Used textbooks?

[Owlie]

Ah yes, the pain of book-buying.

Avoid the bookstore at all costs. They give you maybe a 1/4-1/2 of what you paid for it and turn around and sell it for 3/4 of the "new" price.
The engineering honors fraternity at my university held a semesterly "book swap" for all subjects. Check to see if there's something like that?
I used to go to the bookstore, write down all the ISBNs, and then start hunting online.

The library may well have copies of some books, but I wouldn't rely on it.

Check the "used" section of Amazon. Ebay?

I'm not much use, I'm afraid. I had to buy several of my books junior and senior year new because the instructor required the current edition because "There's stuff that wasn't in the old editions." Surely basic biochemistry hasn't changed?

[malkin]

abe books
powells
alibris
better world books
half.com

I've used all of the above, and others that I can't think of off the top of my head.

Sometimes it is hard with the used online sites to know what edition you are really getting. You can google the numbers of the ISBN if you have it.
He might want to check with the instructor to see if older editions are ok for the course.

I bought a piano book, listed in good usable condition, that turned out to be missing pages. The seller was apologetic and refunded payment and shipping, but it might be more hassle than a student would want to deal with--because he'd still have to find a usable copy of the book for the class.

Also, remember that Media Mail can be quite slow!

[nancielle]

abe books
powells
alibris
better world books
half.com

I've used most of these (better world books is new to me) as well as Amazon and had really good luck getting textbooks when I needed them. Before each semester started the book lists were posted on-line with ISBN #s and I could do the searches with those. Despite coming Medial Mail most arrived pretty quickly (my experience, ymmv). If using Amazon I tend to use the seller closest to me, it seemed to cut down on delivery time.

[pumpkinpony]

I like textbooksrus. They seem to have good prices.

Also check craigslist... I was lucky enough to buy a book from a gal - turned out she was one semester ahead of me so she would sell me her books at a price between what the bookstore would pay her to return them and the new cost to me. Worked well for both of us.

[GLC1968]

If you know the ISBN of the text book, use www.addall.com to find it on the web at the cheapest price possible (used and new). It's the only way I survived my engineering degrees without going into serious debt!

[Groundhog]

I'm a community college professor too and I even have a homework question about this (I teach economics and finance). I always try to use the old text even after the new edition comes out so that students can get used ones on
amazon or barnes&noble. But sometimes the school bookstore conspires (well, not the right word...maybe instists) to have us use the new costly edition because they don't want to stock the old one. However it's true that economics (or at least current events) have made an updated text necessary in the last two years - not once but twice. But $135 for a new one...come on!

And now I'm the parent of a college kid and spend a lot of energy helping her get cheap new ones. I got one for this year for $15...retail is $100.

[NbyNW]

I'm a community college professor too and I even have a homework question about this (I teach economics and finance). I always try to use the old text even after the new edition comes out so that students can get used ones on
amazon or barnes&noble. But sometimes the school bookstore conspires (well, not the right word...maybe instists) to have us use the new costly edition because they don't want to stock the old one. However it's true that economics (or at least current events) have made an updated text necessary in the last two years - not once but twice. But $135 for a new one...come on!

How are the new books organized? If it's a matter of 1 or 2 new chapters, maybe you can get permission to reproduce the new chapters as part of a course reader and save your students the expense of buying the whole book.

[lisathew8lifter]

i was half way through my degree and figured out that barnes and noble.com, ebay, and amazon.com all had GREAT prices on used books. i spent a lot of time searching for the best price at the end since i was sick of paying tons for books. i remember finding a book on barnes and noble for like 8.00 and the bookstore wanted 80.00. it really pays to "shop" around via the net!

[Zen]

Textbooks are a racket.
I bought some last semester that never even got used.
http://www.google.com/search?q=Textb...L_enUS344US344

[malkin]

If we're going to get right down to it, I pretty much think college is a racket.