Do most university libraries carry textbooks for the courses offered?

I’m no expert on the matter, but I’ve never been to a university where you could check the books out of the library.

Well, that sucks. lol

You could at my school. You couldn’t take them home but you could use it for a hour and hit-up the copy machine.

It depends. Very often, there is a copy of the book on reserve. This is what @johnpowell is talking about when he says there was a copy available that you could use in the library but not take home. If the required texts are not standard textbooks, however, but rather regular books being used as textbooks, then it is very likely that the university library will have a copy. You will not be the only one with this idea, though, so you will likely get into a “recall war” with other members of the class (you’ll check the book out, someone will recall it, you’ll return it and place a recall on the book at the same time, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera).

If a professor asks to have one on reserve, then yes. You can’t check those out though, and you usually only have a couple hours to use thm before you have to give them up for someone else to use (if people want to use it).

Some professors don’t ask for texts to be on reserve though, so it just depends on the instructor. If it’s a general ed class with a ton of students, the library might have it anyway, but you still can’t check it out. In which case if you wanted to take pages home, you’d have to photocopy, like @johnpowell said.

If you’re looking for a cheaper option than buying the book from the school bookstore, grab the ISBN number off the barcode and search Amazon or similar textbook sites for it.
I used to buy my books from Amazon and then sell them back to the campus bookstore. I actually made money.

Not at my school. Most professors and such would have the latest edition and sometimes it was not available until first week of class. I waited last time at the bookstore and the publisher had sent an e-mail two weeks before saying “be in store by start of class” taped on check-out register.
Just made it and it was a new edition. Day class started.

Some books are, but I’m sure that would piss off the book publishers since you would not have to by a $80–100 book that would then be rendered useless after the class ended.

The latest edition crap is a ripoff. I have found 3rd edition texts %70 cheaper than the 4th edition textbooks. They’re basically the same thing, just chapters shifted around.

@Tropical_Willie That’s why I plan on never assigning brand new books when I’m running my own classes. Some professors will tell you that their discipline moves too fast and that they don’t have a choice, but a colleague of mine in the physics department tells me that’s rubbish. A lot of people are in bed with the textbook industry in one way or another.

@Jude In most cases, you are correct. This is why a lot of companies have started including digital extras with passwords that only work during certain semesters. I’d like to see that kind of thing prohibited, but that doesn’t seem likely anytime soon. I got away with using older editions many times when I was an undergraduate. I recommend asking the your professor if that would be a viable option. And if not, cry poverty and ask if s/he has a copy you can borrow. That worked for my wife a few times.

At the university I attended the library stocked multiple copies of all the main text books for all the main courses at levels that meant about 50% of the students taking a particular course could have a copy. They also kept copies in the library that couldn’t be checked out or that could only be checked out for limited periods of time so that you could guarantee being able to access a copy pretty much any time you liked.
Where available they also had ebook versions as well.

I need a copy of Quick Ref to Diag Criteria from DSM-IV-TR, if anyone can find it online, let me know. Thanks.

Consider renting textbooks.

This puppy is $132.35 at the Uni. Fuck that. I’ll go with Amazon or somewhere cheaper.

Some of the classes I took in college had class assign books on hold in the reference section. It was a pain in the ass to get them when nobody else in class was using them, though.

$39.57 and free shipping with Amazon Prime Student

http://www.amazon.com/Quick-Reference-Diagnostic-Criteria-DSM-IV-TR/dp/0890420262

@Jude If your school has a subscription to PsychiatryOnline, they provide an online DSM. If not, I’d get one of the used copies for $25 on Amazon. And if you have a high-res camera on your phone (my android has 8 mp, but the 3 or 4 mp on my mother’s iPhone is shit), you can just snap pictures of the pages and it turns out nice enough to read and is much less of a pain in the ass than photocopying (and it doesn’t use up your paper allowance).

@cletrans2col I’m sure it does piss off publishers, but most students buy used or rent whenever they can, and publishers and authors don’t see a dime of that, so I’m not sure publishers are focusing their efforts on taking down library rentals.

Some of the text books are at the university library but I don’t believe you can check them out overnight. You can only check them out for a few hours and then they have to be returned. If you’re trying to save money, I would highly suggest you consider renting. I always rent from Chegg and I save a ton of money on textbooks. You can have them for the entire semester and you don’t have to pay shipping when returning them. I always recommend them.

Let me just add, I spent $100 bucks with chegg on four textbooks for the next semester. Two of them are rented and the other two are purchased (used of course). That is pretty darn good if you ask me!

I found a few at the University library (reserve only). :)

Always. I hate to see new students buying textbooks for their course because it’s such a rip off!

You could at my college. Multiple copies of books required in classes were put “on reserve” in the library which meant they could be reserved and checked out for a limited time. But it was “first come, first served” and it was difficult sometimes to get the book and read it in time allowed and in the time they needed to be read.

If I get a copy (on reserve), I’m going to photocopy the chapters.

@Jude just be careful you dont copy more than the copyright law states you can. In fact I think most library copy facilities place restrictions on what you can copy :-(

@Stinley Libraries might have policies about how much you can copy in a day, but a student can photocopy all of the assigned parts of the book over the course of a semester as they are assigned. I could not photocopy an entire book and distribute it to my students, however, as that would violate fair use laws.

A photocopy for private study is fair use.