2008 Woodie Awards
Buying used textbooks is not a good idea
Issue date: 8/30/07 Section: Letters to the Editor
- Page 1 of 1
Thanks to Breanna Herschelman for the well-written article on cutting textbook costs. From the perspective of a professor and author, let me make a couple of additional suggestions.
First, for a student paying $500 per hour for course instruction, cutting corners on textbooks may not be that cost-effective. Textbooks are (or should be) essential tools of college-level study. If a book does not help you, the teacher will want to know this. There are zillions of textbooks in every discipline.
Using an older edition may be possible occasionally, but even in gratuitous "revised" editions (those designed to by-pass used book dealers for a few years), there are significant changes, including page numbers. The instructor may not be familiar with an older edition and may not be able to advise you until you have purchased it. In other editions, the changes may be massive, including new chapters, updated terminology, revised problems and projects, and so on.
Likewise, sharing books may be of limited value unless you live with or near your book partner and have the class at a different time.
If you have complete information on the textbooks you need, you can often buy them new directly from the publisher (without sales tax and sometimes without shipping charges) for about the same price charged by our bookstore for a used copy. Personally, however, I buy only new books this way. Unless you can see the condition of the book you will be stuck with for weeks and months (complete with pizza residue, torn pages, and marginal notes about the instructor's haircut), paying more at the bookstore still may have advantages.
Best wishes for a good semester (whether your books or new or used).
Earl Henry
Professor
Department of Music
First, for a student paying $500 per hour for course instruction, cutting corners on textbooks may not be that cost-effective. Textbooks are (or should be) essential tools of college-level study. If a book does not help you, the teacher will want to know this. There are zillions of textbooks in every discipline.
Using an older edition may be possible occasionally, but even in gratuitous "revised" editions (those designed to by-pass used book dealers for a few years), there are significant changes, including page numbers. The instructor may not be familiar with an older edition and may not be able to advise you until you have purchased it. In other editions, the changes may be massive, including new chapters, updated terminology, revised problems and projects, and so on.
Likewise, sharing books may be of limited value unless you live with or near your book partner and have the class at a different time.
If you have complete information on the textbooks you need, you can often buy them new directly from the publisher (without sales tax and sometimes without shipping charges) for about the same price charged by our bookstore for a used copy. Personally, however, I buy only new books this way. Unless you can see the condition of the book you will be stuck with for weeks and months (complete with pizza residue, torn pages, and marginal notes about the instructor's haircut), paying more at the bookstore still may have advantages.
Best wishes for a good semester (whether your books or new or used).
Earl Henry
Professor
Department of Music
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