Hi Everyone,
I am in the middle of a teaching degree and most textbooks cost between $80 - $120 each. Dare I ask if there is a free site of some sort to download textbooks? What about PDF copies? I have tried using various search terms in Google and I still haven't found anything suitable.
Hope you can help.
Thanks, J
8 out of 10 times I buy used books, otherwise you will have to resort to either borrowing, renting or buying new from BookDepository.com
Also, 1 or 2 days into the semester of university, before you even start classes, go for a walk to your uni and look for people advertising books for sale near the cafeteria areas (usually there are corkboards and walls where people put up posters) go there and snap up a bargain before somebody else does!
I sell books this way too, I go to uni, sit down on a table with my books like a street stall for sale, people come right up to me and I sell it to them on the spot.
Buy it then sell it again when you're finished. At the very worse you would make a slight loss. Everybody needs textbooks these days. Think of them as iPhones. They hold their resell value very well.
the number I've textbooks that I've bought for uni over the last 5 years that have been outdated the second the subject is finished is unbelievable. (well, it is believable. it is that it happens too frequently though)
You can buy 2nd hand textbooks and then resell them at the same price.
Just cross your fingers you don't get screwed over by the '2nd edition' with one page difference.
Personally, to buy textbooks I use http://www.alibris.com/ to find ISBNs for older or international editions then http://www.booko.com.au/ to find the cheapest prices. There is a good used marketplace at http://www.abebooks.com.
As for pirated PDF versions, there is plenty of discussion about those at reddit e.g. https://www.reddit.com/r/trackers/comments/hrgmv/tracker_wit… I also saw http://bookzz.org listed elsewhere as a good starting point. Never used these myself, so I can't recommend any!
Edit: beaten by porleng!
abebooks for the win.
I buy my post grad psych from there. they cost around a third of the price that the uni bookshop sells them for. the reason they are cheaper is that they sell "international editions" that are "not available" in the US. but are the exact same book and printed in bangladesh or india or other developing nation.
Libraries? o.O
Sorry I clicked the wrong button and can't undo. The university only ever has 1 or 2 copies available of set texts at any time. Which means in most cases they borrowed before they hit the shelves.
The biggest scam in education. You know what to do if you are a teacher, write the text book for your own courses.
Anyone want some rather expensive physics books?
I actually found it really cheap when my lecturer set his own textbook as the required reading…
Not to mention how he set the exams to be open book, textbook allowed.
I thought it was really cheap until I actually found out that he knew what he was doing. His textbook was actually fairly decent and unique enough.
Booko will search all others (abe, book depository, etc for you)
I remain doubtful of obtaining downloaded books, but 10 years ago I used www.textbookexchange.com.au to source 2nd hand copies much cheaper than new books.
In checking it now, its https://studentvip.com.au/textbooks but I presume the same idea has carried over.
Done. Very easy, and I saved stacks compared to buying new books.