College textbooks are a racket. Seriously, somebody needs to crack down on ‘em. And remember, the cost of the textbook is inversely proportional to its relevance outside of the needed class.
The “previous comment” was not germane to the post, so was deleted.
And you’re quite right about the textbook business being a racket. >:^(
Are used books available? Have you checked ebay, half.com, or abebooks? What’s the book?
Charles requested used books if they’re available. And I wondered — later on — if we couldn’t have found them elsewhere for mucho cheaper, but he was so anxious to order them it didn’t occur to me at the time.
Well, for his initial foray into college, I’m sure he feels better knowing his books Are Taken Care Of, and will be waiting for him at the bookstore on the 21st, rather than fretting about whether they can be found online, and if they’ll get here in time, and what if they don’t but the bookstore has run out so he can’t get them from there, etc. Peace of mind is worth something.
This time.
College textbooks are so expensive because of their limited market: not all first year mechanical engineers use the same textbooks. Those prices are the only way publishers can make money printing them. Alot of professors write their own texts, too, and unless the text is pure genius he’ll be the only one using it.
Coolest concept regarding textbooks that I ever experienced was a prof who wrote his own notes, and let people download ‘em and print ‘em out or take ‘em to the local copy center if we needed ‘em bound. Those were the texts for the class. Sometimes he’d assign outside reading, but those were from books you could borrow from the library.
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My, that was an interesting previous comment.
College textbooks are a racket. Seriously, somebody needs to crack down on ‘em. And remember, the cost of the textbook is inversely proportional to its relevance outside of the needed class.
The “previous comment” was not germane to the post, so was deleted.
And you’re quite right about the textbook business being a racket. >:^(
Are used books available? Have you checked ebay, half.com, or abebooks? What’s the book?
Charles requested used books if they’re available. And I wondered — later on — if we couldn’t have found them elsewhere for mucho cheaper, but he was so anxious to order them it didn’t occur to me at the time.
Well, for his initial foray into college, I’m sure he feels better knowing his books Are Taken Care Of, and will be waiting for him at the bookstore on the 21st, rather than fretting about whether they can be found online, and if they’ll get here in time, and what if they don’t but the bookstore has run out so he can’t get them from there, etc. Peace of mind is worth something.
This time.
College textbooks are so expensive because of their limited market: not all first year mechanical engineers use the same textbooks. Those prices are the only way publishers can make money printing them. Alot of professors write their own texts, too, and unless the text is pure genius he’ll be the only one using it.
Coolest concept regarding textbooks that I ever experienced was a prof who wrote his own notes, and let people download ‘em and print ‘em out or take ‘em to the local copy center if we needed ‘em bound. Those were the texts for the class. Sometimes he’d assign outside reading, but those were from books you could borrow from the library.