Less Budgeting for Books This Semester?

You can probably walk by the University Bookstore right now and see how ecstatic parents and students are about having to purchase books for the upcoming semester. In a little under two weeks the lines of happy students will be even longer and more of the grim faces. The bookstore clerks are no strangers to the complaints from people buying their books. First-year students taking certain introductory classes will probably be a little grumpy when they have to purchase their first course textbook for some course.

Wouldn't it be a novelty if a university told you not to worry about having to budget a handful of money for your books? Actually, there are some community colleges that are buying the rights to popular textbooks and allowing students online access to the textbooks. If you read an article by Andy Guess on Insidehighered.com you can discover how some community colleges have managed to gain access to popular textbooks. There are a handful of other university systems around the country who are also putting books online for students to simply read it on their computer monitors, and not have to spend a chunk of change for a book they will use for a couple months.

BGSU is actually part of this "online books" movement. The Jerome Library here at BGSU has more than one thousand books that students have open access to. Students are invited to go and chat with one of the librarians and learn about how they could possibly save some money. Maybe one of the books that your instructor has you reading is listed in one of the networks of online books that you can read and use for free online.