With millions of students each year coughing up money to buy textbooks, publishing companies decided to get a little creative. Bringing a blend of convenience and necessity, there are many options to meet the specific needs of individual students. In fact, the choices are so numerous that you might not even know about some of them. Let’s take a look at some of the lesser-known textbook options.
E-books
With everything shifting to cyberspace these days, why should textbooks be any different? Making books available electronically makes them significantly more portable and allows students to be able to directly insert quotes from the text into their research papers (with the proper citation, of course). Also, they will be received immediately after being purchased, without having to wait for delivery.
However, some professors may not allow electronic devices in their classrooms, so you would only be able to access the e-books outside of class.
Audiobooks
In a fast-paced world, you need something that you can take with you. With audio textbooks, students can soak up information when they wouldn’t normally be able to read a book, such as while driving across town or during their daily exercise routine.
The obvious downside to audio textbooks is that it can be difficult to find the exact information that you’re looking for at any given moment. Audiobooks are significantly cheaper that other options, so they may serve well as a supplement to traditional textbooks.
Renting
As the cost of textbooks has skyrocketed over the last two decades, more college students are choosing to rent their books rather than buy them. This can usually cut back on some unnecessary costs and provide students with a manageable way to finance their education.
However, if the books are returned late or damaged, they can become expensive very quickly. That being said, renting is probably the best bet for any students who don’t plan on keeping their books after the semester is over.
Open Textbooks
Open textbooks are rapidly becoming popular among some of the most prestigious institutions in this country. Open textbooks are uploaded online and make available to students at absolutely no cost. With websites such as Flat World Knowledge, students are able to access books at any time from their personal computers, printing whichever passages they made need to write on.
Because this option is so new, there are not as many books available at this time. Still, more and more colleges are signing contracts with open textbook websites.
Selected Chapters
Professors have much more power than we give them credit for. In some situations, instructors are able to work closely with textbook publishers to create specialized books that only contain the chapters that they will actually be using over the course of their class. This allows students to have precisely what they need with no fluff, and it (quite literally) lightens the load that they have to carry.
Printing less paper is good for the environment, and these textbooks are cheaper to produce, however they are much more difficult to sell once the class is over. In fact, many bookstores will not buy textbooks with selected chapters back.
