A quick check at Amazon sadly shows I’m correct.
Second (current) edition of Handbook of Nanophase and Nanostructured Materials sells for $1250 at Amazon.
First edition is offered at $100.
And if it is used, it’ll be the next edition, with just enough changes to screw up the page numbering and make it more or less unusable for class. I hate college book publishers. Talk about a fucked up market.
Note that it does not have free shipping at Amazon either.
That’s disgusting.
Keep your ear out. Many “new editions” are nothing more than a shift of a picture from page 202 to page 204, or correcting a typo. I had one class where rumour was the teacher hardly used the expensive textbook, that at the most, only one question from the book would be on the tests.
I never bought the book, and I got an A in the class. Find out if the new edition is substantially different from older versions.
Good luck…I think price gouging on textbooks is the worst part of college.
I came in here thinking this would be a rant against college bookstores.
Thanks. 
BTW, the most expensive book we have is around $400 (give or take $50) and it’s a 1400 page pharmocology textbook that will be used by the student for all six years of education. I don’t feel so bad about that one.
Man, this brings back memories. I remember picking up a required book, looking at the price, and reflexively putting it right back on the shelf because there was no way I’d ever pay that much for a book! I’d stomp around the bookstore for about an hour before I reconciled myself to the fact that I had no choice and had to get it. Man, I’m glad I’m done with all that. Until I go to grad school.
Screw it. Tell the professor you can’t afford the 2nd edition, and want to know if he made any substantial changes to the 1st edition. I’ve done this on at least 3 occassions, and I’ve never had a problem.
:eek: Holy Crap :eek:
I, too, also thought the amount mentioned in the title was for a semesters’ cost for books. The most I ever paid for one book was $120 for a Transcendental Calc book and $105 for a geology text. But 560 bucks!! What a rip-off. I also second (third, fifth whatever) the idea of writing a letter to the school president /administration /department /school paper about the teacher of this class, using a book (his own book) for a class that has an outrageous pricetag. How many students are in this class 10, 20+? Still, the professor has to be getting some money from the sale of $500- $1200 text books. I say it is BS if he says he gets nothing :mad: Heck I had whole semesters that didn’t cost as much as that book! Regardless, I knew very few people in school who could have afforded this type of price gouging on text books. Even when books were $100 it still hurt the ol’ wallet.
What’s the big deal? I thought education was supposed to be only for the rich…
:dubious:
Yeah, so all of us oiks from backgrounds where mummy and daddy can’t pay for eveything should know our place should we, and not try and get better educations?
I pray that you’re joking.
Sorry, I am. Believe you me, I’m having a very difficult time buying the textbook for my one summer class; I hate to see the damage when I attempt to go full time this fall.
That and seeing employers seemingly only hire alumni of the “pricey” schools is making me think that education is only for the rich. :mad:
Its getting to that stage over here as well. I was very lucky, I managed to go to one of the top schools here without having to pay excessive tution fees, however, its not going to stay that way for long. :mad:
I don’t get why publishers feel they can charge such outlandish prices for textbooks. Mind you, I’ve never experienced anything on the level of the OP. The most expensive book I ever bought was a maths text, priced at ~£35. That was six years ago. I still use it.
Education is for the smart. But if you’re rich, you can buy the trappings. Example: if you have enough money that you can afford Nano-Ass-Rape (2d Edition) then go ahead and buy a copy.
If you are not rich (but you are smart enough to get into college) then you post a note to the SDMB, and get some advice on how to do an end-run around these practices. Like “buy the cheaper first edition and convince your prof it was an honest mistake”. Or “split the cost five ways for a study group, then scan it, PDF it, burn it to CD, and re-sell the book on Amazon. Split the proceeds among the study group.”
Just as lottery tickets are a tax on the people who can’t do the math, textbook prices, parking fees[sup]1[/sup], and other administrative financial ass-reamings are a tax on the very wealthy folks who think they can buy an education. They’re right – it’s just a li-i-i-i-i-ittle more expensive than they thought. Sign here, please.
Seriously: the most important thing I learned at college was how to deal with colleges (and by extension, other fucked up bureaucracies and the drones who run them).
1- walk, ride a bike, take the bus, carpool, split a pass four ways with your housemates (and carpool), always park at meters, or refuse to pay your campus tickets and sell your car to a freshman before you graduate. :eek:
I spent less then that this past semester on ALL of my books! Heck, I think I spent less then that in the last two semesters…
Heck, I don’t think I’ve spent that much on all my books in 2 years of graduate school.
Does your university library have a copy? Even if it’s checked out, you may be able to recall it from whoever has it checked out, then check it out for yourself.
Or split the cost with 1 or 2 friends…
See if the library (or any library) has a copy. If you must have one of your own, camp out at a photocopier.
I buy all my books used or I borrow them. If I buy it, I resell it. When it concerns a new book, I suck it in, don’t highlight any pages, and resell used for about 70% original price.
I’m cheap, but at least I save money and space on my bookshelf. Those things are bulky. 
This is the bit that raised my eyebrow. The publishers involved are Kluwer, who, while they have a good reputation for producing research monographs, aren’t normally players in the textbook market.
And looking at the description on their website, the set has all the appearance of something pitched at researchers rather than undergraduates. While one can argue that the prices of research-level books are also hopelessly inflated (and don’t get me started on journal costs), it’s also true that lecturers and postdocs are better placed to get an institution, be it the library or the department, to take the financial hit. That market can just about sustain this level of pricing.
I’m all for undergraduate courses actively reflecting current research, but in this instance it looks as if the professor is recommending something that isn’t an undergraduate textbook at all.
- Dr. Wang is a nice guy and a very fine scientist (please don’t flame him).
- I’m just doing it for research, it’s not a class. It’s not a required textbook or anything like that.
I just wanted to vent a bit.
Ok, End of Thread. Thank you.
In my last semester at school (Honours Biohemistry) I spent a total of $25.50 (CDN) on school books - two course packs, a lab manual, and 50 cents for a hard bound lab " notebook" from the dollar store. For most classes, if it can’t be found in the library or on the net, you don’t need to know it. At least that was my experience.
Also, forget the mad rush to the bookstore on the first day of school. If you don’t feel the urge to open the book by the 3rd week of school, you probably don’t need it and you’ll be glad you didn’t buy it yet. Save yourself the headache of trying to sell it!