Books to buy vs. rent vs. eBook? BSN

Nursing Students Pre-Nursing

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Nevada State College 2015 - Which books should I buy (for keeps) to use throughout my BSN program? What about eBooks?? I heard some are only available to use for 1 year (ie. Fundamentals) but other eBooks are good for life? Im also considering adding these to a tablet (or phablet) but what about the required apps? Aren't some Windows & some Apple? Sheesh, so what technology to go with the eBooks then? Id really like to know if you found your PATHO book useful later on in your BSN program or even as a working RN ~ Thank You

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Specializes in Cardiac Stepdown, PCU.

What books you will need to buy/rent will depend on your program. Even if you buy them you can likely sell them after. If your program uses certain books throughout, buy those. It can be far more expensive to rent a book for 2 years than to just buy it. If they only use them for a semester, rent them. Usually if you are renting a book and decide you want to buy it they will allow you.

Ebooks can be tricky. Have you used ebooks before? Not just casual reading but for learning and studying? Do you like them? Do they work for you? If you've never worked with one before you might want to see if the publishers off sample chapters so you can get a feel for it. Not everyone does well learning from ebooks.

As for Apps. It will depend. Most e-textbooks can only be read through Nook Study. NookStudy is a PC/Windows program only. You can't load it on tablets or on phablets. There are ways to get these textbooks to read as a pdf on a tablet or another device outside of Nook Study but I don't think that's something that can be discussed here because it would break copyright. Amazon has some kindle e-texts, which can be read through kindle and on any device that has a kindle. Which means you can load them on your tablet/phablet though there aren't "study tools" as far as I am aware of. (NookStudy allows you to highlight, make notes, bookmark sections, etc..)

Just make sure when you buy an e-text you know what program you will need for it. It will tell you if it can be read through kindle, or nookstudy, etc. Then just look those programs up and see if they are compatible with whatever device you plan to use.

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Specializes in Hospice, Palliative Care.

Good day, PrayingToPass:

For prerequisites, the only book I purchased/kept was for Anatomy and Physiology. In terms of the actual nursing books, I've been told by students ahead of me (already in the program) to always buy (used can be very fine as previous editions; though check with the professor on the use of a previous edition) because you end up referencing the books through the entire program. One student shared her horror story of renting her 1st semester nursing books only to find out she needed the same books the second semester and so on.

The eBooks I've worked with to date involve publishers who appear to be more concerned with copyright and resale issues than being friendly to the reader of the book who actually paid for it. That typically means no printing pages or printing 1 to 2 pages at a time, zero to extremely limited export ability, etc. For ebooks, I use Amazon Kindle an a Pearson app specific to reading books associated with Pearson.

Thank you.

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Specializes in L&D, infusion, urology.

I bought all of my books, and have sold/am selling them on half. I think with how much I end up making on there, I come out better than I would had I rented. I HATE e-books. I need to be able to turn pages and mark them as I see fit.

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RunBabyRN

I digg your strategy (and your screen name, lol) :up:

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