any advice on finding cheaper text books?

[disney_5]

I found a text book i would like to read but amazon has it for $100 to $150. Any other sites to check to find it cheaper? Do any overdrive libraries cary ebook versions of text books (like the Philadelphia library?) I would rather own the book but can't believe how expensive it is.

Jen

 

[NotUrsula]

Perhaps. Overdrive does not normally handle textbooks except for foreign language study materials (OverDrive's market is mostly recreational reading); most larger libraries will also have an account with a company such as Ebsco or ProQuest that will provide other sorts of nonfiction materials. Call the Reference line to ask, or check the website.

Since it is a textbook, you also can probably buy a hardcopy in used condition or rent one from a service like Chegg.com, or you can request an interlibrary loan via your own library to borrow a hardcopy. www.worldcat.org can tell you which libraries geographically near you actually own the title.

As for the price, perfectly normal for a textbook in the sciences or art. For chemistry it would be kind of cheap, actually; those normally run closer to $300. (Also, do be aware that the electronic versions of STEM and art textbooks normally cost as much or more than the hardcopy ones, which is why rental is now so popular for them.)

 

[HelenePA]

look on chegg.com or look on ebay for it. my dh's books for this semester were over 400$ and that did not include his art class stuff which was another 300$ (so far)

 

[KikiFan]

also check Craigslist. If it's a recent book sometimes you might find someone selling it. And try half.com I found a few of my textbooks there.

 

[Pigeon]

Perhaps. Overdrive does not normally handle textbooks except for foreign language study materials (OverDrive's market is mostly recreational reading); most larger libraries will also have an account with a company such as Ebsco or ProQuest that will provide other sorts of nonfiction materials. Call the Reference line to ask, or check the website.

Since it is a textbook, you also can probably buy a hardcopy in used condition or rent one from a service like Chegg.com, or you can request an interlibrary loan via your own library to borrow a hardcopy. www.worldcat.org can tell you which libraries geographically near you actually own the title.

As for the price, perfectly normal for a textbook in the sciences or art. For chemistry it would be kind of cheap, actually; those normally run closer to $300. (Also, do be aware that the electronic versions of STEM and art textbooks normally cost as much or more than the hardcopy ones, which is why rental is now so popular for them.)

I'm a university librarian and as I posted on the other thread, we do not buy or do interlibrary loan for textbooks. Few academic libraries buy them, and if they do have a copy it is most often on reserve (usually the professor's copy) and won't be loaned out. ILL circulation periods are typically very short.

Some academic libraries do have some ebooks, but textbooks are generally not purchased by the libraries. Our collection development policy explicitly says we don't buy them. If we do happen to have a copy of the text for a class, it's usually a gift book, and isn't the latest edition. We do use the vendors Proquest and EBSCO, but for research databases, not for textbooks.

While I think the whole textbook industry is a racket, and I feel badly for the students, buying their textbooks would more than consume our budget, and our mission is research materials, not textbooks. There is a movement afoot for professors to create open access textooks, which hopefully will catch on.

 

[EllenFrasier]

My son rented some textbooks from BookRenter.com You might want to see if they have what you need.

 

[goofgal31]

We have been getting most of my DD's textbooks from half.com Most of the texts you can buy used for very cheap.

 

[marius97]

I'll second half.com (ebay's website) and chegg.com. I haven't used chegg, but I sit next to someone in a class...my used textbook cost me $110. His looked exactly the same condition as mine and cost $4.

 

[armomof3lvsdisney]

I really like campusbookrentals.com

 

[My3kiddos]

I use bigwords.com to find the lowest price to buy and the highest price to sell back.

 

[4HppyCamprs]

Try betterworldbooks.com

 

[amcnj]

Another word of advice is to make sure you get the isbn (international standard book number) of books you are seeking to make sure you are indeed getting the exact book you think you are.

 

[NotUrsula]

I'm a university librarian and as I posted on the other thread, we do not buy or do interlibrary loan for textbooks. Few academic libraries buy them, and if they do have a copy it is most often on reserve (usually the professor's copy) and won't be loaned out. ILL circulation periods are typically very short.

Some academic libraries do have some ebooks, but textbooks are generally not purchased by the libraries. Our collection development policy explicitly says we don't buy them. If we do happen to have a copy of the text for a class, it's usually a gift book, and isn't the latest edition. We do use the vendors Proquest and EBSCO, but for research databases, not for textbooks.

While I think the whole textbook industry is a racket, and I feel badly for the students, buying their textbooks would more than consume our budget, and our mission is research materials, not textbooks. There is a movement afoot for professors to create open access textooks, which hopefully will catch on.

Absolutely, academic libraries tend not to buy textbooks, but special libraries do buy them, and most of us are not averse to loaning them, though our loan terms are normally shorter than what an academic library will give you. (I loan for 3 weeks.) Of course, it all depends on what kind of textbook it is, but you'll find a fair number of them in circulating collections on Worldcat, mostly in the hard sciences and in art.

When I spoke of ProQuest and Ebsco, what I was referring to are the e-book products that they offer, not the databases. ProQuest owns MyILibrary, eBrary and Safari, and Ebsco owns what was once NetLibrary. Because they both offer patron-driven acquisition, public libraries are starting to end up with some electronic textbooks in those collections.

 

[Pigeon]

We found that trying to get them from other libraries via ILL was a non-starter. Very few libraries had them and even fewer would loan them. The students couldn't predict when they would arrive, since the request would generally get bounced repeatedly before it was filled. Then the students would get beyond frustrated having to return them very quickly. It really was more of a dissatisfier to offer the service than anything else.

 

[NotUrsula]

We found that trying to get them from other libraries via ILL was a non-starter. Very few libraries had them and even fewer would loan them. The students couldn't predict when they would arrive, since the request would generally get bounced repeatedly before it was filled. Then the students would get beyond frustrated having to return them very quickly. It really was more of a dissatisfier to offer the service than anything else.

Generally I'd agree with you if you are speaking of doing it on a campus; if you are enrolled in the class you need to have predictable access to the text, and as you said, textbooks are not your mission.

However, for someone who is not a student to seek it via a public library because she just wants to read it isn't quite the same thing, as there isn't as much of a time crunch, and you are not dealing with cyclical demand that follows the academic calendar. I find that with requests like this it pays to pick the institutions that you ask very carefully; using the default distance-dictated preference list normally isn't productive. If I know that the odds are that a lot of places won't lend it, I go out to the local holdings to be sure that it circulates before I send the request. I borrow textbooks fairly frequently for my patrons; they are all post-docs, and sometimes they feel the need to brush up on a topic that they haven't been hands-on with for awhile.

 

[TLuvsD]

Try directtextbooks.com Search using the ISBN. Be careful of international editions, they are not the same, and sometimes the problem sets are different, which will have a significant impact on your grades in classes with problem sets.