Comment by dexwiz

My school made it a rule that any book required by the professor had to have at least one copy in the library system. The book could only be checked out in short increments and wasn't supposed to leave the library. Also it may be in 1 of 14 department specific libraries.

I figured this out freshmen year, and didn't buy books the last 3 years. I would just copy pages as needed for homework/readings. I think I probably looked at 10% of the total pages I was told to buy. Most classes would use less than a hundred pages a semester. The best classes the professor just skipped this rigamarole and handed out packets copied from various books directly.

Only very basic 100 and 200 level classes would stick to a standardized curriculum that followed hundreds of pages in a book. Anything challenging used dense material from real technical books or academic papers.