I cannot believe humans didn’t come up with this until now: avoiding the tyranny of the textbook-publisher racket by renting textbooks. (Author’s note: It’s entirely possible this rental option was around a few years ago when I was in school, and I was just too snobby to even allow the idea to enter my consciousness.)

It may not be feasible to rent all of your books every term; lab books tend to actually be written in, and some texts will be kept forever as reference books. But if you could rent just a few, you’d still be saving a fat wad of cash and would be helping to limit the power of the iron-fisted, textbook-publishing regime that rules the land of academia.

According to Alan Bradford over at Geek Stew (who alerted his fellow humans to this book-rental genius-ness), Chegg.com also plants a tree for every book rented, which means you’ll be saving the bacon of trees on several levels.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

My world is better when all pertinent information is collected and listed. Lifehack.org just posted The Ultimate Student Resource List, thereby improving the alignment of the universe. Don’t you feel lighter, more organized, supremely in control of yourself and everything around you? I really, really, very much do.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

Alternatives to Your College Bookstore

A recent BusinessWeek.com article about Chegg.com, a site that allows students to buy and sell used textbooks and other school-related goods and services, spurred discussion on Digg.com. End result, you can find vastly different prices on multiple textbook sites, it depends on what you’re looking for. Send us your tips, site suggestions and experiences with these sites and we’ll add to the list.

Textbook Crawler / Price Comparison Sites
Ranked in order of mentions:

Abebooks.com
Bigwords.com
AddALL.com
TextbookCompare.com
BookFinder.com

Textbook Buy / Sell / Trade / Classifieds Sites
CollegeMedium.com
Tradeyourtextbook.com
CampusTrade.com
Textbookx.com
DormItem.com
ValoreBooks.com
DirectTextbook.com
Campusbooks.com

Other Textbook Sites
Half.com
Amazon.com
Barnes&Noble.com
Shopzilla.com

Individually Purchasing Textbook Chapters
ichapters.com

Canadian College / University Textbooks
Booksu.com
Tusbe.com

Textbooks From India
75-90% discounts. Identical to the US editions, but with grayscale photos and plain paper.
Firstandsecond.com/

Tips
Get a group together to pay cheap shipping.

Place an index card in the bulletin board of your department for the book you’re looking for.

The Future
Electronic versions of textbooks.

Colleges and Universities | College |Textbooks