Best place for cheap course books?

Nenen

No_Future wrote: »

The library
Bookbutler.com

For buying books, I second using bookbutler.co.uk (it will transfer you to dotcom but the uk marketplace). You can use bookbutler to search most well known booksellers in one go and compare their prices so it saves a lot of time and money.

The following are all strategies I use when studying:

1) Try searching http://books.google.co.uk/
as this site often has parts of books available free online and is really useful if you want to locate a particular quote.

2) Search http://scholar.google.co.uk/
Very useful as it can access academic texts and journal articles as well, or at least locate them. Her university should subscribe to the most important journals she needs and she should be given passwords to access most of these online. Many academic textbooks are based upon journal articles so she can often get the passages she needs this way rather than buying the textbook.

3) Depending upon where she is at university, they may have more than one library (Cambridge has over 100). The faculty library where she is studying may have all the books taken out by students on her course but other libraries within the university may still have copies she can use for reference which many students don't know/bother about.

4) She can also join the local public library nearest to her university and request books there (again not many students do this so she may be able to get a copy no one else has requested).

4) It's a long shot (but I have been successful a few timesa) search greenmetropolis.com which is not covered by bookbutler and encourages recycling of secondhand books with the following conditions:

• BUY BOOKS - all books cost just £3.75 to buy
• SELL BOOKS - we pay £3.00 for every book sold
• GROW TREES - every book sold we donate 5p to the Woodland Trust

5) The uni librarians helped me enormously in my first term when I was trying to get to grips with the system and I went on all the 'using the library/literature searches' type extra courses I could. I was very grateful for their help, got to know them by name and bought them a box of chocs at Christmas - they continued to be brilliant to me throughout so I would always recommend being polite and friendly as uni librarians are extremely knowledgeable and keen to help eager students.

6) There are lots of small charitable trusts set up around the country which will give bursaries towards the cost of books for students meeting their particular criteria. Your local library will be able to give you information about locating any which might help your dd.

rev_henry

I'm also in 1st year and haven't used a single real life paper book because I can get them ALL online for free as ebooks through websites my uni pays for. I would have thought yours does the same. Sites like this:
http://lib.myilibrary.com/

I just go on the online catalogue of my uni library, find the book I want, then click a link and it goes straight to the ebook.

nimbo

onejontwo wrote: »

Thanks for that,"the one who" but the only problem is that on the course when they are prompted to obtain the relevant book there is a mad rush to the library and as it's a first come first served basis, many lose out. Therefore back to my original question.

honsetly - the photocopier is her friend in some situations....

one of our course texts was £150.... cue mad rush to purchase it.

Lecture three asked by the lecturer (who was also the author) who hadn't managed to get a copy, and lo and behold we were give the ONE chapter that we would need. i was just grateful that i had ordered a copy form the uni bookshop and that i wasn't made to pay for it when it arrived....

there may be a mad rush - BUT of she is savvy then she can get less important texts from the library - she should ask the tutors which she needs to have a copy of, becuse the lists they send out can be huge and she won't need copies of all of them...

Lawpf2001

Havent used this site myself but came across it when finding uni books.
http://www.acadreamia.co.uk/

Basically you rent through book for the academic year. Obviously its not free but works out cheaoer than buying the book outright. So long as you return it in a decent condition.

skipsmum

Our uni library has copies of everything on 3 week loan, 1 week loan, 24 hour loan, 3 hour loan, and reference.

jess1011

Hi

Iv found that alot of my textbooks on reading lists have older versions that contain exacly the same info with a few updates. They are also a lot cheaper and 9 times out of 10 I can get them from Uni library within a week. If they are all taken I can reserve them and I get an email when they are available.

Hope this helps

rev_henry

Walking past the uni branch of Blackwells today I noticed they're advertising a textbook hire service. Might be worth investigating...

rozmister

My SU runs a massively underused (no one knows its there) second hand book stall in their offices so the OP should speak to her SU.

Also, at my uni anyway, people stick signs on the back of the toilet doors with their books for sale and their phone number on little tear off strips. Slightly unnerving seeing the titles of some of the books from the Forensic courses while you are trying to pee but still! Look all over the place for posters!

onejontwo

rozmister wrote: »

My SU runs a massively underused (no one knows its there) second hand book stall in their offices so the OP should speak to her SU.

Also, at my uni anyway, people stick signs on the back of the toilet doors with their books for sale and their phone number on little tear off strips. Slightly unnerving seeing the titles of some of the books from the Forensic courses while you are trying to pee but still! Look all over the place for posters!

Er......SU???? Thanks for the info btw.

Lawpf2001

onejontwo wrote: »

Er......SU????

Student Union.