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May the source be with you, but remember the KISS principle ;-)
Softpanorama Search
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Softpanorama Books reviews |
See Also | Bookstores Ratings | Major Internet bookstores | Deep discounters | Auctions |
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BookFinder4U (good interface, lists tax, if any) |
AAABookSearch | fetchbook.info | Pricescan | AddALL | Bublos.com | |
| Booksprice | thecheapestbook.com | DealTime/Books |
BookFinder.com (weak interface) |
BookkooB (list tax, if any) |
Amazon Bibliofind (weak) |
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| Experiment 1 | Experiment 2 | History | Humor | Etc | Humor | Etc |
Every programmer every system administrator, and especially a university computer science student, needs a lot of books. This page is designed to help all three categories, but might be especially useful for students as the cost of textbooks is often staggering (see rip-off 101):
Students will spend an average of $898 per year on textbooks in 2003-04, based on surveys of University of California (UC) students in the fall of 2003. This represents almost 20 percent of the average tuition and fees for in-state students at public four-year colleges nationwide. In contrast, a 1997 UC survey found that students spent an average of $642 on textbooks in 1996-97.
For those who are barely can pay tuition, saving on textbooks can be an important cost-saving measure. As The Boston Globe reported in the article Textbook costs are off the charts :
The findings in a federal report released yesterday won't surprise anyone who has been to college in recent years: Textbook prices have skyrocketed, closely tracking increases in tuition and fees.
The US Government Accountability Office study, requested by Representative David Wu, an Oregon Republican, found that textbook prices have increased 6 percent a year since the academic year 1987-88 -- twice the general rate of inflation.
The average annual cost of textbooks for a student in 2003-04 was $898 at a four-year college and $886 at a two-year college, the report found. While overall prices have increased 72 percent since 1986, the report said, college tuition and fees have increased 240 percent and textbooks 186 percent. The report echoes many of the findings in a highly critical report issued last year by CALPIRG, a California consumer research group.
Unfortunately a large part of the textbook market in the USA has all signs of corrupted monopoly infested with cronyism and incompetence to the extent that Standard Oil practices looks pretty benign in comparison. As the site MakeTextbooksAffordable.com states on its font page:
The report, entitled, “Rip-off 101: How the Current Practices of the Publishing Industry Drive up the Cost of College Textbooks”, surveyed the most widely-taught books at colleges and universities in California and Oregon and the faculty that teach those books. The report found that even though students already pay $900 year for textbooks, textbook publishers artificially inflate the price of textbooks by adding bells and whistles to the current texts, and forcing cheaper used books off the market by producing expensive new editions of textbooks that are barely different from the previous edition. The report also found that most of the faculty members surveyed in the report do not think many of these add-ons are useful and are supportive of efforts to streamline textbook costs and extend the shelf life of current textbook editions.
And some university professors are part of these scheme. Congressmen David Wu site the opinion of the publisher in his letter "If a student is paying hundreds of dollars for a book, it's because the professor has ordered the Cadillac edition". But that might be true only for CS where any professor can easily find a cheaper high quality substitute from publishers like O'Reilly (and students can do this too, this part of the Softpanorama site is actually about such a selection). In other disciplines like mathematics professors have almost no choice " . The cost of a common calculus textbook is over $100 in the USA. This is a blatant, open rip-off. Here is another relevant quote from the Congressmen David Wu's letter:
Ronald Miech, a math professor at UCLA, countered that if he had choices in ordering textbooks, it would be news to him. "I have never heard of a scaled-back version," he said.
Indeed, he contended that he's often forced to order books that come bundled with workbooks and software that he never uses. "I've tried the software," he said. "I don't like it and I never use it. But we don't seem to have an option of buying the book without it."
Congressmen David Wu letter also contains some useful recommendations. In the meantime, enterprising students have many ways to cut the cost of buying textbooks. Among them:
Here is another interesting letter that is related to this theme:
August 19, 2005
Congressman David Wu
1023 Longworth House Office
Washington, DC 20515Dear Congressman Wu,
We support your fight for fair college textbook pricing, especially your request that the Government Accountability Office investigate the cost of college textbooks and the textbook publishing industry. The GAO report [PDF] released this week, and the media coverage it has generated, is bringing the issue the attention it deserves.
