Why lose $20 reselling that engineering book or Shakespeare reader, when you can pay Amazon $5 and keep your notes in the cloud when you’re done?
Amazon Lets Students Rent Digital Textbooks http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/07/18/1654246/Amazon-Lets-Students-Rent-Digital-Textbooks
“Amazon has unveiled a new digital textbook rental service, allowing students to choose how long they’d like access to an eBook-version of a textbook via their Kindle or app — with the retailer claiming savings as high as 80%. Kindle Textbook Rental will let students use a text for between 30 and 360 days, adding extra days as they need to. Any notes or highlighted text will be saved via the Amazon Cloud for students to reference after the book is ‘returned.’ Amazon said tens of thousands of books would be available to rent for the next school year.”
While iPads have been getting the headlines, there are plenty more e-readers to choose from.
Study This: E-Textbook Readers Compared
The iPad was supposed to wipe out standalone e-readers, but they’re still here, and they’re a big deal on campus.
I’m surprised they haven’t started doing this sooner, except maybe for the fact that they’d make less money off of rentals than books… I’ve checked it out though before I found this article and it’s more like 50% savings if you compare it to buying used. Renting might even cost more overall if you decide to sell the textbook back too.
I think that this is a great idea. I paid $150.00 for two books which I think is ridiculous. If I knew about this option then I totally would have done this, I think that renting a book for the semester is a good idea. Downloading it on my laptop wouldn’t even be a problem either because I use my laptop in all my classes.