How many people sell back their books? How many just keep a few interesting ones? And how many keep nearly all of them?

I kept most of my books, since I was interested in most of my classes, and since you can only sell them back and a reduced cost, and created myself a small library on subjects I'm interested in. I've known of a few people going on to grad school to do this too. And now I'm wondering, how many people have mini-libraries, offices, or studies that have been created in their apartments or houses due to book saving.

I'm not opposed to selling them back, I mean its cheaper for the next person to buy it, and you get a little $ back. But I think everyone who is going to hold a degree from a 4 year university should have atleast one full bookcase in their house. On that note, bed bath & beyond & target usually tend to have some nice, reasonably priced, folding bookcases. I'm up to 7 bookcases of various sizes, and need atleast 2 more to hold what are stacked up on tables (although only about half of the collection is mine).

How many bookcases do you have?

2/3/2007 5:05:55 PM

i have a bunch of old books

they never buy back my shits

[Edited on February 3, 2007 at 9:12 PM. Reason : ]

2/3/2007 9:12:24 PM

you pretty much have to keep them, because getting $5 back for a $60 book is just plain stupid. i generally tend to avoid buying books. that said, i did keep a couple that i just liked.

2/3/2007 9:53:06 PM

i kept nearly all of my engineering texts because i figured i might have a use for them later on as references. for the rest, i only kept a couple that actually interested me and 4 or 5 that the bookstores wouldn't buy back.

currently, i have 2 or 3 on my shelf at work, and the rest are stacked in a closet in my apartment. i'll shelf them when i get more settled

2/3/2007 10:03:07 PM

Depends on the course.
If I can get away with buying an older edition, I will. And then I'll throw it up on amazon for $2 or $3 less than the lowest price for that condition, if I don't want to keep it.
I've gotten rid of a couple of books for free to people like me - they come to TWW looking for an older edition.
I managed to pick up, for $8 each, two copies of a book that NCSU has permission to reprint parts of, since it's out of print. Chapters from this book are used in at least two classes at CoT, and I wanna say the bound reprints are in the $15-$25 range. By the way - for me, this is leisure reading

I don't have too many books hanging around - if I think I can get rid of them, I do it ASAP. I don't want them to come out with a new edition before I get around to selling mine

2/3/2007 10:24:20 PM

I hang onto a lot of books, mostly because, as an English major, I can have upwards of a dozen paperbacks per semester. Some of them are good and are integrated into my general collection. That's why I have two big bookshelves now.

Textbooks for subjects that I have no interest in get sold on half.com or taken to a bookstore when I'm strapped for cash.

I still have a book about medieval universities from my first semester at state. Surprisingly an interesting read.

2/3/2007 10:55:41 PM

I keep just about all my books. I tried to sell one back after I bought it brandnew for that semester and at the end, the school wasn't taking it and they wanted to give me about $5 for another and I was like fuck you i'd get more enjoyment burning it.

With that said, I don't bother selling them back anymore. Most last me about 2 semesters anyways.

2/4/2007 1:05:47 AM

"I hang onto a lot of books, mostly because, as an English major,"

I think that might be the reason for part of my collection. I graduated with a philosophy degree, but I had just as many english courses as I did philosophy, just not in such a way as to line up with a degree.

2/4/2007 9:42:03 AM

i saved most of my books b/c i thought i would need them for grad school. turns out the one book that might have been helpful i sold b/c i wanted to buy a sandwich.

2/5/2007 5:59:32 PM