We do frequent price surveys to get a sense of what textbooks US college students are buying, and I’m perpetually astounded at the high price of textbooks. Last I checked, textbook prices were growing at four times the rate of inflation, costing students almost a thousand dollars a year.
I’d love to say that BookFinder.com is the magic answer to students’ textbook woes, but it’s not. There are larger systemic issues involved here: lack of adequate cost data available to faculty, the uptick in the publication of new editions, the bundling of often-unused add-on products, and increased use of techniques that make used textbooks largely non-resaleable (one-time-use online services, custom publishing). And sometimes, just old-fashioned price hikes.
Given those odds, using BookFinder.com is a pretty useful survival strategy for cost-conscious students trying to save on textbooks . Here’s a roundup of some of the deals we found.
Fall 2008...
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Each year students flock to the college bookstore to purchase the various textbooks that they require for their classes. Little do these students realize that, in doing so, they are throwing good money away. As unbelievable as it may seem textbooks, in some cases, actually cost as much, if not more, than tuition.... more
I was at a Michael Chabon reading this weekend, and got to talking to the guy ahead of me in line about the ups and downs of author inscriptions. (It turned out that he was a collector, and a 9-year BookFinder.com user.)
Charlie pointed me to a MetaFilter post about inscriptions this morning. Interesting reading, particularly the authors’ stories.
Also via MetaFilter…
I’m been enjoying the Judge a Book by its Cover weblog, devoted to the relentles... more
We’ve been hearing students grumble about the increasing number of “custom” textbooks being required on US college campuses. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal takes custom textbooks down a few notches, exposing hidden royalty payments, and the frustration that they cost.
“College students, already struggling with soaring tuition bills and expenses, are encountering yet another financial hit: Publishers and schools are working together to produce ‘... more
Amazon.com is purchasing AbeBooks. As a long-time industry-watcher, I think this is pretty big news, certainly the most significant acquisition in the online used/rare book space to date—and yet not a lot may change.
AbeBooks will join the list of standalone Amazon.com subsidiaries, including Audible , shopbop.com , the Internet Movie Database , and Digital Photo Review .
When AbeBooks acquired BookFinder.com, there was some concern from well-wishers that they’d shu... more
I’ve been excited about the California Rare Book School ever since I first heard about it, so I enjoyed reading Chris Lowenstein’s description of her week at the school on her blog:
Chapter 240: California Rare Book School
Chapter 241: My Week in Book Paradise
[Now Reading: The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America by David Hajdu]
... more
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