The textbook has historically been produced by a publisher who makes all the decisions about who and what gets published, and when. They set the page count and decide how a book will be bound and bundled, all of which helps determine (or inflate) the price. Everything is controlled from the top down, unlike the production and sale of other goods.
O'Reilly Media is the largest independent publisher of technology books. We work at empowering our customers and expanding the boundaries of publishing by creating web-based user communities, sponsoring conferences and publishing open content from our readers. Lately, Computer Science and Information Technology instructors have been turning to us for up-to-the-minute course material because their textbook needs are not being met through traditional academic publishing channels.
So we developed SafariU, a web-based co-publishing tool that lets instructors build their own books out of the wealth of material we've collected for them. SafariU users are free to search and select the content they want from our huge database of top-tier technology resources, creating bound textbooks and online syllabi tailored precisely to their teaching needs and their students' budgetary constraints. And the SafariU Learning Object Exchange gives instructors a forum for peer review and exchange of online syllabi and textbooks. I'm enclosing an interview with SafariU user Charles Anderson, professor at Western Oregon University.
By transferring the publisher's authority to the instructor, allowing content to be mixed and matched from multiple sources, facilitating sharing in the academic community and changing the pricing model, SafariU is turning textbook publishing on its head.
We'd like to learn more about your ongoing campaign to make college textbooks affordable and how O'Reilly can help in that effort.
Kindest regards,
Timothy F. O'Reilly
Founder & CEO
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
But here one needs to see a bigger picture: low quality of recommended textbooks makes it necessary buying additional textbooks.
There are several ways to save on university textbooks, and with some effort you probably can save ~50% of the cover price, which is a nice saving especially if the required textbook itself is junk or semi-junk with the price around $100 (like so many university textbooks can be classified).
For price comparison of computer books I would recommend to start your search with the BookFinder4U (has info about tax) or AAABookSearch (it shows return policy and has some, potentially useful, information about coupons).
After that you can widen your search as the best price is often can be found only in a single booksearching engine and it is difficult to predict which one. Newcomer Booksprice is also pretty impressive and can be recommended. AddALL is good too and what is important it lists table of contents of the book found.
Please notice that some bookstores charge taxes to residents of particular states. BookkooB provides valuable tax information about many bookstores along with prices.
Some notes:
Recently I have several successful searches using AAABookSearch. It is limited to technical books, but like any specialized search engine it can (in certain cases) provide a better price than other engines.
In experiments that I made AddALL book search and price comparison was good in finding the minimum price of Unix shell books; it also provides information about coupons (that often make B&N much more competitive). That makes it attractive search engine for computer books. AAA BookSearch is also good and couple of times was able to find the best price on new books.
See also Yahoo! Book Search Services Price Comparisons for additional links to book price comparison services sites.
But sometimes you can find a better deal then via price comparison engine because of coupons and publisher website information. check Wall Mart, paradoxically it sometimes has the best price on technical books.
For rare books one can try Bublos.com.
Every programmer every system administrator, and especially a university computer science student, needs a lot of books. This page is designed to help all three categories, but might be especially useful for students as the cost of textbooks is often staggering (see rip-off 101).
Prices on new books fluctuate at least 20%. If you are looking for a computer science textbook you usually can find a price on a new book slightly better then in your university bookstore by checking major book price comparison services listed above. Always use ISBN for searching: otherwise a gain that you are anticipating may prove to be a loss.
Discounts on new textbooks are not great, but they do exist. If your course is using O'Reilly, McMillan, Que, or Sams book you are in much better position, and you can save 30% or more off the book price. It makes sense to check the publisher WEB Page for specials and stores that have huge discounts for this particular week. Many textbooks come "bundled," with shrink-wrapped software or additional instructional materials such as CD-ROMs and workbooks. Students rarely have the option of buying the textbook "a la carte" or without additional materials. You may try to buy unbundled edition if such exists. More then half of faculty including myself "rarely" or "never" use the bundled materials in their courses.
Unless you really admire the author (Donald Knuth can be an example) it does not make much sense to buy a new college textbook. Many bookstores have very good prices on used college textbooks ! Most of those textbooks are not that good anyway and it does not make sense to support the author or greedy publishers ;-). You can usually save more then 50% on used textbooks, sometimes 70% (university textbooks are often ridiculously overpriced and cost close or even over $100). Publishers of textbooks often use new edition as a dirty trick to extract more money from students (because it makes all the books from the previous edition obsolete), but if changes are few you can save buying previous edition and marking the differences or copying a dozen of changed pages (that actually helps to concentrate on study of even dull subject, converting you into some kind of detective exposing the author and publisher dirty tricks ;-).
