Rent or Buy Your Textbooks?

The problems with textbooks especially medical textbooks is that it is out of date even before it is printed. I hardly use my old textbook for reference, preferring the online more uptodate information available on professional websites. So does it make sense to buy hardcopy textbooks? Amazon.com offers an alternative

Amazon Announces Digital-Textbook Rentals

July 20, 2011, 6:09 pm

By Jie Jenny Zou

Amazon has rolled out an e-textbook-rentals program, which could bring more attention to the emerging model of treating textbooks like online subscriptions.

Students can now download temporary copies of textbooks on Amazon’s Web site for reading on a Kindle e-book reader or on a computer, tablet, or smartphone running free Kindle software. The system lets customers specify rental periods lasting anywhere from a month to a year. Amazon argues that the digital rentals can save students up to 80 percent compared with traditional print textbooks.

For example, one textbook, Intermediate Accounting, which retails at $197 in print and $109 as an e-book, would cost $57 to rent from Amazon for three months. Students have the option to purchase the e-book during or after a rental period, and can extend rental period in daily increments.

This makes sense. Wonder if this service is available to people outside the United States and Canada?

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