Find Textbooks

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Creative ways to find textbooks and other study materials

1. Purchase your own textbooks

You can purchase textbooks from Amazon (www.amazon.com, www.amazon.co.uk or www.amazon.de), Alibris (www.alibris.com), local bookstores or ask a friend in the US or UK to help you with it. Some of the textbooks are expensive and you will need a credit card if you use Internet shops. You will also need to calculate shipping costs. Often you can buy English books on www.amazon.de and have it shipped to Austria for free while you are at Haus Edelweiss. So this is an expensive but reliable solution.

2. Find the textbooks online

2.1 NetLibrary

TCMI has purchased from NetLibrary about 830 ebooks and some of these are required textbooks. Search the library catalog (http://library.tcmi.edu) to see whether a textbook you need is available online. If a book has NETLIB (or WEB) in front of the call number you can read it online. Contact Ezt a címet a spamrobotok ellen védjük. Engedélyezze a Javascript használatát, hogy megtekinthesse. if you need a password or experience problems.

2.2 Ebrary

Ebrary (http://shop.ebrary.com) is an ebook provider who offers books to individuals (not only libraries). You can search their site but before you are able to read a book you are asked to create an account and place at least $5.00 there (my $5 sit there already for 7 years). You are charged ONLY when you start copying or printing ($0.25 per page), but you can read the full book on the screen for free.

2.3 Google Books (http://books.google.com) or Amazon's Search Inside (www.amazon.com)

Often the limited preview of books on these sites allows to read many pages online, even if not the whole book. You can also search inside of a book for certain topics and find material that you may need for your paper. Even though it is not very satisfactory, you can get a good impression of the book this way (for example enough to be able to write a book review, or come up with some questions about the book, etc.).

3. Find textbooks in local libraries

Sometimes you will be able to find necessary books in libraries close to you. Public libraries and especially the National Library of your country have Christian and theological books and you as citizen have the right to use these. Some theological colleges and seminaries have English language books and it may happen that they have the book you need. TCM has usage agreements with many in-country libraries and can write a request to these libraries to allow you use their books, or TCM can confirm to these libraries that you are a TCM student and ask them to help you obtain a book. Contact Ezt a címet a spamrobotok ellen védjük. Engedélyezze a Javascript használatát, hogy megtekinthesse. if you need assistance with this.

4. Contact teacher for substitution

Often teachers allow to substitute required textbooks with similar books in your own language. Please contact the teacher if your efforts to obtain textbooks have failed and ask for advice and for possibility to substitute a book. Beside books in your own language you should mention TCM’s ebooks or books which you have found to be available.