Many instructors does not follow a textbook that is recommended for the course. In case of those "free agent" instructors previous edition or even a different book can be more then adequate. If textbook is junk it makes sense to buy a prev edition and additional two or three books: it might make a difference between passing a course and failing it). Usually, what additional book you need is clear after a couple of labs.
Amazon currently has a very good discount on O'Reilly books. I also recommend to check alldirect.com and Bookpool. a1books.com, varsitybooks.com sometimes has great prices too.
For O'Reilly books (in unlikely case Amazon or Bookpool have less than 25% off) the second place to try is DigitalGuru. It looks like they usually have good discount. Digital Guru is especially attractive if you prefer UPS shipping (UPS is faster. I also had a couple of books lost with USPS; you mileage can vary).
Good luck !
Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov
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1 |
Amazon (very good prices on new O'Reilly books, other usually 25%-30% off, Amazon marketplace is very competitive and has wider selection of books then eBay.com and half.com ) |
| 2 | a1books.com (excellent prices for used book prices, mostly compertative with amazon) |
| 3 | Bookpool (generally very good prices on new books) |
| 4 | Alibris Buy Used Books, Used Textbooks, Rare Books, Out-of-Print & New Books |
| 5 | half.com Selection is good and shipping on used books is lower then at Amazon 2.79 vs 3.50 at Amazon. If the same books is availble for the same price half.com is cheaper then Amazon marketplace. |
| 6 | ebay.com (sometime you can find cheap books, but selection is usually very limited and books often do not have exact ISBN -- buyer beware) |
| 7 | B&N (usually is competitive only with coupons, but has probably the largest selection of books) |
On April 12, 2002 I compared prices of new books for the Softpanorama mini-bookshelf. The results were:
On August 14, 2005 I repeated experiment 1 (compared prices of new books for the Softpanorama mini-bookshelf) using BookFinder4U. An interesting result is that Walmark became very competitive with Amazon as for new books. The second one is that Half.com often beats Amazon marketplace for used books.
| In Stock |
97.70
|
2.98
|
100.68
|
New | AR CA CO GA MS NY OH UT | |
| In Stock |
98.10
|
3.49
|
101.59
|
New | --- | |
| Usually ships in 24 hours |
103.94
|
0.00
|
103.94
[offer]
|
New | ND WA | |
| In Stock |
101.61
|
3.69
|
105.30
|
New | --- |
| In Stock |
14.99
|
2.79
|
17.78
|
New/Used | PA | |
| In Stock |
15.00
|
3.49
|
18.49
|
Used | --- | |
| In Stock |
18.95
|
3.49
|
22.44
[offer]
|
New/Used | CA MI NV | |
| In Stock |
20.00
|
3.00
|
23.00
|
Used | --- | |
| In Stock |
19.64
|
3.49
|
23.13
|
New | --- | |
| In Stock |
20.25
club price |
3.99
|
24.24
[offer]
|
Used | NJ NV NY PA SC TN WI FL MA | |
| In Stock |
21.70
|
2.98
|
24.68
|
New | AR CA CO GA MS NY OH UT |
| In Stock |
11.25
|
3.50
|
14.75
|
Used | --- | |
| In Stock |
11.27
|
3.50
|
14.77
|
Used | --- | |
| In Stock |
11.75
|
3.29
|
15.04
|
Used | NJ | |
| In Stock |
13.00
|
2.79
|
15.79
|
New/Used | PA | |
| In Stock |
12.45
|
3.49
|
15.94
[offer]
|
New/Used | CA MI NV | |
| In Stock |
12.50
|
3.49
|
15.99
|
Used | --- | |
| In Stock |
16.99
|
3.49
|
20.48
|
New | --- |
| In Stock |
13.50
|
3.49
|
Used | --- | ||
| In Stock |
14.43
|
3.49
|
17.92
[offer]
|
New/Used | CA MI NV | |
| In Stock |
14.48
|
3.50
|
17.98
|
Used | --- | |
| In Stock |
20.00
|
2.79
|
22.79
|
New/Used | PA | |
| Ships in 1 to 3 days |
19.95
|
3.50
|
23.45
[offer]
|
Used | --- |
| In Stock |
15.85
|
3.29
|
Used | NJ | ||
| In Stock |
15.79
|
3.49
|
Used | --- | ||
| In Stock |
15.85
|
3.50
|
Used | --- | ||
| In Stock |
17.00
|
2.79
|
New/Used | PA |
| In Stock |
15.85
|
3.29
|
Used | NJ | ||
| In Stock |
15.79
|
3.49
|
Used | --- | ||
| In Stock |
15.85
|
3.50
|
Used | --- | ||
| In Stock |
17.00
|
2.79
|
New/Used | PA | ||
| Ships in 1 to 3 days |
26.50
|
3.50
|
30.00
[offer]
|
Used | --- | |
