I find the major difference between consecutive editions is usually just that they've changed the chapters around. Although it may be inconvenient to switch from chapters back and forth while trying to follow the class, its well worth it in the price when buying an older edition. Sometimes profs even tell you that you can buy older editions so its usually a good idea to wait till at least the first day of class before buying textbooks. Besides there'll still be plenty of people selling books on macinsiders marketplace/facebook marketplace/ titles classifieds for the first couple of weeks.

The older version of the site was much better. Not UI friendly but it got the job done quickly. The new homepage literally took 15 seconds to load.

No doubt the home page it is pitifully slow right now - We are still working on the website - there was a lot of stuff in the back end that was simply falling apart because it was so old. - Over the next few weeks you'll be seeing more and more changes. The big one will be the ability to log in with you Mac ID and pull up a fully customized book list.

What I am hearing here it that how to see the details for each textbook is not apparent - I'll make sure the textbook link gets an underline so it looks more clickable and we are working on pulling full detail information where we have it including descriptions and pictures so that you can be sure you are getting the right book no matter where you choose to buy it from.

Again if you have any comments or suggestions for the Bookstore website feel free to let me know.

Originally Posted by staceygab

No doubt the home page it is pitifully slow right now - We are still working on the website - there was a lot of stuff in the back end that was simply falling apart because it was so old. - Over the next few weeks you'll be seeing more and more changes. The big one will be the ability to log in with you Mac ID and pull up a fully customized book list.

What I am hearing here it that how to see the details for each textbook is not apparent - I'll make sure the textbook link gets an underline so it looks more clickable and we are working on pulling full detail information where we have it including descriptions and pictures so that you can be sure you are getting the right book no matter where you choose to buy it from.

Again if you have any comments or suggestions for the Bookstore website feel free to let me know.

I like the idea of pictures.

I was just wondering why the bookstore decided to implement the change now? In my opinion it's kind of a bad time, I personally would have rather used the older site while the newer site was being worked on in the background or even delaying the website change until October. It's too late now, but I'm just curious as to why the change was implemented at the beginning of the year.

Originally Posted by jhan523

I like the idea of pictures.

I was just wondering why the bookstore decided to implement the change now?

No doubt this is bad timing - but there were a number of factors. The old web site was soooo old that we were having trouble updating it - even simple changes and there were a number of back end systems that were regularly failing. The old site was more band aid than body so to speak. One of the reasons we had to make the switch now was that the way we had to input textbook data had to be modified in order to normalize the data and display it correctly on the new site - not a big deal for most courses but it was screwing up the way Continuing Education courses were being displayed by the old site and none of those students could find their books. There are added challenges that you need to navigate when launching a University site - be happy to know that when it comes to protecting your information and security standards Canadian University sites blow away the American counterparts - but all of these things take time. I wish we could have had a couple of more weeks - the decision was not made lightly.