Prepare to miss those two days in high school. You know, the one day where the teacher calls everyone to the front desk, jots down the number and hands you a massive textbook, and the one where you spend 20 minutes before school digging through the pile of crap in your room to find it so you can give it back. Compared with the college textbook buying process, those two days were a breeze, and well worth the boredom/tedium. Oh, and your books were free. Ha! They are no longer free.

I’ve bought, rented, ordered, sold, lost, kept and done just about everything one can do with a textbook (except dance — I have never danced with a textbook). I still am not sure which way is the best to obtain them, or to get rid of them once you’ve battled your way to a B-minus.

Buying from a store on campus

This is the efficient way to get your books, the way Alma would want you to do it. Not that Alma has a soft side for your wallet. Follett’s will have gone out of business by the time you get here, but that doesn’t matter — it was a lesser bookstore that got what it deserved, even if it had been around since 1930-whatever. So you have the Illini Union Bookstore — where you’ll be hassled about a TCF Bank account (my advice: Do it! Free hoodie!) — or T.I.S., which stands for The Illinois Store, I guess?

Anyway, either is a decent option for purchasing textbooks. Decent. The Union Bookstore, located on Wright and Daniel street (like, in the middle of everything), has a great selection, but its basement (where textbooks are) is the most crowded place ever for the first week and a half of class. T.I.S., located on Sixth between Green and John (across from one of this school’s better bars, Firehaus), will give you an inferior selection, but more ease of purchase. In either case, I would go in the middle of a class period that you don’t have class (so like, 2:30, or 12:30) — you want to go while as many thousands of people are in class as possible. I do not know which stores’ prices are better. But if you’re looking to get your textbooks economically, you should probably just go online.

Buying from the Internet

The biggest key here is to cross your fingers. Hopefully, you get the book you ordered, which is hopefully the edition of the book you needed. Hopefully, it comes in a reasonable time period, so you aren’t three weeks into classes before you have your books. Hopefully, the book is in half-decent condition when you get it, and not missing pages, the back cover and is not laden with angry annotations about “Why isn’t he texting back?” There’s definite value in being able to assess the condition of the book you’re purchasing, and to leave with it and be able to use it that night. There’s also value in finding the book being sold on shelves for $15.95 available used online for $0.02, and being signed by the author (happened to me last semester, no joke). Amazon is the powerhouse of the Internet textbook market, I see no reason to use any other site.

The biggest problem I’ve had with this is, as stated above, you can’t make it ship quicker. You’re at the mercy of the postal service, which is going the way of the newspaper (*bursts into tears*). I’ve had several books show up late, but most professors put copies of their textbooks on reserve at some library or another. Additionally, when this has happened to me, I’ve survived by paying attention in class and taking advantage of the basic nature of any course’s first couple weeks. Still, some of you nerds out there (joking!) may not want to mess with the whole process. A few good websites to look at for textbooks include: Half.com, Chegg.com and Amazon.com.

Renting

It’s kind of nice to lessen the blow on your wallet by renting textbooks. You pay less for them, and you get them, and then you have them and use them, and then you give them back and no longer have them. It’s really a simple process. Like the one you’re more used to with high school, except it’s not free.

The price cuts are significant enough to warrant your attention. But this gets tricky because there are multiple ways to do it. You can rent from a store here on campus, which is best for convenience and price combination. Then there’s online textbook rental services like Chegg, which offers you some of the cheapest prices you’ll find, but the books come in this stupid orange box that you have to keep around, then reseal and send back with your books in it at the end of the semester. And only UPS ships them, so you can’t just walk into the post office at Altgeld Hall (Pro tip: There’s a post office at Altgeld Hall) and ship them. 

Personally, I like to keep a lot of my textbooks, so I don’t want to rent them right off, in case midway through the semester I decide I like the subject matter and want to keep the book around. Guess I’m a nerd too. Or just a hoarder.

Which method is best? Depends on the book. If you need it right away, order it in person. If it’s a class you’re nonplussed about, get it used off Amazon. If it’s a class you need right away and don’t care for, rent it on campus. 

Eliot is a senior in Media. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @EliotTweet.