| In Stock |
27.48
|
3.00
|
Used | --- | ||
| Usually ships within 2 business days |
27.48
|
3.50
|
New/Used | --- | ||
| In Stock |
28.22
|
3.49
|
New | --- | ||
| Check Site |
32.74
|
1.40
|
34.14
[offer]
|
New | UT |
|
15.00 +
|
2.79
|
New/Used |
|
|
Amazon Marketplace |
8.95
|
+ 3.49 =
|
12.44
|
| Half.com |
6.00
|
2.79
|
8.79
|
New/Used |
| In Stock |
2.90
|
+ 2.79 =
|
New/Used |
| In Stock |
4.37 +
|
3.49 =
|
7.86
|
| In Stock |
5.00 +
|
2.79 =
|
7.79
|
|
| In Stock |
5.75 +
|
3.49 =
|
9.24
|
|
|||||||
[Aug 15, 2005] Beccary » Book Closeouts
Are you familiar with bookcrossing.com? It’s free well, virtually, depends on if you want someone to send a book to you and if they’re willing to pay to send it. If you don’t already have an account there, you should get one. silent-lucidity is my username… you’re welcome to browse my bookshelf (not sure if i’m allowed to include a link in comments so i won’t… but if you search for my username you’ll get there ) and see if there’s anything you want. the one’s marked “available” i still have in my possession and can send to you. it’s mostly romance novels right now (because i got tired of them laying around and me not reading them), but there’s a couple just general fiction books in there too. And obviously, you can browse around and find books from other users. Hope that helps.
[Aug 14, 2005] WeFindCheapBooks An interesting newcomer that has very quick search. The result of search are well organized has visual appeal (booksellers represented by nice icons) and also provide innovative popup with the interesting information about the location of the server. During my checks using "Softpanorama Classic Books List" I noticed that prices for Amazon are not current and need rechecking (probably cashed for speed). But generally the prices found were one of the lowest available (within the shipping cost approximation limits).
[Aug 10, 2005] FetchBook - New & Used Books - Find the Lowest Price An interesting newcomer. Searches are pretty quick and the results are high quality.
[Apr 21, 2005] Books Price - Multiple Book Price Comparison Another newcomer. Can help if you are trying to buy several books simultaneously.
...is a free innovative service of finding the best price on a purchase of several books together. This service is more useful than the standard services which perform one book comparison at a time, and can save more money when buying several books together. Since Architecture books can be very expensive, I am sure that our services can be very important to you visitors.
BookkooB - Compare book prices in the US -- new price comparison service...
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Developing open alternatives (Score:4, Informative)
by An Onerous Coward (222037) on Friday January 30, @08:17PM (#8140884) (http://slashdot.org/) |
| Here are some links I dredged up last time this subject rolled through. Wiki Textbooks [wikibooks.org] Light and Matter [lightandmatter.com]: Open physics textbooks. An open math textbook [caltech.edu] Project Gutenberg [promo.net], for all the English majors out there. There are also a lot of books out there which are freely downloadable, but not modifiable. Has anyone here used a free (in either sense) textbook as their primary learning tool in a college class? If so, what was your experience? |
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New & Used Books - Find the lowest price |
Interesting site the provides thumbnails along with found books. Sometimes it is able to find bargains unavailable to competing services (try, for example, Laura Lemay, or Mark Sobell and compare with a couple other servises).
Used Textbooks College Textbooks Used College Text Books - Book Byte Textbook very good prices on colledge textbooks !
bookcloseouts.com. Search for the list of discounted O'Reilly books, and the list C++ books. some decent books (Delphi) can be found among $1.99 bargains. BookCloseOuts.com Bargain Books - Book Store - Book Sale
DigitalGuru. Prices close to Amazon but with cheaper shipping charges. Cheap UPS rate.
