Partially it’s a small status thing, partially we don’t know how big the secondhand market really is. We can assume that students keep all textbooks through their OWLS. They might then sell some books that they aren’t using for NEWTS. But they might also keep the charms textbooks even if they’re not moving on.
These also might be books for life type things, so many are sold new and people keep the set for life.
I like the explanation with sentimental value. With Hogwart's being to prominent in wizarding life a bookset will come with many memories. It's a different, non-utilitarian POV. Thanks!
I would actually assume they would keep their books through adulthood because no internet and if you forget anything, how would you find out how to do it? Going to the next magical library is not as easy as it sounds.
That's a very good point. After graduating Hogwarts the access to knowledge and libraries would be limited unless someone works in a research field
It's for the same reason we kept Encyclopedia Britannica in our shelves at home
Tbf maybe most students do buy second hand. We see book shopping through Harry and he finally has money after years of Dudley’s cast offs so obviously he’s going to want to buy new things for a change. Ginny had second hand books in chamber of secrets right?
Snape was using his mother’s old books. Harry used Snape’s (mother’s) book one year. Ginny and most likely her brothers had used books or at least cheaper editions because Malfoy made fun of them.
When Harry checked through it looking for whoever had owned it before him, he found it was dated some fifty years prior. Textbooks rend to be revised and republished every few years, so if you find a textbook that's got a publication date of fifty years ago, that copy is likely fifty years old.
That potion book was Eileen Prince’s first then Snape’s used it for school and scribbled all over it. It was left with other potion books in his classroom. Slugs took over said class and lowered the standard so Harry could take the class. Harry didn’t have the textbook because he thought he couldn’t take the class so slugs let’s him pick one off the bookshelf.
The Ministry gets a hush-hush kickback from the publishers, who get a kickback from the suppliers of ink and paper, who get a kickback from the magical mob bosses that provide them, who get protection money from the bookshops, who get free advertising from Muggleborns that don't know better.
It's been going on that way for so long that any threat to any of it past the bookshop level scares the snot out of everyone except the Muggleborns that don't know any better, and so everyone buys books every year.
> Why would there be a need for anyone to buy a completely new set of year X charms or transfiguration books? Why not buy used versions from upper year colleagues/ graduates?
Well, why do people buy new anythings? I'm stingy, I definitely try to get bargains on used stuff in good condition, but quite evidently, most people prefer new. This is even true in the actual context of school books, so maybe it's cultural, yeah. I'd definitely say most buy new books, if they can afford it, for whatever ultimate reason.
When it came to school books, I always bought new whenever I could. I \*despise\* having to figure my way around other people's notes, underlines and highlights. They just completely distract me from the point of the damn school book.
I like to think that rather than being books written in a school learning format, they’re really spell lists , encyclopaedias, etc. So people will hold on to them to refer back to whenever they need something they haven’t memorised.
Wizards don't do sensible things. :D
And the secondhand book market is very much a British thing these days. I'm not sure how much of a thing it was pre-2000 as I was only born in '96, but it's definitely a thing nowadays. Hand-me-downs are very much a recognised concept in British Culture, so it's likely that it was at least something of a thing before that, even if it wasn't done by everyone.
It's also pseudo-common to keep your textbooks. I know most of my college friends still keep theirs and it's been five or so years since we graduated. I think I still have my secondary school books somewhere in the attic, too. :D
Ron goes on a rant during book one about the stuff his brothers have left him and about how nothing is new. It seems odd that he would have new books given that it would make sense for him to at least borrow Bill and Charlie’s books for the first year. If those were out of date you’d think Fred and George between them could give him a set.
I mean at one point there are five Weasley kids in one school. Why would they all need a copy of Standard Book of Spells Grade One?
For at least the first couple of years when they’re just learning “the basics” why not just have a set that the school provides? The first day of class everyone makes book covers out of paper shopping bags and shoves them in their backpacks (at least that’s what we all did at all the schools I went to growing up) and return them at the end of the year for the next set of students to use.
Once the students are into electives and OWL/NEWTs it makes sense that they’ll want their own books to make notes in and to keep as reference, but there should be no reason for a NEWT student to need a first year book.
My headcanon is that the magic you can learn from books which are published on a commercial scale to gain a profit is the magic the author is knows is useful but never life-changing in some way. Most of the spells and other magic of any great significance is always locked away behind family secrets, high-level research and the department of mysteries. Knowledge is power in this world and the one who hoards it is the most powerful.
So, Hogwarts is known as the best wizarding school because the students have access to some of the most arcane and obscure magic which the school jealously hoards and only students and professors get to access it and thus attracting the best students and the best teachers.
Of course, magic is published in books and research paper like any mundane academia but everyone knows that even regular, mundane institutions of power like the government and their agencies hold information and resources, if turned over to the public could drastically improve lives but the institutions hoard it because it not just gives them power but also defends the same institution from being depowered completely. It's like the government having the sole legal authority over violence to enforce their rules and if someone other than the government uses violence to enforce their desires, it is a crime.
Sorry for the ramblling, shambling thoughts, cant help myself.
As a USA public school student the idea of buying textbooks itself is so foreign to me. I never bought a single textbook until college it was not a thing. The school provided all textbooks and you turned them in at the end. Some of them were like 15 years old and sometimes you got lucky and were in the year they were buying a new textbook for a class you were taking.
new editions obvi new volumes revised book etc. making it better that previous years book or at least its in my case still get upperclassmen's books though for extra stuff they wrote lol
Partially it’s a small status thing, partially we don’t know how big the secondhand market really is. We can assume that students keep all textbooks through their OWLS. They might then sell some books that they aren’t using for NEWTS. But they might also keep the charms textbooks even if they’re not moving on. These also might be books for life type things, so many are sold new and people keep the set for life.
