A new semester springs into action, and with it, the tasks of obtaining the materials needed for classes such as notebooks, binders, pens and other school supplies, including the most expensive of them all, textbooks.
Textbooks for college courses are painfully expensive. They often cost upwards of $200, and that’s excluding the money needed to buy the supplementary materials for some courses.
To help students cope with purchasing expensive textbooks, the Pierce College Library has been cataloging and organizing approximately 600 textbooks for students to borrow.
Although students are able to borrow textbooks from the library, there are some aspects to consider.
Students are able to use a textbook under the system of reserved books, which means there is a two hour time limit and fines incur if the book is returned late or damaged. Students are also prohibited from writing notes or putting in sticky notes into the textbooks.
Under these rules borrowing textbooks from the library is a waste of time and energy. Studying includes highlighting, circling, underlining or other unique ways for students to memorize and learn.
If students are unable to write in the textbooks or leave notes on the side, that’s setting them back instead of getting them closer to finishing assignments.
Let’s not forget that your studies will be interrupted every two hours because you have to renew the textbook.
Then there’s the possibility of being fined for returning the textbook late. As a student you’ll have study sessions where you find yourself super focused, so why take the risk of having to pay a fine for simply not realizing time was up.
Students are already paying money for tuition and other expenses, so paying a fine is not on my list.
Moreover, the nuisance of being fined and the trouble of not using the library’s textbooks to your full advantage because of the rules make the program impractical for students.
Remember that there are a limited number of textbooks for certain courses in the library. There may be a time where you’ll have to wait for a textbook to become available.
Time is precious especially for students who work and have other responsibilities to take care of.
Why wait when you could easily buy, or better yet, rent a textbook from a bookstore or online? Some companies have certain policies that allow students to write and highlight in the textbook they’ve rented.
Textbooks are meant to be used anywhere and everywhere, but when they are not allowed to leave the library what’s the point? You can’t always be at the library.
The textbooks at the library are there for students to use, but those textbooks should be used as a last resort because of the limitations they are under.