Book search and book price comparison - AAABookSearch -- somebody send me this link. I tested it on Donald Knuth Art of computer programming 3 volumes boxed set (Published On: October 1998 ISBN: 0201485419) and was pretty impressed. It does make sense to use this site. In this search it has found a minumum price that was lower both Bublos and Pricescan by $20 !. The site is slow.
Bublos.com Compare Real-Time Book Prices And Buy Books Cheaper -- pretty interesting price comparison engine with links to rare books
DigitalGuru periodically is offering up to 20% of all PH PTR tiles. Get 15% to 25% off Prentice Hall/PTR titles from Readme.doc!
Application Compares Prices of Online Booksellers --March 26 1999
The question of who owns the title of the Earth's cheapest bookstore may soon be answered, with Friday's launch of "http://www.ClickTheButton.com">ClickTheButton.com, Inc.'s free application that enables users to compare book prices of rival online bookstores.
The tool allows users to compare prices at Amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com and Booksamillion.com.
With the click of a corner screen icon, bibliophiles can see prices comparisons displayed in their active browser window. Dubbed The PriceSlicer, the add-on can be downloaded free and works with more than a quarter million book titles on sale at the three book-tailers. The icon is installed on the Windows desktop next to the clock in the lower right hand corner of the screen.
The Princeton, N.J.-based company said it does not have business relationships with the booksellers. It also plans to support additional products and e-commerce sites within the next few weeks.
[Jan.20.1999.] Trouble in the Amazon.com by Craig Bicknell, Wired News, There's a new business model creeping into Web retailing that could spell trouble for Net superstars like Amazon.com .
Well, here's the idea: If enough people come to your Web site to buy whatever you're selling at a loss, you can still make money by selling ad space on the site. Computer retailer Onsale unveiled just such a plan Tuesday, dubbed Onsale atCost. Buy.com, which competes directly with Amazon in book, music, and video sales, has a similar business blueprint. "It's still too early to tell whether this is a flash in the pan or the beginning of a massive tidal wave," said Derek Brown, an analyst at Volpe Brown Whelan. Read the full article: http://www.wired.com/news/print_version/business/story/17444.html?wnpg
[August 10, 2009 ] POOR RICHARD'S WEB SITE: Geek-Free, Commonsense Advice on Building a Low-Cost Web Site (first chapter)
[August 10, 2009 ] The MIT Press
Yahoo! Book Search Services Price Comparisons
BookCloseOuts.com closeouts up to 80% off
www.1bookstreet.com -- bargain book up to 75% off.
**** HamiltonBook.com -- more than 50% discounter; Shipping is only $3 for any number of books you buy. They have very limited selection of computer books (in 1998 it used to decent, but now rpobably few people buy them). Still periodically you can find excellent deals in the computer books section. I use it several times and the service was great. Check it out. Recommended...
Half.com books -- a branch of eBay for new/used books similar to Amazon shops (50% discount or more)
Half Price Computer Books is an independently-owned and operated retail and Internet computer bookstore est. June 1, 1996. HPCB now has three stores with the opening of their newest store in Vancouver at Cambie and W 8th. The other stores are in Richmond, BC., just southwest of Vancouver, and in Burnaby, east of Vancouver. We stock over 20,000 books per location and are always growing. Selling only computer books, we can specialize our knowledge in this industry and cater more specifically to the needs of computer users. All of our titles sell for 50% off of the listed retail price, with some books at further-reduced prices.
Budget Books - some discounted books. Not impressive selection.
Linux Mall -- a very good site
Linux System Labs Bookstore -- 25% discount on all O'Reilly books !
CheapBytes Catalog and Ordering (has offices in Russia and Ukraine)
Copyright © 1996-2009 by Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov. www.softpanorama.org was created as a service to the UN Sustainable Development Networking Programme (SDNP) in the author free time. Submit comments This document is an industrial compilation designed and created exclusively for educational use and is placed under the copyright of the Open Content License(OPL). Site uses AdSense so you need to be aware of Google privacy policy. Original materials copyright belong to respective owners. Quotes are made for educational purposes only in compliance with the fair use doctrine.
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Last modified: August 10, 2009