Textbooks are essential to most courses in college. Plenty of courses require multiple textbooks that cost upwards of $100 each. These costs, which should be provided by the tuition fee, feel unavoidable and prevent students from studying and completing homework on time. The slipping grades and rising costs of these resources are depressing and aggravating, but there are some tips and tricks students can take advantage of that are cheap and legal.

We can get the more obvious alternatives out of the way first: the library. NMU’s Lydia M. Olson Library contains plenty of textbooks from past courses, but often professors will prefer the newest edition of a book that came out approximately 2 seconds ago. 

There’s a chance that the professor of the course would’ve placed their own textbook in the library under the “Course Reserves” section. You can visit the front desk of the library and ask if the book is available or search in the online database for the book. Have the course number and book title ready when asking to speed up the search process.

The downside to this is that most books in this section are only allowed to be checked out for a couple of hours or a couple of days at a time to make sure multiple students get the chance to use the book, so although not ideal, it can be useful in a pinch.

If the book is nowhere in the library, then it might be in another library nearby. The Olson library is involved with the MelCat and International Library Loan (ILL) programs that will search other libraries for the books, check them out, and ship them to our university library for you to pick up. Both programs can be accessed under the “My Accounts” tab on the NMU Library website.

The MelCat program searches libraries in the state of Michigan, while the ILL program searches libraries Internationally, so be sure to check out Melcat first in order to get faster delivery. 

The allotted time you can keep the book is determined by the library of origin, and usually maxes out at 90 days. There is an option to request a renewed due date, but be warned the library can reject the request, so you’d have to request the book from a different library and switch out books regularly at the library.

This isn’t an ideal situation, but it is free. The final option for free textbook access through the library is to request the Olson library purchase the book.

Yes, this is actually an option.

It’s a slow process and can sometimes take weeks or even months to fulfill if the librarians accept the request if at all possible. If one student requests the textbook, it can save dozens or even hundreds of students money in the future. If dozens of students request the same book, then it can be nearly impossible to ignore the request. There’s even an option to request the online version of the textbook, which can be utilized by all students at the same time, so there’s no fighting for the one copy.

If you don’t want to wait on the whim of a librarian or prefer to keep your own copy, then you might want to find the book in a used book database.

Have you wondered what happened to all of the NMU library books when the renovation started?

Many of them went to storage, but the others were sent to Better World Books. Its an online store for books that offers highly discounted prices for your textbooks. Unlike some thrift book stores, they also take discarded library books to increase their inventory, so the chances of you finding the book of your choice is likely.

Whatever choice you make, start looking for textbooks early.

Search by the ISBN found in the beginning of the book to insure you’re buying or requesting the right edition.

Request the book before the winter semester starts to get a feel as to how these programs work and understand what might work best for you.

Ask your professor if they have a book they can lend to you, or ask another student if they could share. 

A final message to university staff: help your students by lending your book to the NMU library or by requesting they buy the textbook. Please understand that many students may not be able to buy their textbooks until months into the semester and allow wiggle room for error in this regard. 

Education shouldn’t be in accessible or costly, so please take advantage of the fantastic programs the library offers to cut costs next semester.