# Textbooks and required crapware **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 28, 2013, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/textbooks-and-required-crapware/659520 "2013-05-28T04:16:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2013, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/textbooks-and-required-crapware/659520/21 "2013-05-29T16:44:27Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > Any student these days should know they can get their books anywhere, it’s common knowledge. Sure, they’re _easier_ to get at the campus bookstore, but for example that French textbook was cheaper directly from the publisher. I didn’t always find out what books I’d be using for the semester until about a week or two before the semester started. I was a big stickler for making sure I had all my materials ready for the first day. I didn’t want to be one of those students 2-3 weeks into the semester who were still waiting to receive their textbooks from whatever source they ordered it from. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2013, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/textbooks-and-required-crapware/659520/22 "2013-05-29T16:59:31Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Not true. Depending on the book and edition, there may be no other source. ANd it’s rather obscene to expect students to figure out how to game the system in order to avoid being raped by their own school and teachers. Agreed 100%. I’m working full-time AND taking courses 3/4 full time (12 credits at a time) AND I am supposed to figure out how to beg, borrow, or steal my books? Most of my professors are easy-going and some even recommend buying the books from Amazon…but some you just can’t get any other way. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2013, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/textbooks-and-required-crapware/659520/23 "2013-05-29T17:05:00Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > I didn’t always find out what books I’d be using for the semester until about a week or two before the semester started. How long ago was this? [Nowadays, the list of required textbooks is legally required to be available earlier.](http://www.studentpirgs.org/resources/textbook-price-disclosure-law) ---
**Author:** ![Mathematics](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@Mathematics](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mathematics)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2013, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/textbooks-and-required-crapware/659520/24 "2013-05-29T17:11:04Z")
Possibly because of that law, it seems like my professors just load on the books without being sure we’ll use all of them. I had to buy two very expensive textbooks for a computer course I was taking. We did not even use one of them ($130!) and the bookstore wouldn’t buy it back because that class was not going to be offered after that semester. That is the most egregious case, but it happens often with cheaper books too. ---
**Author:** ![Agent\_Foxtrot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc29f/32.png) [@Agent\_Foxtrot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Agent_Foxtrot)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2013, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/textbooks-and-required-crapware/659520/25 "2013-05-29T17:23:03Z")
Wasn’t there supposed to be some legislation in Congress that made textbook purchases and returns more fair to students, or at least cheaper? ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2013, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/textbooks-and-required-crapware/659520/26 "2013-05-29T17:55:46Z")
Whenever my STEM friends would talk about books it made me so happy I was a History major. Most of my books were around $17 new, with used being much cheaper. Yeah, I had to buy five of them per class, but it could have been much worse. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2013, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/textbooks-and-required-crapware/659520/27 "2013-05-29T22:33:19Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Not true. Depending on the book and edition, there may be no other source. ANd it’s rather obscene to expect students to figure out how to game the system in order to avoid being raped by their own school and teachers. This “raping” is 100% the responsibility of textbook publishers (and those legislators who are in their pockets), and not at all of the teachers or the schools. As others have stated, many professors go out of their way (sometimes at the cost of bending the law and breaking school policy) in order to reduce these costs for their students. (I know, I was one who did this.) Many academics are also actively involved in, or very supportive of, the Open Access publishing movement, which is all about making the scholarly literature available online, for free, to all. Even those who do not go out of their way to help with students book costs are not responsible for the price of the books, or the restrictions placed on their sale and resale. School policies are more restrictive, but this is because of the relevant laws, which, thanks to the lobbying power of corporate money, are largely written to protect the interests and profits of publishers. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2013, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/textbooks-and-required-crapware/659520/28 "2013-05-29T22:44:40Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > This “raping” is 100% the responsibility of textbook publishers (and those legislators who are in their pockets), and not at all of the teachers or the schools… Not all though. The class I’m taking is “virtual” (no class meetings). Sessions of the same class at each of the two “meatspace” campuses of the same college each use a different, cheaper text. Yeah, three different texts for three different sections of the same course. The virtual class has some unusual requirements so the online crapware may be marginally more useful / necessary, but frankly not that I’ve seen so far. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2013, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/textbooks-and-required-crapware/659520/29 "2013-05-29T22:53:45Z")
Thank goodness I teach in a dept. that lets us pick whatever we want for books as long as they suit the course. We can supplement all we want, which is why I try to find affordable paperbacks for students and no added crap. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2013, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/textbooks-and-required-crapware/659520/30 "2013-05-29T23:03:31Z")
> [@Mama\_Zappa](#): > > Not all though. The class I’m taking is “virtual” (no class meetings). Sessions of the same class at each of the two “meatspace” campuses of the same college each use a different, cheaper text. Yeah, three different texts for three different sections of the same course. > > The virtual class has some unusual requirements so the online crapware may be marginally more useful / necessary, but frankly not that I’ve seen so far. It makes perfect sense to me that an online class would require some online resources that wouldn’t be necessary with a class that met on campus. If you find the particular online resources that you’ve been required to purchase to be unhelpful or hard to use, please let the instructor know; chances are, they’d welcome that sort of feedback and would at least consider making a change for the next time they offer the class. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/textbooks-and-required-crapware/659520/31 "2013-05-30T00:03:43Z")
