Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Want to Save Money on Textbooks?

How to Save Money on Your Textbooks:

1. Cuesta bookstore puts out its list of textbooks in early January usually. Order textbooks as soon as possible. Make sure you have the correct edition/ISBN. (I find out what the textbook will be for the next semester by mid-December if possible. Most classes use the same text as last year, but if the text is more than a couple of years old, there could be a new edition.)
2. Check http://www.addall.com/ or http://www.bookfinder4u.com/ for the textbook. Often you will find instructor’s editions for really cheap, which usually is fine. The ISBN won’t be the same as the student’s edition, but that is OK.
3. Shipping times vary, but normally the book will arrive in 1-2 weeks. If that isn’t soon enough for the class, both the San Luis and North County libraries have copies of the most-used textbooks on reserve for two hour use in the library. You can check to see if the library has a copy at webcat.Cuesta.edu/uhtbin/webcat. If that won’t work for you, you can also purchase texts at Aida’s in San Luis Obispo, which will normally be a little bit cheaper (not much, though) than the prices at the Cuesta bookstore.
4. This will not work if you need to purchase a bundled textbook with CD, login code for textbook website, etc. You have to pay retail price for that. The Cuesta bookstore textbook list will indicate if you must purchase a bundled textbook.

Tina Lau, North County Librarian
(in Money, WWW Resources)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think you can go to AIDA on foothill and it's cheaper than Cuesta bookstore.

Cuesta College Library said...

I appreciate your comment--I forgot to mention Aida's. True, Aida's is a little cheaper than Cuesta on used books. I surveyed about 12 titles a couple of years ago, and the difference was about $1 to $3 per book. Aida's undersells Cuesta but only by a little. I would say go to Aida's if you can't wait for items to arrive from Internet purchasing, or if you can't find much of a cheaper price online than Aida's.

Tina Lau, North County Librarian