Circumventing B&N to buy books

<p>Need some serious help finding textbooks w/o using the college's B&N. I went there to find out what books my son needed and am now stuck. The ISBN numbers they give don't come up on any search - including on the publishers websites. I don't believe that the titles are correct either (shortened) as I can't find them on the publishers websites either - even by searching on title, author and edition, I'm not feeling comfortable that what pulls up on the publishers website is the correct book. Any ideas on what to do next - buying used textbooks was a big part of my college affordability plan. Would having my son email profs for syllabi copies help, or are the ISBN numbers likely to be the same?</p>

<p>Can you provide an example of an ISBN that doesn’t come up? I usually pull the titles up on, can I say it, the site named after a river in South America, then order it through there with free two day shipping.</p>

<p>Check out the book rental companies online too. My D saved a lot of money using them and they make it vey easy to use. If a book is a new edition, sometimes the professors know that the new one is not different enough to justify buying and will okay using an older edition. Of course, you have to email the prof to find that out.</p>

<p>This problem sometimes happens when they put together bundles. It has happened to my D in her science classes which bundled a textbook with other stuff (like Mastering Chem, which was required, but made the whole thing so much more expensive).</p>

<p>ISBN 9781285102597
title is supposedly Criminal Justice Systems
publ Cengage
author Siegel
Edition 8th 12</p>

<p>does not exist on publishers website or that south american river or three other book places I tried. tried searching publishers website by author, could not narrow the book down by that either. This isn’t the first time I’ve done this - BN has done something…</p>

<p>Two other places you might check to find the ISBN numbers: the website of your son’s college bookstore, and the course schedule that is posted on your son’s college’s website.</p>

<p>My school did this so I had to buy the school’s edition of the book. I would contact the teacher and ask for their information about the book.</p>

<p>I don’t think it’s BN because that’s who my S’ college uses too and I had no trouble locating the ISBN #s elsewhere. Of about a dozen books needed, two were cheapest at BN, the rest were better at Amaz0n. </p>

<p>It may be your kids’ college.</p>

<p>Larry Siegel has authored several law books.</p>

<p>Perhaps it’s this one: Introduction to Criminal Justice</p>

<p>[Amazon.com:</a> Introduction to Criminal Justice (9780495913382): Larry J. Siegel, John L. Worrall: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Criminal-Justice-Larry-Siegel/dp/0495913383/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343666600&sr=1-5&keywords=Larry+J.+Siegel]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Criminal-Justice-Larry-Siegel/dp/0495913383/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1343666600&sr=1-5&keywords=Larry+J.+Siegel)</p>

<p>Some schools will package a special edition. The downside is twofold. Not only will it not be available to by used but you won’t be able to sell it used either. I’d have my kid contact the professor and find out if it is essentially the same book as another that is readily available.</p>

<p>Definitely a strange problem, I’ve never had this issue before. The only time i had issues with ISBN’s is when it was a school-specific publication, or a very very small print number (as in, they only print the books once a year and for this class specifically)</p>

<p>Try isbnsearch.org, and put a dash after the 978. </p>

<p>There are a lot of criminal justice books by Siegel on Amazon - with multiple editions of some of them. If I were you, I’d say have your son email the professor, and if that doesn’t work have him take a picture of the book in the bookstore and then search. He could use a library copy for a few days. With a student email address, he can get a year’s membership in Amazon Prime (free 2-day shipping).</p>

<p>Hi tozubri - I got a couple of hits for that number from the slugbooks dot com site but there was no information other than the title. You know, that ISBN might be for a single chapter of a print book but as a digital “e-book”. The title you give appears to match the first chapter content of “Essentials of Criminal Justice”, Larry J. Siegel, John L. Worrall, 8th Edition, and other first chapter content in other books by those authors. The ISBN also seems to be different for each chapter one chooses to order through a digital seller.</p>

<p>Another place to check ISBN numbers is WorldCat (WorldCat.org) which a central cataloging site for all libraries both in the US and worldwide. (And has more titles listed than that place in Seattle.)</p>

<p>You can also search by title, author, publisher and subject matter. </p>

<p>I’m guessing that this particular book is a school-specific edition.</p>

<p>Tozubri- be careful of illusory savings. If your kid drops one or more of the classes for which you’ve already bought books, your savings will get chewed up in shipping costs.</p>

<p>Our kids waited until after the “shopping period” to buy books… got too hard to sell back books if they changed around their schedule second or third week of classes.</p>

<p>We had that problem once before. Numbers didn’t exactly match anything anywhere .
My sister works for Cengage. She was able to pull it up and found that it was a special bundle pkg. put together expressly for S2’s prof./ university. It was just a cd added to the book. S2 never once used the cd.</p>