University books: Latest editions or cheaper older ones?

billysielu said:
I bought everything new, now I've graduated I have an impressive bookshelf - which I never read. So my advice is to get everything cheap, except those you think you'll use as a reference later.
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I'd agree with this to an extent.

Look at the reading list/talk to your lecturers and see what is needed most, normally you probably only need one or two books for most degrees that will be your core books, used a lot. Buy those and then just go to the library for the other books.

I only bought 3 books for uni for my undergrad, all used frequently for a variety of modules and years. Also less books mean (at least for me) that you will probably spend more time looking in journals and at papers* which is something that will benefit you in later years of study.:)

*I take it you are in first year? In which case be very careful what books you buy as they may be way to basic when you hit 3rd/4th year!
 
I'd be very cautious about buying science books. There are normally plenty at libraries that you can use and you will barely be using them I imagine.

Wait until the course starts and suss out the books you need to own.
 
Use the library copies. If they're on your reading list (and your lecturers aren't complete idiots) they'll be very common books and abundant in the library.

I went through 3 years of uni without buying a single book thanks to the library :)
 
From looking at some of the books on the list (and knowing nothing about science :) ) it looks to me like a couple of them could be OK getting an older copy as the things in them won't have changed.
I used the library for most of my work and journals on the Internet, bought a couple of books but realised there was no need.
Around assignment time, depending on how many people are on your course, it can be hard to get hold of books in the library though. There were 170 people on my course and if you didn't get in early, all the decent (up to date) books were gone.

More up to date books look better when you reference them in written work as well - if you're using a book that was printed in 2000 then it's less likely to have the most up-to-date information in. I know from doing an education degree, that was important as new initiatives and studies come out all the time - if it's important for what you're doing too then maybe wait till you see which books you'll be using most, buy two or three of them, and try get the rest in the library.
 
franco_22 said:
You don't get old books specially if you're studying Science... jeez, I thought that would be pretty obvious.
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A lot of the things you study in mathematics (as an example, since I am a maths student) are things people came up with in the 16th to 20th century.

In some cases, it does not matter whether the book you read was printed in 1900 or 2010.
 
Out of all of the recommended reading over 3 years I bought 2 of them, the rest were loaned from the library as needed. I found myself buying more books that were not part of the recommended reading as they covered a lot more. But that was Java programming, and theres loads of books on that topic, some bad, and some good.
 
Amazon worked out for me on some books. One should have been £45, got it for £28 on Amazon. Just had to wait a few days for it to ship out from some Asian country! Some books are too osbcure though to find them online with a decent discount.

And its worth checking one thing if you get a second edition/second hand text book: answers to chapter questions. For example, my mathematics text book had loads of questions in each chapter, to which you'd expect to find the answers at the back. Not the case- I had to make an online account to get to the answers, which I could only do for a year from when I registered the account. Certainly limits its long term usefullness as a reference book!
 
aardvark said:
books in university are over rated. i bought a load of books and i rarely used any of them. only one of them was actually useful as the lecturer was crap and i needed to actually understand the subject (it was chemical thermodynamics).
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same here. bought them then half the time never used them because i was doing most my work in/at uni and it was easier to just go sit in the library and use its books than it was to carry my own books to and from uni
 
Just got an email from one of my lecturers saying that the waterstones in my uni's student union building buys basically pristine second hand books for half of the original selling price and sells them on again to students. They do this in the first 4 weeks of term so its probably best I keep checking there for a week or two!
 
I'd wait until you know which books you'll actually need before buying anything. I found that I only needed books for research modules (ie lab work or projects) and for one subject where I missed huge chunks of lectures and the lecturer wouldn't provide notes.
 
Just to update. Went into the waterstones store in my uni and got a cracking deal on the newest editions of the 4 main books which the uni sells as a package. A third year student doing the same degree as me advised me fully before buying as well to which I really need and which I'd only really glance at or aren't worth it etc.

Highly recommend new uni students do try the same thing.
 
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