyday challenges of losing weight and living a healthy lifestyle.

The New York Times Company (NYSE: NYT), a leading global, multimedia news and information company with 2011 revenues of $2.3 billion, includes The New York Times, the International Herald Tribune, The Boston Globe, NYTimes.com, BostonGlobe.com, Boston.com, About.com and related properties. The Company's core purpose is to enhance society by creating, collecting and distributing high-quality news, information and entertainment.