> [@Jragon](#): > > . . . most professors (note that I’m a Comp Sci student) try to ease financial burden. I’ve had insturctors/professors (in fields ranging from Linguistics to Comp Sci): > > Self-publish (either the instructor or department) books and give us free copies > Use really good free books online that students have alerted them to > Use really good books that are \<100 bucks . . . I’ve had professors put copies in the library reserves, where they can be checked out for free in two hour increments. > [@Jragon](#): > > . . . The most expensive book I ever had to purchase during my entire 4 years was $150 and the professor apologized profusely and said that it was the department’s decision and not his (it was for a lower level Physics course). Sometimes that’s not as bad as it seems. Most of my expensive STEM books were good for a whole year, rather than just a semester or quarter. I got four quarters (a year and a third) out of my big physics book. If someone had changed texts between quarters, I’d have been pissed. ---
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/textbooks-and-required-crapware/659520/32 "2013-05-30T00:24:48Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > Sometimes that’s not as bad as it seems. Most of my expensive STEM books were good for a whole year, rather than just a semester or quarter. I got four quarters (a year and a third) out of my big physics book. If someone had changed texts between quarters, I’d have been pissed. I had a professor try to do this for my class once. He switched the text for his class (Algorithms 1) to the same text as Algorithms 2. Of course, the department got wise, so next term, Algorithms 2 switched to a text that the prof admitted was inferior to the previous one. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/textbooks-and-required-crapware/659520/33 "2013-05-30T01:33:29Z")
Law school is worse. Take Con Law, for example. The old version that costs $35 isn’t good enough. We need the $220 new version, because, hey, SCOTUS last year had a decision on Obamacare and the Stolen Valor Act, so the book needs updated! Well, we already pay for Lexis and Westlaw access. The professor can simply assign us to read the new cases and then lecture on them. No need for hundreds of dollars in difference for a few new cases we already paid for. ---
**Author:** ![panaccione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/94ad74/32.png) [@panaccione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panaccione)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/textbooks-and-required-crapware/659520/34 "2013-05-30T01:48:59Z")
You think that’s bad? I did most of the things you had to go through and then sign a sheet at the bookstore so the director could verify that we bought the books. ---
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/textbooks-and-required-crapware/659520/35 "2013-05-30T04:12:51Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > It makes perfect sense to me that an online class would require some online resources that wouldn’t be necessary with a class that met on campus. Every online class I ever took had a system integrated through the school for our “classroom” activities. Discussion boards, quizzes, polls, outside reading, essay submission, etc. We never use the bonus stuff from the publisher unless we wanted to for studying. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/textbooks-and-required-crapware/659520/36 "2013-05-30T07:33:30Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > How long ago was this? [Nowadays, the list of required textbooks is legally required to be available earlier.](http://www.studentpirgs.org/resources/textbook-price-disclosure-law) I got my BA in 2008. 🙂 So I missed it by that much. There was one semester where the school bookstore didn’t even know what book the professor selected two weeks before classes started. ---
**Author:** ![drewtwo99](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d07c76/32.png) [@drewtwo99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drewtwo99)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 8:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/textbooks-and-required-crapware/659520/37 "2013-05-30T08:42:37Z")
I’m just thankful for this thread introducing me to a new term: crapware. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/textbooks-and-required-crapware/659520/38 "2013-05-30T10:01:47Z")
Well, it introduced me to the hilarious concept of **[Stolen Valor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Valor_Act)**. I see from Wikipedia that it was struck down on the grounds of freedom of speech, and not on the grounds of being piddly crap. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/textbooks-and-required-crapware/659520/39 "2013-05-30T14:34:25Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > It makes perfect sense to me that an online class would require some online resources that wouldn’t be necessary with a class that met on campus. If you find the particular online resources that you’ve been required to purchase to be unhelpful or hard to use, please let the instructor know; chances are, they’d welcome that sort of feedback and would at least consider making a change for the next time they offer the class. I think the drills (for this particular class) _are_ helpful - some of them are the kind of things that would be covered if we were doing an in-class discussion; e.g. how do you specify a Long numeric literal. Of course, sometimes the exercise will simply NOT TAKE A CORRECT ANSWER (I spent an hour last night trying to get it to let me specify a hexadecimal literal, that worked perfectly when I actually ran it). Or the page presentation is unreadable (the textbook people actually admitted that to me via email). And the book (and online version thereof) are missing some pretty critical information like how to specify the types of literals (that Long thing among others) which would be considered pretty damn basic stuff. The online text would be significantly easier to use if it were just a PDF. Yes, the online tool provides some extremely clumsy ways of doing things like notes / highlighting, but those are so cumbersome they’re useless. Another bit the teachers don’t tell you: if you buy the online access, YOU DON’T REALLY NEED THE TEXTBOOK (because it’s **included** ). Admittedly, the interface completely SUCKS - can’t scroll without using the mouse, for example - but if money is a real issue, at least you’ve got that covered. I’m so very, very tempted to download a pirated e-copy. I mean, I **paid** for the damn book, this would just be converting it to something more portable - so no moral qualms there. But I don’t especially want to support the pirating websites either because they _do_ support theft. ---
**Author:** ![Mama\_Zappa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/71e660/32.png) [@Mama\_Zappa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mama_Zappa)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2013, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/textbooks-and-required-crapware/659520/40 "2013-05-30T14:36:25Z")
> [@Yllaria](#): > > I’ve had professors put copies in the library reserves, where they can be checked out for free in two hour increments. > > Sometimes that’s not as bad as it seems. Most of my expensive STEM books were good for a whole year, rather than just a semester or quarter. I got four quarters (a year and a third) out of my big physics book. If someone had changed texts between quarters, I’d have been pissed. My French book would be good for 2 semesters as well. Of course I’m not currently _planning_ on taking the second semester, and by the time I did it would probably demand a newer version… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/textbooks-and-required-crapware/659520.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/textbooks-and-required-crapware/659520.md?page=3)