st andrews generally...

[kwatt26]

Thanks Caster, that's reassuring to hear!

I definitley love the sound of everything about St. Andrew's so far! Now, about those highers coming up in just over a week...

[Helen_485]

Alternatively, there are several second-hand book shops, where you can purchase many course texts at reduced prices.

At the open day the speaker man (I think someone said he was Dr Nicoll or something) mentioned that they get a bunch of recommended books and put them together in "bundles", at a discount price for new students.

How does this work, are the books you would be getting worth having, and so would you recommend taking up this option?

From reading other threads it seems more like it's better to get your own books individually depending on which ones you prefer the format of or whatever, but I wondered what everyone else thought.

(hope the quote thing works, never tried it before!)

[caster]

they get a bunch of recommended books and put them together in "bundles", at a discount price for new students.

I haven't actually heard of this. You certainly can buy individual, un-bundled second-hand textbooks at either of the Barnardos or Oxfam bookshops, or at Quartos (the other second hand bookshop). Alternatively, many older students will directly sell their old textbooks to first year students.

However, there may also be "bundles" of secondhand textbooks, I just might not have seen them. I would say it depends very much on which books are in the bundles. If they are all books you want, then it is an economical way of buying books. Even if there is one you don't think you'll use much, depending on how cheap it is, you might still want it as you might use it occasionally, even if it wouldn't be worth buying at full price. However, as I and others have said before, there is no point in just buying books because they are recommended or others have found them useful. Be selective about what you buy, especially if you are paying full price for it.

NB - there are also two full-price academic booksellers in St Andrews (John Smiths' and James Thin/Blackwells), where you can also buy textbooks - they tend to stock a fairly good range of textbooks at the start of the year, though they sometimes run out. You can also order books from them which they don't have in stock.

Alternatively you can buy books online. There are sometimes reductions on textbooks at Amazon and other online booksellers, or you can buy reduced new or secondhand books from Amazon Marketplace. The Royal Bank of Scotland also used to have a deal with James Thin/Blackwells, where you get a 20% discount (and free p&p) on books ordered from their telephone/postal bookshop if you open a student bank account with them. I presume this scheme is still running, though you would have to check with the RBS to be sure.

[ouzo]

john smiths is shut, it is now ottakers, and doesn't sell any text books, and i have yet to find an up to date textbook in one of the second hand shops-also the union shop (blackwells) has quite a small selection, and tends to be the books that are recommended by the lecturers since these are what sell best, again the best place to go is dundee-there are really good shops there-and a medical textbook shop in ninewells hospital, which means that you actually can look at other books and compare them before you decide-which is also disadvantage of buying online. still if the bundles are cheap, it would be worth getting them-all the references the lecturers give will be for the books they recommend, so it is probably the easiest option.
oh ouzo you are a guru.

[Helen_485]

hmmm thanks for the help, I think I will do as Caster says and wait to see what they're going to do.

I'm pretty sure he did say that they do that - maybe it's just something they're considering doing if enough people are interested in it.

Thanks for all the info on where to get books, I didn't realise Amazon did textbooks - I use them quite a lot and they have second hand stuff too so that might be worth considering.

[caster]

a medical textbook shop in ninewells hospital, which means that you actually can look at other books and compare them before you decide-which is also disadvantage of buying online.

I would not recommend buying books online without first having looked at a copy beforehand, as you don't know if it will suit you - however it is not difficult to find copies to browse in St Andrews, which saves a trip to Dundee.

At the start of the year, most lecturers bring in the various different recommended choices for their course, which you can browse through after the lecture(s). You can also browse through the books in the library at the start of the year. You can also look through copies that older students have. Having browsed the books you can then buy them online, knowing what you will get, and the books will then be delivered to your door.

[Helen_485]

Good advice, thank you caster!!

[Cat Barlow]

This year the textbooks published by Elsevier (6 of them I think) were put together in a bundle which meant that if you bought at least 3 then you saved 15% (if my memory serves me correctly...)

When you first see the book list it can look quite scary (long, expensive etc) but they explained to us that we were buying the books that would serve us for all of our 3yrs here (other students have a new list each year...can work out v pricey for them) and that we would use them (well, when we finally started working anyway *looks bashful*) so the initial outlay wasn't so bad.

Right, back to the revision...bloody exams *sigh*