Thu, Apr 23, 2026

Where to buy used textbooks at UCLA (and how to save the most)

A semi-grumpy guide to getting UCLA textbooks cheap, from the campus marketplace to library reserves to the rental options nobody tells freshmen about.

UCLA students spend an average of $400 to $800 per quarter on textbooks if they buy everything new from the BookZone. You don’t have to. In fact, if you’re spending that much, your upperclassman friends are silently judging you.

Here’s the actual playbook, roughly in the order you should try things.

Step 1: Don’t buy anything before the first lecture

I know. The syllabus said “required.” You feel responsible. You bought it the day after PTE week opened.

Don’t.

Every quarter, about a third of freshmen pre-buy textbooks for classes they end up dropping during second-week shopping. Another quarter buys the wrong edition because the syllabus said “9th edition” and they grabbed the 8th. The bookstore’s return policy is, let’s say, “not generous.”

Wait until syllabus week. Then confirm:

• The exact ISBN the professor wants.
• Whether earlier editions are okay. (For most non-STEM, yes. For STEM, sometimes. For accounting and finance, the homework problem numbers shift, so usually no.)
• Whether the book is actually used in class or just “recommended.” About 30% of “required” textbooks at UCLA aren’t actually required to do well. Ask someone who took the class.

Step 2: Library reserves (free)

Powell, YRL, and the Biomedical Library all keep most assigned textbooks on course reserve. Options:

• Check it out for 2 hours, read at the library.
• For some books, take it home overnight (2 to 4 hour limit).
• Scan the chapters you actually need with the library scanner. Free.

For a one-quarter elective where you’ll touch the book maybe four times: this is the entire strategy.

How to find it: library.ucla.edu, then “Course Reserves,” then search by course number. Bookmark this. Tell your roommates. Save lives.

Step 3: The Nom marketplace (verified UCLA students)

Pretty much the fastest way to grab a used textbook from someone who literally just took the class. Nom’s marketplace has a textbooks category and is verified-students-only. Every seller has a @g.ucla.edu email.

Browse the UCLA marketplace.

Why it tends to win:

• The seller often took the class last quarter and annotated the book. Sometimes their notes are gold. Sometimes their notes are “this prof is mid” written in the margin of every chapter. Both are useful.
• Local pickup. No shipping. No “delivered to a porch in Manhattan Beach” mysteries.
• Prices usually land at 40 to 60% of new.

The catch: inventory varies by class. The Econ 1 textbook? Plentiful. That weird upper-div philosophy book by a prof who left in 2019? Less plentiful.

Step 4: Online used markets

In rough order of usefulness:

Facebook Marketplace. Skip for textbooks. The verification gap matters. The seller might be a UCLA student. They might also be a person in Sacramento shipping you a book missing pages 102 to 144.

Reddit r/UCLA. Occasional gems, especially during finals week when people start offloading. Worth checking. Don’t build a strategy around it.

eBay. Good for older editions where scarcity actually matters, but more of a last resort option.

Step 5: PDFs (the conversation we’re going to have once)

Many UCLA students get their PDFs from libgen, sci-hub, et cetera. We’re not pretending this doesn’t happen. We’re also not formally recommending it. The legality varies, and UCLA’s academic conduct rules have things to say about it.

What we will say: a surprising number of professors post the actual PDFs on Bruin Learn, or link to a free version in the syllabus, or tell you in lecture which chapters are critical (so you can just check those out from reserves). Check the syllabus and Bruin Learn before paying anyone anything.

When to actually buy new

A few situations where new makes sense:

• Major-track textbooks you’ll reference for years. The standard reference for your major. The one you’ll see on your desk in your first job’s “before” photo.
• Lab manuals with tear-out pages.
• Books with single-use access codes. (These should be illegal. They are not. Welcome to college.)

For everything else: used is fine.

The selling side

When the quarter ends, run the play in reverse:

• Sell on Nom. Next quarter’s students are literally searching for your book right now. Post a listing, takes a minute.
• BookZone buyback is convenient but pays maybe 25 to 35% of what you’d get peer-to-peer. The convenience tax is severe.

If every UCLA student sold their used books to the next quarter’s students instead of dumping them on Amazon or selling them back to the BookZone for pennies, the entire UCLA textbook market would be dramatically cheaper. The Nom marketplace is built for exactly this. Verified students. No scams. Hyperlocal pickup.

Get the Nom app to browse listings or post your own.