School Books Options

[lagos]

How can they get away ripping people off so badly on college text books? Its disgusting. A normal book that you can get in a book store for 20bucks will be sold in the college book store for at least 60$. My sister just got done buying a book for her typing class... $130 for a 20 page book that has nothing but typing exercises in it!

Today however was the icing on the cake. Last week I went to buy a physics book, that comes bundled with a lab kit that I need for the lab class. They were all sold out, so I had to special order one. A whole week goes buy and they still didn't get the book back in stock. I noticed that they had one copy of the book used...so I thought, great, I'll cancel my order and just buy the used book and a lab kit instead of waiting on the bundle I ordered. So, I get to the register, they refund the $83 I paid for the special order, and ring me up for the used book and lab kit.... this time.... its $109 because I didn't buy the books bundled! WTF!!! They are charging me more money for a used book! God damn crooks.

[NgoFcukinWay]

<---works at a school bookstore.

A dude came into the store today and wanted to order his two welding books. One was Welding Inspection Technology 2000 and the other was Structural Welding Code D1.1/W1.1 or something like that. For those two books alone, his total came out to be $758.XX just for two books! $750 that the dude actually put on his card and was willing to pay. So some of the costs that you guys are paying for your books aren't as bad as what that guy just dished out.

But other than that, SuperSprynt's got it pretty much right on the cost of the books.

New edition of book titles come out every 2 years or so unless it's like an "Annuals" book. It's really up to the instructors/department heads who choose the books used for the class. All the bookstore is is just the messenger/middle man; they tell students what books are "required" for the course and it's up to you to buy the book there or not unless the bookstore is the only place that'll have the title. Otherwise, find out which book you need, write down the ISBN number, and search for it online.

If you plan to sell back the book to the bookstore at the end of the year after buying it online, make sure it has everything that the book in the store would normally have. Most bookstores won't take back International/Instructor's Editions. If the bookstore says that they've moved to a new edition (which chances are, they probably really haven't), don't fret. Changed between editions is minimal. Occasionally, they'll move things around, or add/remove things, but that's usually between adjacent books. You could always sell your books to a future student that's taking the same class you did and let them deal with the whole "New edition" deal. Math bugs me though when it comes to new editions and different versions. How often does basic math change?

Usually best time to sell back books to the store is the first day of finals week. Usually by then, the store has the adoptions entered for the following semester and know what books they need to buyback and which ones to sadly decline and are ready to stock up before having to order books from the company's warehouse or the publishers themselves.

As for buying books only to find out that you don't use it; it's usually best to hit the first day of class to find out what book you "need" and to really find out if you're gonna need to crack it open at all. But if you do happen to buy your books prior to class starting only to find out you don't need it, keep that receipt handy and the book in original packaging; you can always return the book.

IT books really are hit or miss.

I think I hit everything. These are pretty much "general" tips/info that may or may not apply in most cases.

On another note, a coworker and I were unpacking shipments that came in and one of them happened to hold a copy of Adobe CS4 Master Collection. After we kinda awed at it a bit, we decided to look up the retail cost of the bastard on Adobe's website. Damn thing runs for $2500 and it's a $900 upgrade if you already had CS3 Master Collection. We looked through the paperwork and it turns out the student/customer that requested the software had a company that helps disabled students pay for books pay for the software.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to find a way to be handicapped so that I may get a copy of Adobe CS4 Master Collection.