Class Action

Buy the book

By Brittany Kress

The dollar is at an all-time low. Gas and food prices are rising, and everything else is about to. The financial future seems scary.

And not to freak you out, but four-year public school students spend 26 percent of their college costs on textbooks — it jumps to 72 percent for two-year college students, according to a 2005 government report on the affordability of textbooks. If you haven't thought about buying and selling the books you need online, now's the time.

Sure, you have to put in a little extra work to find out what texts you need and where they're the cheapest, but in some cases you won't even have to click away from that Facebook window. Prices online aren't always cheaper — don't forget about shipping and handling costs — but many are.

At Ohio State, finding deals might be easier soon. The Redout Foundation — a recently formed student philanthropic group — and the Undergraduate Student Government are teaming up to create The List, a university-wide online database of required textbooks that should launch for the beginning of fall quarter, said Daniel Tse, Redout's co-founder.

The List will "get the same information to students at the same time as bookstores (so they will) have more power in the used-book market," said Tse, a senior studying molecular genetics.

For now, find out what books you need by checking with your professor or bookstore. Then plug that information (preferably the ISBN number) into these textbook exchange and search engine sites:

Facebook.com: A new Facebook Marketplace tool specifically lists and searches for textbooks within your network. If no one is selling or looking to buy it, your listing will show up whenever anyone enters that ISBN later on.

Amazon.com: Buy new books directly from Amazon or new and used books from private sellers. Once you pay online, that seller gets an e-mail with your mailing address and has three business days to send it out.

Half.com: New and used copies are available from private sellers. The purchasing process works quite like Amazon's.

BigWords.com: Boasts it can save you the most money by searching other sites for all the books you need at once and determining the best deal, including discounts and combined shipping costs. It also rates sellers' reliability.

Isbn.nu: Searches a dozen major online retailers and auction sites using the title, author, subject or ISBN number, and lists prices and estimated shipping time.

Textbook Example

Here's an example of the deals you can find on Sociology 101 textbook Essentials of Sociology by Anthony Giddens:

Barnes & Noble: $70 new, $52.50 used

Amazon.com: $68.60 new, $42.01 used

Half.com: $62.73 new, $46.59 used

Bigwords.com: best price is $30.37 at Textbooks.com

Isbn.nu: best price is $42.01 at Amazon.com

March 20, 2008