They weren't magnificient in my day either, though I think I remember I had a discount, made it basically the same as shopping amazon, that might have been a grad-student perk or something, or bad memory, it has been a long time, and things change.



I guess it depends on your major, I don't recall yours if you've ever mentioned it or not, I always hate to ask people. I hate to make blanket statements but the texts in hard sciences tend not to be optional and usually have dog-eared pages and coffee stains within the first semester of use. I know a lot of engineering texts look like someone threw them through a combine harvetser after one semester too, you just have to look stuff up so much, and I'd imagine it's still faster to hunt the text then wiki it.



I've never had a book I only used twice I still regularly use my old texts in elective classes, friends call me for help with homework or email reports for editting a lot, even when they've moved on to a new edition or a new text the similiarities help alot. But again, yeah, I'd feel pretty pissed if I only used a book a few times and paid real money, I don't think my own experiences are applicable on this though, too specific of a field, too long ago, you didn't really bargain hunt on the net in the late 90's.