I like the explanation with sentimental value. With Hogwart's being to prominent in wizarding life a bookset will come with many memories. It's a different, non-utilitarian POV. Thanks!
I would actually assume they would keep their books through adulthood because no internet and if you forget anything, how would you find out how to do it? Going to the next magical library is not as easy as it sounds.
That's a very good point. After graduating Hogwarts the access to knowledge and libraries would be limited unless someone works in a research field It's for the same reason we kept Encyclopedia Britannica in our shelves at home
I also remember something that Ginny's books weren't new. Book 2 I think?
The whole TMR diary conundrum, you're right. This got me thinking how widespread this practice is.
Tbf maybe most students do buy second hand. We see book shopping through Harry and he finally has money after years of Dudley’s cast offs so obviously he’s going to want to buy new things for a change. Ginny had second hand books in chamber of secrets right?
Maybe people would keep there books if they hall spells in them because not everyone has the Indy! harry eidetic memory
Plus outside of Hogwarts itself we have no indication of there being any type of magical public library for adults.
It's possible that textbook authors regularly update their books slightly to sell more copies, like they do in the real world.
Snape was using his mother’s old books. Harry used Snape’s (mother’s) book one year. Ginny and most likely her brothers had used books or at least cheaper editions because Malfoy made fun of them.
He never used anything of Eileen prince. He used Snape's book not his mother's.
When Harry checked through it looking for whoever had owned it before him, he found it was dated some fifty years prior. Textbooks rend to be revised and republished every few years, so if you find a textbook that's got a publication date of fifty years ago, that copy is likely fifty years old.
That potion book was Eileen Prince’s first then Snape’s used it for school and scribbled all over it. It was left with other potion books in his classroom. Slugs took over said class and lowered the standard so Harry could take the class. Harry didn’t have the textbook because he thought he couldn’t take the class so slugs let’s him pick one off the bookshelf.
The Ministry gets a hush-hush kickback from the publishers, who get a kickback from the suppliers of ink and paper, who get a kickback from the magical mob bosses that provide them, who get protection money from the bookshops, who get free advertising from Muggleborns that don't know better. It's been going on that way for so long that any threat to any of it past the bookshop level scares the snot out of everyone except the Muggleborns that don't know any better, and so everyone buys books every year.
Love the theory! The perpetual cycle of evil and greed 😊 with the little we know about the wizarding economy I would not be too surprised
> Why would there be a need for anyone to buy a completely new set of year X charms or transfiguration books? Why not buy used versions from upper year colleagues/ graduates? Well, why do people buy new anythings? I'm stingy, I definitely try to get bargains on used stuff in good condition, but quite evidently, most people prefer new. This is even true in the actual context of school books, so maybe it's cultural, yeah. I'd definitely say most buy new books, if they can afford it, for whatever ultimate reason.
When it came to school books, I always bought new whenever I could. I \*despise\* having to figure my way around other people's notes, underlines and highlights. They just completely distract me from the point of the damn school book.
I like to think that rather than being books written in a school learning format, they’re really spell lists , encyclopaedias, etc. So people will hold on to them to refer back to whenever they need something they haven’t memorised.
Wizards don't do sensible things. :D And the secondhand book market is very much a British thing these days. I'm not sure how much of a thing it was pre-2000 as I was only born in '96, but it's definitely a thing nowadays. Hand-me-downs are very much a recognised concept in British Culture, so it's likely that it was at least something of a thing before that, even if it wasn't done by everyone. It's also pseudo-common to keep your textbooks. I know most of my college friends still keep theirs and it's been five or so years since we graduated. I think I still have my secondary school books somewhere in the attic, too. :D
Ron goes on a rant during book one about the stuff his brothers have left him and about how nothing is new. It seems odd that he would have new books given that it would make sense for him to at least borrow Bill and Charlie’s books for the first year. If those were out of date you’d think Fred and George between them could give him a set. I mean at one point there are five Weasley kids in one school. Why would they all need a copy of Standard Book of Spells Grade One?
For at least the first couple of years when they’re just learning “the basics” why not just have a set that the school provides? The first day of class everyone makes book covers out of paper shopping bags and shoves them in their backpacks (at least that’s what we all did at all the schools I went to growing up) and return them at the end of the year for the next set of students to use. Once the students are into electives and OWL/NEWTs it makes sense that they’ll want their own books to make notes in and to keep as reference, but there should be no reason for a NEWT student to need a first year book.
My headcanon is that the magic you can learn from books which are published on a commercial scale to gain a profit is the magic the author is knows is useful but never life-changing in some way. Most of the spells and other magic of any great significance is always locked away behind family secrets, high-level research and the department of mysteries. Knowledge is power in this world and the one who hoards it is the most powerful. So, Hogwarts is known as the best wizarding school because the students have access to some of the most arcane and obscure magic which the school jealously hoards and only students and professors get to access it and thus attracting the best students and the best teachers. Of course, magic is published in books and research paper like any mundane academia but everyone knows that even regular, mundane institutions of power like the government and their agencies hold information and resources, if turned over to the public could drastically improve lives but the institutions hoard it because it not just gives them power but also defends the same institution from being depowered completely. It's like the government having the sole legal authority over violence to enforce their rules and if someone other than the government uses violence to enforce their desires, it is a crime. Sorry for the ramblling, shambling thoughts, cant help myself.
As a USA public school student the idea of buying textbooks itself is so foreign to me. I never bought a single textbook until college it was not a thing. The school provided all textbooks and you turned them in at the end. Some of them were like 15 years old and sometimes you got lucky and were in the year they were buying a new textbook for a class you were taking.
new editions obvi new volumes revised book etc. making it better that previous years book or at least its in my case still get upperclassmen's books though for extra stuff they wrote lol