Purchasing Textbooks: UConn Style by: Jackie Slemp
University of Connecticut has a great system set up in order to buy textbooks at the beginning of each semester. To find what books are required for each class, you go to the “order online” portion of the UConn Co-op website. You are transferred to what they call “Textbooks To Go” and you put in your campus, term, department, course, and section/professor. After you provide information for all of your classes, you view your books. Each class is shown with the books that are required as well as optional. The professor also has the option of writing a little message if they want to further clarify what the options are for their specific class.
Finding what books you need for each class through the UConn Co-op website is great, but then the real challenge of where you want to buy the books begins. If you decide to stick to using UConn’s site, there are some perks, such as picking up your textbooks at the Co-op once you get to school. This is not only convenient, but it also saves money since you don’t have to pay for shipping. They list the price for the new textbook and a price for the used and you choose which you would like to buy. The only issue I have with this, being a very picky person when it comes to the quality of my textbooks, is that used is just one category and you have no idea whether they are “heavily used” or “like new”.
Another way to save money by eliminating shipping costs is to go and pick out your textbooks once you are back on campus. On the top floor of the Co-op there is a shopping area where you can find all of your books- this allows you to actually look at the quality yourself. This option avoids the chance that you buy a heavily used textbook online; however, you are also taking a risk because the bookstore may no longer have that book in stock.
For both the fall and spring semester, I have bought textbooks through the UConn Co-op as well as a third-party source. Often times, the third party does have cheaper prices. Some even have a breakdown of the quality in used books by saying that they are “like new” or “heavily used”, which I find extremely helpful. The UConn website does provide the ISBN numbers for the textbooks, so it is very easy to just copy and paste that number into a third-party website to compare prices. Depending on which site you use, the shipping costs can be rather high and sometimes high enough where the Co-op actually ends up being the cheaper option. Many people believe that shopping at an on-campus bookstore is always more expensive then shopping elsewhere, but in this case that is not always true. I have found that the Co-op prices are not always a lot higher than third-parties, in fact sometimes they are cheaper. It all depends on the Co-op’s inventory and which specific classes you are taking.
In purchasing textbooks for fall semester, I found that many of my professors were using something called “CoursePacks” instead of regular textbooks. CoursePacks are unique to the class and tend to be cheaper than their alternative. Professors can pull information from various sources (textbooks, articles, their own notes, etc.) to create 1 custom CoursePack for their students. Instead of having to buy 2 or 3 textbooks that we will only read a few chapters in, this allows us to get the chapters we need in 1 easy-to-use CoursePack. Since the CoursePack is unique to the class and the professor, one drawback is that you can most likely only purchase it from your school’s bookstore and there is no value for it at the end of the semester (ie. You can’t try to sell it back at buyback).
If I had to give any advice, I would say to definitely see what your options are. Find out what books you need then check pricing at both your bookstore and third-party sellers online. Compare the prices and see what makes the most sense for you to buy. Don’t be lazy and think it’s easier to just buy all of them through one source, because chances are you will spend the least amount of money if you buy some through UConn (or your school’s bookstore) and others through third parties!
