Our hospital buys books from one of the major medical bookstores. We are supposed to get a 15% discount off of list price and the travel fees (shipping) are supposed to minimal or waived. I have noticed this isn't always the case. Most of the time the shipping is included and depending on fulfills our order we might or might not get the 15% discount. Of course I don't know this happens until I receive the books and the invoice. I then must take time out of my day and call to get it straightened out. It makes it so that I hate purchasing books (imagine that a librarian who hates purchasing books).

This got me thinking. Why not use Amazon.com to buy the library's medical books? Almost all of the books I bought recently were available on Amazon.com for less than the list price. I might also receive them a lot faster compared to the time it takes to get them from the medical bookstore.

I did a little experiment. I randomly selected 10 books that I have recently purchased. These are either new purchases or replacement purchases, so they were all published randomly between 2004-2006. I wanted to know how much it would cost me on Amazon.com vs. Medical Bookstore. For shipping cost I looked at how much Amazon.com's standard shipping and what my medical bookstore charges me. For total shipping costs I looked at how much it would cost to ship each item individually. Most likely I would combine shipping to save money, but I could not exactly calculate how much that would save. We are non-profit institution, we don't pay sales tax. My medical bookstore does not charge me tax and by creating a corporate account Amazon.com non-profit users do not have to pay tax either. So I did not include tax.

Amazon Price:

1. Current Pediatric Diagnosis & Treatment, 2004: $53.95 (10% savings), free shipping
2. Clinically Oriented Anatomy, 2005: $67.11 (8% savings), $4.60 shipping
3. Swanson's Family Practice Review, 2004 : $67.45 (10% savings), free shipping
4. Current Medical Diagnosis & Treatment, 2006: $59.95 (list price), fee shipping
5. Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine, 2004: $108.20 (20% savings), $3.00 shipping
6. Orthopaedic Knowledge Update, 2005: $225 (list price), $3.00 shipping
7. Critical Care Medicine, 2006: $59.95 (list price), free shipping
8. Principles and Practice of Infectious Diseases 2-Volume Set 2004: $296.10 (10% savings) $3.80 shipping
9. Current Surgical Therapy 2004: $150.88 (8% savings), $4.60 shipping
10. Conn's Current Therapy 2006 : $69.95 (list price), $3.00 shipping

Amazon.com Total: $1158.54
If I shipped each individually, total cost: $22.00

My medical bookstore Price: (from the invoice, note that there is no 15% discount on the books, so I have to call to try and get the discount). Shipping ranges from $6-$12 per shipment and it is not consistent. I have invoices where one book will ship for $6 and four books will ship for $8 or $12.

1. Current Pediatric Diagnosis & Treatment, 2004: $59.95
2. Clinically Oriented Anatomy, 2005: $68.95
3. Swanson's Family Practice Review, 2004 : $74.95
4. Current Medical Diagnosis & Treatment, 2006: $59.95
5. Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine, 2004: $135.00
6. Orthopaedic Knowledge Update, 2005: $225
7. Critical Care Medicine, 2006: $59.95
8. Principles and Practice of Infectious Diseases 2-Volume Set 2004: $329.00
9. Current Surgical Therapy 2004: $164.00
10. Conn's Current Therapy 2006 : $69.95

Medical bookstore Total: $1246.70
If I shipped each individually at $6/title: $60.00
If I shipped it in 2 groups of 5 books the shipping could be: $16 ($8/shipping) or $24 ($12/shipping)

While I was not able to get a discount on every book from Amazon.com, I still saved money compared to my bookstore charging me list price. If I call them and successfully am able to argue to get my 15% discount on every title (which I have never been able to do) I will pay approximately $1060.00 which is less than $100 savings without shipping. How much is my time worth?

I get much bigger savings if I purchase the book through one of Amazon.com's Merchants. These are the people who list used & new books for usually cheaper than even Amazon.com. Merchants list the books as new, gently used, or used with writing. At the time I was able to find a new book from a merchant for each the ten books.

Amazon New/Used Retailers Price:

1. Current Pediatric Diagnosis & Treatment, 2004: $39.99 (33% savings), $3.50 shipping
2. Clinically Oriented Anatomy, 2005: $47.99 (34% savings), $3.50 shipping
3. Swanson's Family Practice Review, 2004 : $60.00 (20% savings), $3.50 shipping
4. Current Medical Diagnosis & Treatment, 2006: $53.68 (10% savings), $3.50 shipping
5. Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine, 2004: $86.36 (36% savings), $3.50 shipping
6. Orthopaedic Knowledge Update, 2005: $196.93 (12% savings), $3.50 shipping
7. Critical Care Medicine, 2006: $49.95 (16% savings), $3.50 shipping
8. Principles and Practice of Infectious Diseases 2-Volume Set 2004: $259.00 (21% savings), $3.50 shipping
9. Current Surgical Therapy 2004: $148.56 (10% savings), $3.50 shipping
10. Conn's Current Therapy 2006 : $64.75 (9% savings), $3.50 shipping

Amazon.com New/Used Merchants Total: $1007.21
If I shipped each individually, total cost: $35.00

If I purchased my books through the merchants, I save $151 from Amazon, $239 from my bookstore (without the discount), $53 from my bookstore (with the 15% discount).

Depending how much time your are willing to spend, how easy Amazon.com makes it for libraries to buy books, and shipping costs. It can be cheaper to buy your books from Amazon.com. I suspect there might be an even bigger savings if you are buying older books. In a medical library, you probably won't being buy a lot of older or books. But in another type of library like a public library where you are replacing classic books or buying fiction, you might find you can save a lot. I quickly looked up Catch-22, Cell, and The House, to see how much it would cost to buy them on Amazon.com. All three of those books were priced $6-$10 cheaper than list price.

Perhaps we need to have a closer look at our book vendors and determine whether the staying with them is worth the time and money. In some libraries it may be, in others it may not. I would love to hear from other libraries to see if they buy from Amazon.com and how they like it.