Hi everybody!

I was wondering what's the best way to order books? The college bookstore prices are a little high, and I pay out of pocket for books.

I looked online in the bookstore for my school but the item descriptions are vague (no ISBN numbers or pictures). It only had the title, edition number for each book and the copyright year. That is probably not the most information since I am trying to order off Ebay or Amazon to save $$$. I attend Chadron and I tried calling the bookstore and the clerk told me that she was too busy to help me. I'd prefer to search for my books by ISBN # to make sure I order the right thing. Where am I going wrong here?

Any ideas/tips on how I can ensure that I order the right books for the upcoming semester (without buying from the college bookstore)?

 

Thanks guys (and gals, too)!!!

If you know who the instructor is, you can contact them (or failing that ask your academic advisor or a department chair) to try to get a copy of the syllabus for the course you'll be taking.  The syllabus should have the complete textbook information.

The ISBN is best, but even without it if you have the title, author, and edition number you should be safe to buy a used book online.

Good luck, 

-=Steve=-

I didn't think about the syllabus, thanks a bunch, I'm going to try to log in and download it now.....to be continued?

Oh when I tried on Half.com, Ebay, and Amazon with just the title, author, and edition it brought up many books...even some that we older editions (misclassified I guess) and some had missing information so I couldn't tell right off the bat if it was or wasn't what I needed...

 

Going now to look up syllabus,

Thanks again Steve for the idea!!!

MsLyric:

Hi everybody!

I was wondering what's the best way to order books? The college bookstore prices are a little high, and I pay out of pocket for books.

I looked online in the bookstore for my school but the item descriptions are vague (no ISBN numbers or pictures). It only had the title, edition number for each book and the copyright year. That is probably not the most information since I am trying to order off Ebay or Amazon to save $$$. I attend Chadron and I tried calling the bookstore and the clerk told me that she was too busy to help me. I'd prefer to search for my books by ISBN # to make sure I order the right thing. Where am I going wrong here?

Any ideas/tips on how I can ensure that I order the right books for the upcoming semester (without buying from the college bookstore)?

 

Thanks guys (and gals, too)!!!

Author, title, edition number, and date of publication ought to be sufficient to get an ISBN.

Here is a site I used while taking my associates at a local college. They didn't give you the info up front either. This site searches multipule sites and gives you revision # ect. It's alot more specific then ebay or amazon and gives you isbn to use, it also returns searches from multipule places. www.gettextbooks.com

Always get the ISBN number.  Sometimes your college book store will actually provide this to you.  Then use the ISBN on Amazon and look for a used one if possible.

Check out this post in the Affordable Online Education blog.  It lists a number of resources for cheap textbooks.