Hi,
I want to clear out my old high school and uni textbooks that are taking up space in my room.
What is the best place to get rid of them or sell them?
Do those book buying places actually buy any books? Are they willing to pay $5 each for a 10 year old book?
It would be great to get some ideas. If not, I could donate to the local library.
For old textbooks, I will give it to you straight; take them to the tip. The problem with text-books that are more than about three years old is that they are likely to contain out-dated information; i.e. information that has been superseded, and thus becomes "incorrect", in a way. Therefore, no one is interested in paying anything at all for them, or even using them/ giving them to anyone else to use to attempt to "learn stuff"… they essentially contain "mis-information" after a few years. An op-shop might take them, or a kinder/creche/child-minding joint, IF they have a lot of nice big glossy pictures in them that could be cut out/ used for craft-type activities.
Cue old joke about economics text books: The exercise questions are the same but they change the answers every edition.
I must respectfully disagree. I'm still hanging onto my uni texts on Pascal, Modula and FORTRAN…just in case.
If they're current text books, chuck them up on gumtree individually.
If they're old text books, group by subject, and chuck them up on gumtree by group.
We got rid of ours that way
If they are old text books, chuck them under a gum tree… perhaps they will help it grow. It could be their "final contribution" to the betterment of the universe…
gumtree best bet
Given that your textbooks are around 10 years old, I can assure you that the "unimelb book co-op" will have zero interest in them (for the reasons I detailed in my initial post). Attempting to actually get any money for them via avenues such as Gum tree will be equally as fruitless, for similar reasons, but will waste a whole lot more of your time.
Not sure why my comment about putting the UNDER a gum tree attracted a neg… I thought recycling was all-the-rage these days… perhaps I should have made it clearer that I meant BURY them under a gum tree… i.e. I wasn't inciting littering…
Anyways, the OzB crowd are a strange lot… ;-)
If you're looking to give them away try FreeCycle (if they run a group in your local area): https://www.freecycle.org/
Sad to say, but have to agree with Gnarly, you'll have trouble giving away old textbooks. Given their expense and the speed at which they become "out of date" it's so wasteful. It's even worse when your uni lecturer happens to be the author of the textbook on the topic, then it becomes VERY IMPORTANT that you have the most up to date edition because apparently so much has changed in the basic principles of economics since last year.
on a lighter note you can always use it as toilet paper if no one wants them
2nd hand bookshop? There's a few in Newtown… they are great for a wander even if you aren't selling/buying…
It depends what subject the texts books are on.
Agree that some text books date with time (economics, tax, medical etc), however some will change so little over a extended period of time that they may be of some value to students (i.e. engineering, maths, chemistry, physics, etc). All the text books I had at uni I still have now with me at work as the principals are still relevant and they are good for reference material.
Gumtree is probably your best bet if they fall into the second group, if they are in the first group you can try on gumtree but don't expect to get very much.
Hope that helps.
I tired giving a whole pile of novels in excellent condition to a local city library. they didn't want them.
Try to recycle them or have you tried a local school? - after all they aren't that old after 10 years & students could still learn from them. Look at the learning we have all done over the decades - O.K. technology moves on but the basics are always there.
Re "O.K. technology moves on but the basics are always there", this is not so/ semi-meaningless in the context of text-books. The "basics" change dramatically over 10 years, in most fields. Some of the more obvious examples include:
Zoology - New species discovered, known species confirmed extinct.
Biochemistry - Biological mechanisms elucidated, new potential applications realised.
Medicine - Unprecedented successes achieved, and future possibilities/ likely applications foreshadowed.
Genetics - I won't bother to elaborate on this one, too obvious.
Chemistry - One of the fields where the biggest changes in knowledge occur over 10 years… even including the synthesis of new elements.
Philosophy - New questions become relevant, as they enter the mainstream of human contemplation/behavior (assisted suicide, abortion, "morning-after-pill", organ donation, organ acceptance, xenogenic transplantation, ETC.)
History - It regularly comes to light that history has been "retrospectively re-written" at numerous times by numerous countries/ groups/ institutions etc. … we are just now embarking on an age where the true history may begin to emerge, in many contexts.
Geography - Another good example of something that might have seemed reasonably stable at one time, but certainly not in the last 10, 20, or even 30 years.
Astronomy - Another obvious one, which I won't bother to elaborate on.
I could go on and on. In every field I can think of, the "fundamental knowledge-base" now changes so much every 10 years (and has done so for at least the last 30 or 40 years, due to the rate of progression/advancement of knowledge), that a text book that is 10 years old, is basically a source of MISinformation.
One possible exception to this may be mathematics, but unfortunately I'm not knowledgeable enough on the subject to know.
Gumtree is your friend.