an impossible-to-answer question?

[baratron]

Today I spent several hours in various bookstores looking at chemistry textbooks and compiling a list of the ones I wanted to buy. The idea was for me to try to buy them second-hand, because that saves resources. However! in looking on amazon Marketplace and abebooks, it seems that the majority of the books I want will cost me as much or more to buy preowned than to buy new. A £10.99 new book typically becomes £7.50-£9 second-hand, but add the £2.75 shipping on and it's virtually the same. Bizarrely, some sellers price the books for more than they cost new even before the postage goes on. And, annoyingly, amazon Marketplace charges £2.75 per book, even when they can be posted together by the same seller.

Also, there is the question of packaging. If I take my existing shopping bags to, say, Foyles, and buy a load of books, then I am not using any extra packaging. If I send Richard to buy them, then we're not using any more resources at all, because he can walk from his workplace to the bookshop, so there's not even the issue of transport. Whereas, if I buy the books preowned, each book will come in its own jiffy bag that I'll then end up storing along with the 100 or so other jiffy bags that are in this house waiting until they can be reused, which I can't throw away because of the environmental guilt and can't recycle because this country is not that efficient yet. They'll also have a packing slip and/or invoice which can't be recycled because it contains my name and address information, and while I often do rip off that part to go in the shredder while recycling the rest of the page, this takes Effort and spoons. Most likely, they'll pile up until I have energy to deal with it.

Of course, the sensible answer would be for me to go to a bookshop to buy the books second-hand, but there aren't physical bookshops that sell chemistry textbooks. You're stuck with physical bookshops that sell new or online bookshops that sell used. Occasionally, universities have a second-hand textbook fair, but they tend to be limited to students of that particular institution, and wouldn't be advertised externally. Similarly, another idea would be for me to borrow the books from a library - but public libraries don't carry university-level science textbooks because there just isn't the demand for them, and I don't have access to a university library. I could get access, but that would be to go there and study from the books there, rather than a borrower's pass - those are pretty much impossible to come by for outsiders. And I don't like to sit in libraries and breathe their dust and photocopier fumes and deal with chairs that aren't designed for my back when I could take a book home to read.

Considering that we're talking about small paperbacks of around 100 pages each, and considering that these books have already been printed and are sitting in the bookshop waiting for someone to buy them, I'm inclined to think that buying them directly with my existing bags might actually be the most environmental of the options available. But it doesn't seem very satisfactory.

Comments

[brooksmoses]

Also, buying them new has other non-environmental benefits, such as helping the publisher stay in business (without having to raise their prices for new books even higher) and paying the authors.

[nitoda]

Just datapointing about libraries ... the public library system would probably be able to supply copies of the books you require via interlibrary loan with a charge to you, but that would require much more in the way of resources when you take into account the packing and transport of the books from A to B (though most libraries I know DO re-use jiffy bags). It might be worth asking the questions to the university library in terms of disability access - can you get a borrower's pass because it would be seriously bad for you to have to sit in their environment to read? Also is there a way to pull strings as an "ex-alumni" or whatever it is of the insitution you originally studies at?

[johnckirk.livejournal.com]

As an alumnus of Kings College London, I can get a borrowing pass for their library at £50/year. I'm not sure whether that's also available to you directly (via the University of London), but if not then maybe Imperial have their own scheme?

[lovingboth]

The £2.75 postal charge is why quite a few books are 1p on Amazon secondhand - that's where the profit is.

[lovingboth]

Oh, I'd stick some 'books wanted' posters up in chemistry departments.

[wandra.livejournal.com]

You could freecycle used jiffy bags. That's what I'm planning to do with my extensive collection, one of these days.

[jenny-gould.livejournal.com]

You can ask for the books on freecycle, and likewise put your jiffy bags on freecycle. I could do with a pile of jiffy bags, but I am sure that its not worth gettting them from you. Someone nearer, who sells stuff via ebay or the like would be delighted though. Plus, as other commented, buying them new is good for the publishers. Suppliers of science textbooks is a business deserving our money, unlike the unutterable tat most people waste their money on.