Getting textbooks at the best price

Biology Textbook by Amin Allen Tabrizi

Earlier in the year I talked about using the educational resources available to you on your computer and online to meet your study needs. The two online services I would recommend for medical students, if your university provides them are, MDConsult by Elsevier and AccessMedicine by McGraw-Hill. These two services provide access to a wide range of textbooks (e.g. Robin's Pathologic Basis of Disease) articles, images and other multimedia.

There are times however, where electronic resources just don't cut it, or a good old solid textbook would just feel a bit more appropriate. As a student, I do not have the luxury of a highly expendable wage, so I have to look for savings wherever possible. For many there is the option of becoming a member of your local bookstore where you usually receive discounts ranging from 5-15%. The best discounts though are usually found online.


Booko.com.au
Booko is Australian-based service which allows you to find the best deal on a huge array of books. Booko is not a bookstore in itself, but rather a cleverly tailored search engine to meet the demands of book hungry Australians. It gives you the option to search by Title, Author, ISBN or EAN. Most importantly it converts all prices into Australian Dollars ($AUD), in many cases including postage and handling, so that you can get the best price book from anywhere in the world.

Below is an example of using the Booko service to find the best price for Clinical Examination by Talley & O'Connor.

Textbookexchange.com.au
This is another Australian service which instead as indicated by its' name revolves around textbook exchange. In this case you typically aren't purchasing a brand new book, but picking up one second-hand. From personal experience I've found that you can get good quality textbooks for much lower prices than buying a new copy. These books can be from anywhere in Australia, but I usually chose the local option so that I can check the book out first.

So next time you are thinking about purchasing a book, have a look online before strolling down to your local bookstore.