| Written by Manush K. |
Going to college is not cheap in the first place and the financial burden of buying books for classes just adds fuel to the fire. Books and supplies for classes can range from being very inexpensive to being very expensive for people of different majors and of different levels. But, as a Rutgers–Camden student, there are a few ways around breaking the bank for your books.
The Paul Robeson Library, the main library on campus, provides various resources, such as research databases and Inter Library Loans, that allows a students like you and me to borrow books for our classes free of cost. Not a lot of students know to check this option before buying their books online. I’ve used the library as a resource to acquire books for the past five semesters and I have saved so much money just by simply not buying books!
Log-in to the university library’s website with your NetID and password. In the search bar, write the title of the article, chapter, book, magazine, movie, or any source you’re looking for. The website searches all Rutgers campuses to see if any of the libraries has what you’re searching.
You can check out the three campuses at this link: https://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/borrow-access-request. Here, you can scroll to the bottom of the page to see the options to click to log in to any of the databases. Or, you can get to this page by clicking on the home page, then “services and tools,” then “borrow/access/request.”
If you find the text you’re looking for, you can click on its title and you’ll see the option to request it. Then, the book will be available to pick up at the Paul Robeson Library in a few days!
An alternative to searching the databases online is to go and see a librarian in person. If you walk up to the front desk and ask them for help finding books, they’ll walk you through it! It’s that simple! It can be a somewhat time-consuming process before you have it figured out, but it’s definitely worth doing before you purchase all of your books.