Online Used Consortia

If you don't want to search for individual used bookstores, using an online consortia such as www.abebooks.com  or www.bibliofind.com is a great way to search for used books in a lot of bookstores at once. These web sites are consortia of used bookstores; a common database lists the inventories of all the bookstores (there are probably at least a hundred bookstores if not more...I've never checked the statistics). Using either website is easy. You register with a user name, search the database for a particular author or title, binding preference (hardback or paperback), and the general price range that you want to pay. The database returns a list of books that meet your criteria. You can purchase some of the books directly online with credit card info. However, in general, you select the books you want to purchase, and the web site sends an e-mail to the bookstore(s) with your e-mail address telling them that you are interested in the books. The bookstore then contacts you via e-mail (usually the same day, but I've always had contacts in less than 24 hours) and tells you if the book is still available and what the total price is. You then reply to the bookstore to confirm that you will pay and then make arrangements for payment.

Depending on which books you're after, you can get a better deal from this method than any other source of T3I books. Again, some of the sponsoring bookstores specialize in antiques and collectibles; so the prices will not always be competitive with the prices on the auction sites, but in general this is a reliable source of books.

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