Whats your general opinion on college books? I just finished off my freshman year, and I only used 1 (calculus because the teacher assigned problems and examples from there) of the 8 books I had to buy. The internet and good notes pretty much made them obsolete for me. I'm thinking for next year, I won't buy any of my books except for maybe the Calculus II book.
Anyone manage to do this or have a similar experience?

theres no reason you can't buy a book half way through the semester. don't buy anything, and if you get to the stage where it is required then get it.

its silly to buy all the books that lecturers ask for, most books you won't use at all, and the rest you can photocopy the bits you need (usually only a few pages or a chapter).

it may sound cheap, but paying over $100 for a book when you can photocopy the relevant pages for under two bucks is an easy decision. my university has rules that all books used in a course must be available under closed reserve in the library, so obtaining them is never an issue.

well most of the classes i've taken have had pretty useless lectures and tests based on the textbook, so i've bought all required books so far. waiting until the middle of the semester may not be a good idea because then all of the used books could be gone and you'd have to buy new. i'd recommend using the library to get what textbooks you can (my school lets you reserve them...you could probably get that calc II book there, at least where i go), buy used, and sell back to other students rather than bookstores. though i'm too lazy to do that so i take the bookstore's fucking $18 for the $75 used book i purchased from them only 10 weeks ago.

hey i just thought of an idea...a bookstore that lends out books! and you just pay a small lending fee and put down a deposit, which you get back assuming you return the book when you're done with the class and it's still in good condition. hmm...

hey i just thought of an idea...a bookstore that lends out books! and you just pay a small lending fee and put down a deposit, which you get back assuming you return the book when you're done with the class and it's still in good condition. hmm...

Already been done: www.chegg.com

Buying a used book for $X and selling it back at the end of your course for $Y gives you a "rental fee" of X-Y, so essentially you could do the same at your bookstore. When I really needed to read something from a text, I'd just spend half an hour in the bookstore reading it without buying anything. It's not like I'll use it again.

some courses here have whats called "course packs". basically, the lecturers and tutors would write their own book, like a textbook, but more concise. because its written by the university, its tailored to your need. its printed on A4 paper, stapled together and sold without a middle man, so its cheaper than a fully fledged text book

that way, the money goes back to the university rather than a publisher

the thing is, they are often compulsory to buy

though there are still books that you can buy if you want

We have them, they usually cost about $15. But they are usually designed supplementary to a text book, as (at least in chemistry) it would be suicide to use them as your only resource.

I love them though, it saves time printing out lecture notes.

Textbooks are a racket. Ever since Barnes & Noble bought out my school's bookstore, the class lookup for book requirements (which was always maintained by the university, on the bookstore's website) is now run by Barnes & Noble. So, as you can probably imagine, it's now saying that the classes require more books. And people wonder why so many college students are leftist anti-corporate whack jobs.

Oh, and today I went there to try to sell back some of my books (which I hardly used), and it turns out they aren't buying back any of them. What's a good site (preferably one you've used and KNOW works) for selling back texts? I prefer reliability and reputation to the best price for the books (a few dollars is an adequate price for peace of mind and not having to hassle with "customer service representatives").

My top three sites for buying used textbooks for hella cheaper than the bookstore:
http://www.amazon.com
http://www.abebooks.com
http://half.ebay.com

The only text I've bought this year was bought in the last week of semester. I didn't need it until then - I was always able to get it from the library. But once exams came close, it got harder to obtain a copy, so I got my own. It's not really for a specific subject, it's more a general reference.
Wish I'd had a bit more hindsight with that one.

Most of my classes though don't have a single set text - they reference different parts from about 4 or 5 and it would be unreasonable to purchase them all. The rest is just journal entries that we usually have to chase up ourselves. (They usually don't have permission to post an electronic version of the article online, let alone print it off. Thats why we don't have course readers or packs. )

As you would expect, my photocopy bill is huge. :(

oh yeh, a good idea is to ask people in the year above you whether or not the textbooks really helped them. ask a few people and most of them should come to a general consensus

You might be able to Find them at a popular bookstore. And then..you can refer yourself to Bad Ideas an get it for free

Buy your books from amazon. You HAVE to do it this way you WILL save upwards of 300$ a semester. Bought 5 books for $140. One of my teachers wrote his own book, and of course his class is the only anyone uses it for, 70$. And eventually when enough people do this the bookstores/publishing companies will have to drastically cut prices.

I keep books for reference purposes if they're well known in the field, but if it's a course I have no interest in, there's a few ways to get around the system and stay a step ahead.

As mentioned above, don't buy a book until you know for certain that you'll actually use it. If you can get away with scanning or photocopying the problem sets, then by all means.
There's nothing stopping you from buying the same book several times. Find a local bookstore with a return policy, buy it once at midterms then again at finals.
Find out what books you need at your earliest opportunity. Generally the bookstore will release a price list several weeks before classes begin, before the library places them on reserve. Find what you can at the library and reshelve somewhere no one is going to look, say 19th century german language literature. Come back and use the book throughout the semester.
Try to find books online. #bookz on undernet (IRC), alt.binaries.e-books on usenet.

My school provides all books except some texts set for study in English, reason being so we can annotate it. Your school fails.

My school provides all books except some texts set for study in English, reason being so we can annotate it. Your school fails.

And those costs are absorbed into your tuition. Nice thinking.

And those costs are absorbed into your tuition. Nice thinking.

What tuition?

What tuition?

:mad:

I'm proud of myself. I just bought a book from amazon that I need next semester that is $156 new, a little over $100 used, but I got it for $6.17. Hardcover, same edition, same ISBN. Don't give in to the bookstores.

was there any special talent involved, or was it just a special price or something?

was there any special talent involved, or was it just a special price or something?

Assuming that you're talking to me, it was just a special price.

Here's the link to what I got: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/007301978X

If you notice, it shows the original price, and then it says "X used & new available from Y" where X = 264 and Y = $6.16 at time of post.

I stopped buying from the school bookstore, it was such a ripoff. I get them from half.com.