Textbooks
- Thread starter Tengu
- Start date
Limited marketability and captive audience.
You want to go to college or uni that's the price you have to pay
You want to go to college or uni that's the price you have to pay
Heartless remartk.
Except if their libraries were funded adequately it would ease the situation.
Possible tip you might have thought of already, check the contents list of the book in question and the contributors. You might find that some chapters have already been published as papers or journal articles. I have bought a couple of books that were mostly rehashes of items I hd already seen. As a student you should have access to many online sources offering them.
Try the bookshop route, many academic books are to hand there. Glasgow Uni has John Smiths at the top of the hill, brand new = dear. Yet down the hill, are three second hand book shops, that have the same books at a fraction of the price.
Unfortunate truth.
Except that most libraries frown on you marking their books (as in highlighting the relevent sections for study, etc.) And most professors make it a requirement that the student own the books.
When I first started decades ago the campus bookstore carried both new and used textbook. They would buy back your textbooks (whether you'd bought them new or used) for about 65% of the new price and resell them to the next class for about 80% I always sold my books as soon as I'd finished with them to fund the next set; unless of course they were the sort appropriate to keep for my professional library (I still have most of my aviation and aviation law related texts)
I don't believe they do that anymore though. In fact, the last time I was in a campus bookstore (just before Christmas) I saw that it was no longer actually owned and operated by the school. It was one of the larger chains (Barnes & Noble) operating it under contract, complete with a coffee shop.
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No need to highlight etc. And there is a discussion on whether professors should require the purchase of specific books, particularly ones written by the very same professors.
My daughter has gone back to uni, & she has sourced some of her books from the local library where the uni is, when they were selling them off.
Rob
Rob
I suppose it depends on your study habits. I always highlight for quick reference and my GPA went up a full point after I started doing it that way. Yeah I agree about the professors though. At least as far as a single professor goes; the same textbook will be required by all professors of a given class within the entire university system, not just the one who wrote it (meaning for example that all history professors at every university within the university of Mississippi system, at least 100 professors, will all require that book) And usually, though not always, all the professors within the governing body that accredits that university (in this example, the Southern Association of Schools and Colleges) raising the number to probably 1000 or more.
Yeah I don't remember them ever actually checking, but it would be easy enough; just check the records at the campus bookstore (they could even make it automatic that the bookstore forward lists of their students and their purchases)
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Today it's much more possible to buy elsewhere. Legalities aside, back in the day, the only place textbooks were available were at the campus bookstore (they just weren't profitable for private companies to carry) Amazon and the internet have changed all that.
I think it ia rather uneccessary. Finding reliable information should be part of the learning proccess in university. Once the library is halfway decent, it should be more of a recommended purchase than compulsory.
The only absolute buy my students have to make is for one modusl, and it's just a 50 quid source book that they will use for every lecture. After that, texts are available online of via short loan to ensure noone os left out, regardless of their finances.
See if you cab get hold of contact details for people who took your course last year. Many lf them will be very halpy to offload an ild book for less than half price.
The only absolute buy my students have to make is for one modusl, and it's just a 50 quid source book that they will use for every lecture. After that, texts are available online of via short loan to ensure noone os left out, regardless of their finances.
See if you cab get hold of contact details for people who took your course last year. Many lf them will be very halpy to offload an ild book for less than half price.
Maybe it's just me, but when you say "textbooks" I think mostly of the more technical courses: mathematics, chemistry, physics, aviation law, etc. That said, I think you have the right idea about where the internet is leading. E-books are already replacing hard copies elsewhere. Not that they're necessarily any cheaper.
studied an oncology degree and then continued post grad, we were taught to use primary references over text books? I only owned a couple of text books, one of which was Grays anatomy that was gifted to me by an uncle, in all honested it wasn't that useful but I have just looked it up and the OP has opened my eyes its now £150! Crazy indees
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