TOP FIVE: Tips to cut costs on your reading list

Stereotypically all students grumble about the cost of their reading lists. As Akademika holds the student syllabus monopoly, Oslo students are stuck with non-competitive prices for books. Rather than sending you straight to the library, we’ve gathered the top five, think-outside-the-box tips that may help you lower the cost of your required reading list. You’re welcome!

1. Adlibris. An online, discount bookstore that delivers for free, over a certain price point (around 299 NOK). As they work with multiple suppliers, they offer a fantastic assortment of books for students. This in turn also means that the delivery time may vary, so keep an eye out for that.

2. Abe books. Another great online bookstore offering a wide selection. This website allows you to search independent book sellers from around the world. At present, you can spend up to 350 NOK (including delivery) ordering from outside of Norway without paying import charges. So as long as you keep below the limit this may be a great solution.

3. Adobe Acrobat mobile app. This is incredibly useful if you only need a small section of a book. Download the app and you can create your own PDFs

by photographing individual pages. The app will allow you to condense and edit the images into one seamless PDF document, which is great for referencing in class.

4. Kindle. You do not need to buy a Kindle device in order to access the Amazon Kindle ebooks. Amazon allows you to download the Kindle App which means any smart phone or laptop can run the program. Public domain books are usually free in this manner, and Kindle books are sometimes half the price of hard copies. They are delivered instantly to your device so there are no pesky delivery delays.

5. Librivox. This option is especially useful for humanities students; Librivox provides free public domain audiobooks. All recordings are created by volunteers, so if you have a long novel to read you can listen to it whilst multitasking, for free!

Of course, if you are still at a loss there is always our very own university library. They even offer services that allow you to request books from other libraries for free. In addition, you can suggest a purchase if they do not have the book that you require. This is perfect if you just can’t seem to find that very specific book on how to work «Game of Thrones» into your MA assignments...

Watch out for those library fines though...