<p>Thanks stradmom! I hadn’t heard the term before; guess we’ll skip that no matter the savings. I might do the international version though.</p>
<p>College-query:(Maybe the church book inflation was caused by a secular humanist, egg-head computer programmer who doesn’t want you reading that really good book about God.)</p>
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<p>During a meeting with prospective students and their parents, when someone asked how one gets a list of textbooks, students were told that they may email their professors.</p>
<p>Interestingly, I noticed the bookstore at the school son will attend also now has a list of books for some classes (3 out of 5 classes are now posted). allthisisnewtome, thanks for the suggest to now check the bookstore site.</p>
<p>the profs at my school doesn’t give them. we have to go online to the bookstore website choose them there.</p>
<p>I found D’s textbooks by going to the university bookstore site and entering her class information. The site game me the titles of the required texts, author and ISBN as well as the costs for new, used and rental books. </p>
<p>I have compared the bookstore price with Amazon. The savings at Amazon were as high as $60.00 per book. Some of the professors haven’t picked their books for fall but we will keep checking.</p>
<p>It looks like the California Public colleges may have found a scheme to thwart Amazon. My son is a Geology major at CSU Sacramento and for Calculus is using "Calculus, Fundamental Transcendentals 6’th Edition by James Stewart. Since my son is thinking of transferring I was looking at the web sites of some other public universities in California as to what Calculus text they use for the three semester sequence taken by Math, Science and Engineering majors. The UC Berkeley web site it uses the Stewart text but that it is a “special UC Berkeley edition”. The CSU Cal Poly SLO website also says it uses the same text and edition by Stewart but that it is a “Cal Poly SLO special edition”.</p>
<p>I can not help but think all these texts are basically the same but the are called special editions for particular campuses so that the student will have to pay the much higher price and buy his or her campuses’ “special edition” from the college bookstore rather than get the generic version for $60 less at Amazon. I would certainly like to see exactly how many differences there are between the Berkeley, Cal Poly SLO and CSU Sacramento versions of this text which I am pretty sure is used at all nine UCs, 23 CSUs and over 100 community colleges.</p>
<p>^^That is a pretty widely used calculus text. My S used it this year, as a HS senior, while taking an online multivariable calc class from JHU. They didn’t have any special version, so we got the text for about $35 off the 'net.</p>
<p>A lot of the time the special editions just leave out chapters that the particular school knows it’s not going to use; they don’t even renumber the pages, there’s simply a gap with missing pages. You could just buy the book from Amazon and have your son compare his copy with a classmate’s copy when class begins. If there’s an additional chapter, he might be able to share the special edition with a classmate for a few days. Worse case, you have 30 days from the date of your order to return your book to Amazon for a refund.</p>
<p>I’m surprised that some student group hasn’t already set up a website where people can post comparisons of custom editions, as well as the differences between old vs new editions.</p>
<p>Has anyone purchased from a vendor and then ended up with an instructor’s copy? It is so frustrating! There was no mention of selliing an instructor’s copy in the textbook description. It even states on the book that it is not to be sold! Now, I have to hope that they will at least credit me and take that book back. It was not exactly inexpensive at about $150 (lists for about $210 and is a new edition).</p>
<p>There must have been a serious breakdown in procedures at this seller. Instructor’s copies often have all of the answers to the problem sets rather than just the odd numbered problems. Obtaining an instructor’s copy of a math or science textbook could give a student a big advantage in doing homework assignments. Normally, to get the instructor’s copy you have to prove to the vendor you really are the instructor and not just a student looking for an unfair advantage. I would imagine they would be very happy and relieved to get it back from you and would gladly fully refund the full purchase price.</p>
<p>Actually, the book only has the answers to the odd numbered questions/problems. This is a new edition to this book and I have sent an email to a few other sellers and they are also selling only the instructor copies at a 60-75 dollar discount. I do not know if the pages are identical, so to save $60 or so, it is not worth the risk. The seller agreed to take back the book and says that I will get a full refund (thanks probably to a credit card charge for it), not to mention the fact that the text says that it is NOT to be sold! I have since looked for this book and a lot of other vendors are posting that they are selling an instructor’s copy! The vendor that I bought from, did not post that information. What a pain, to save a few dollars. I have given up and we will just pay full retail for it.</p>
<p>Northeastmom, I assume you bought the title from a 3rd party vendor through a major online venue? The instructor’s edition has a different ISBN identifying number than the student edition; therefore, you were sent the wrong title (quite probably intentionally) and are entitled to a full refund, including shipping. If you bought through Amazon and can’t get satisfaction from the seller, you can file an A-Z claim with Amazon to get your refund.</p>
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<p>That is legal baloney from the publisher. The long-established First Sale Doctrine allows the owner of a book to rent, lend or resell it without permission from the publisher; this is the law that makes library loans possible.</p>
<p>[First-sale</a> doctrine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine]First-sale”>First-sale doctrine - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>LoremIpsum, thank you for the information. I did purchase from a major online venue. I did get a prompt response from the seller, and this was absolutley INTENTIONAL, and yes, there is a different ISBN number on the book. They DID NOT offer to pay for the return shipping, and I have not dealt with this yet, BUT I probably will ask again for that. I absolutely should not have to pay for the shipping. I just do not know how much more energy I am willing to sink into this any longer. BTW, I paid MORE for the book because this seller does have sterling reviews from a large enough number of buyers.</p>
<p>I do want to correct something. In my haste I did not read the email from the seller correctly. I DID say that upon receipt that he/she WILL refund the shipping costs to me. I hope that they follow through and then I will be done with this mess.</p>