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Saturday, August 7, 2010

More choices alter college textbook landscape

More choices alter college textbook landscape

More choices alter college textbook landscape

Saturday, August 7, 2010
In this photo taken July 26, 2010, Brittany Wolfe, a University of California Los Angeles Applied Mathematics 2010 graduate checks old text books at the UCLA Powell Library Building, in Los Angeles. Wolfe had to play an infuriating game of checking out books on reserve to avoid having to buy them herself. Now she is working as an orientation counselor for new students and part of that is giving advice on textbooks.
(08-07) 09:15 PDT (AP) --
On Friday afternoons between work and rugby practice, Brittany Wolfe would rush to the campus library hoping copies of her advanced algebra textbook had not all been checked out by like-minded classmates.
It was part of the math major's routine last quarter at the University of California, Los Angeles: Stand in line at the reserve desk in the library's closing hours with the goal of borrowing a copy for the weekend.
The alternative was to buy a $120 book and sell it back for far less. If she could sell it back at all.
"It's like this terrible game of catch your books when you can," said Wolfe, a new graduate who estimates she saved $800 a year using books on reserve and who now shares textbook tips as a counselor to incoming UCLA students. "It's frustrating when you're already stressed about school. Being stressed about textbooks


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/08/07/national/a091549D25.DTL&type=education#ixzz0vwgwfVGa