How to Buy Books from the Online Bookstore, a Guide for Students.
Table of Contents
- What is an Online Bookstore?
- Purchasing your Course Materials
- Accessing Digital Materials
What is an Online Bookstore?
Most of the courses offered at SVU require their students to purchase some course materials. These materials may be textbooks, online courses, and other ancillaries. While it is up to the students to decide where to buy these materials, we have intigrated with Akademos to provide an online platform that makes textbook shopping easy and affordable. If you have never used an online bookstore before, and would like to understand more about how they work, please watch the video below provided by the official Akademos youtube channel.
Purchasing your Course Materials
Our online bookstore can be found at svu.textbookx.com. When you arrive on the website you will be able to log in through either of the "Log In" buttons on the homescreen.
You will need to log in with your school sign in credentials (firstname.lastname@svu.edu). If you are new to SVU and you have not been able to set up your email account yet, please see this solution article to change your password. https://svu.freshservice.com/support/solutions/articles/8000061108
Because our course and student information are integrated with the website, your courses will be assigned to you based off of your schedule with the registrar's office. On the My Courses page you will be able to see the (1) full list of all of your courses, (2) How many required course materials you still need, and (3) the textbooks and materials that each course requires.
Your professors will update their course materials. If they haven't finalized their decision yet you may see this notification. The "Notify Me" option will let you know when the professor adds their materials.
There are three options you can select when you purchase your books. You can choose "New" which whill send you a mint-condition copy of the material selected. "Used" indicates a material that is secondhand. They may not be in perfect condition but they woill usually be offered at a discount. The last option is the Marketplace. The website will select the most economical option by default but there are usually many options available if you click on the "other sellers" button.
Clicking on the "Other Sellers" button will show the marketplace purchasing options for the book. It will display who is selling the book, a short description of the book, the condition, and the price. If you see a book you would like to buy, add it to your cart and that option will display as "In [cart]" Then you can close the popup menu.
Once you add your purchase option to your cart, the thumbnail will display the "In cart" icon and the item will be counted as a part of your cart.
When you select the drop-down arrow on the cart tab, it will show you how many items are in your cart, the price of those items, an estimation of your savings, and how many items you have yet to add for your courses.
While you are adding textbooks, the website will hold the items you select for up to 15 min. When you are ready to complete your purchase, select the "Check Out" button.
When you are checking out, the default shipping address is the adress of the mail center but if you live off campus or would like to have your books delivered to your dorm you can add a different shipping address.
Once you have purchased your materials from the site, there will be a notification that lists what day you purchased your material and what form of that material you bought.
Accessing Digital Materials
Some of your materials may come in the form of ebooks. If you have purchased an ebook or etext, you can find that resource in the elibrary. The eLibrary is where the Bookstore keeps a record of all digital course materials that a student has purchased. To visit the eLibrary, log into the bookstore, click on the username at the top right, and then select "eLibrary." See image below.
Each digital text that a student has access to is listed along with specific details of each digital product including title, author, and access information (see image on next page). If students need help accessing their materials, they should contact the Online Bookstore Customer Experience team at svu.textbookx.com/help.
Instructions differ based on the publisher, but the Online Bookstore will email students with instructions on how to access materials. If students didn't save the email or didn't receive it, they can go to the eLibrary and click "Read now" to be taken directly to the digital courseware platform.
For VitalSource materials, students MUST access them for the first time through their Online Bookstore account by clicking "Read Now" (see screenshot below). Once logged in, the text will appear automatically. Links to these texts are also available through a student's Learning Management System (LMS: Canvas, Blackboard, D2L, etc.) For other courseware materials from publishers like Cengage or Pearson, the eLibrary will also list links to the platform as well as access codes that are unique to the order.
We hope that the information provided in this article helped you have a good experience with our online bookstore service. If you are still experiencing any problems or have any questions, please feel free to contact the IT department.