Textbooks are a scam, and this isn’t news to anyone. Here’s the short and sweet guide to lowering your out of pocket cost (looking at you rosy-eyed freshman and transfers):
Section 1: Trying to find your textbook online
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Join the UCSD Textbook PDF sharing facebook group if you haven’t already. They have a huge google sheet of textbooks collected over the years. Search that list and if you don’t see a copy of your textbook there, move on to step 2.
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Search the textbook exchange group on facebook directly for past posts mentioning the book you’re looking for, and see if anyone linked a copy on one of those posts. If you find a someone that did, but the link is dead, message them or the person that posted asking for it. Chances are they still have a copy and can send it to you. I don’t know any student that wouldn’t do this for a fellow triton.
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If you still can’t find a copy, check Library Genesis (aka Libgen). This website is God’s gift to us students, and has almost every PDF imaginable. If it ain’t on here, then oh boy you’re gonna have to dig deep to find a copy.
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Check b-ok/Z-Library to see if you can find a copy on there
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Last resort, go here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Piracy/wiki/megathread/reading_material_and_elearning and try some of the custom search engines and other sites
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If you still can’t find a copy, and then try to make a post on the textbook exchange group and ask for a copy of the book. If no one posts in a few days, then chances are that a copy of the textbook isn’t online, or at least in any easily accessible area
Section 2: What to do if you cant find a copy of your textbook
So your professor is an asshole and is forcing you to buy the reader/textbook they wrote and its mAnDaToRY for the class. Or maybe the textbook is as rare as an unstressful day at UCSD. Whatever the case here is what you can do to try and save some money
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Find out if your prof is keeping reserve copies at Geisel. If they are, you’re good, just use that when you need to, take pics of the pages you need, and be off on your merry way.
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If it’s a reader, then get a group of friends/accomplices in the class and pool money together to get a single copy. Tear off the spine (or if its looseleaf even better) carefully and go to a Kinkos (I think they’re called Fedex Office now? idk i feel old) or some other place with access to a feed scanner and just rapid scan those pages onto a flashdrive and give your friends/people in the class a copy. You’re now a hero to everyone in the class!
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If it’s a textbook that you can’t find online, ask your BOTH your professor AND your TA if you can buy a previous edition of the textbook, and if they say yes, buy it off of a website like abebooks or similar. Previous textbook editions go for wayyyy cheaper than the current edition, and will save you a bunch of money. OR see if you can rent the current or previous edition from a textbook rental service (Chegg has this i think). Renting can be way cheaper and will give you access as long as you need the book. Take screenshots as you go and assemble a PDF at the end of the quarter and post that shit to save future generations some trouble and money.
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If you cannot do any of the above, and a new book is your ONLY option, which is NEVER the case, then go splitskies with some friends and call it a day.
NOTES:
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Check out UCSD SPACES Booklending program. I don’t know much about it, but it seems like another way to get free or significantly discounted textbooks from UCSD directly.
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Check UCSD Free & For Sale to see if anyone is selling a copy of the book you’re looking for for cheap
Congrats, you’ve saved hundreds, if not a few thousands of that sweet FAFSA money, buy something nice, save or donate to charity, whatever you want!
EDIT:
Since so many people have asked for the link to the FB group here it is: Redirecting...
You can then send the pdf file to your email or even upload to a cloud drive I believe. So handy and doesn’t take thatttt long!