Where are you getting your textbooks this semester?

Julia Rossini is going against the grain this semester: She’s not getting textbooks. She’s not renting them, not buying them; she won’t touch a single one.

That’s because Julia is a fifth-year chemistry graduate student.

“I don’t do textbooks,” she said. “We read papers. You just print them and they’re cheap and free.”

Rossini, who is studying for research on solar cells, said she hasn’t read a textbook since her second year of graduate school at the University.

But when she did get them, she never bought them from any tangible bookstore.

“I got them all online, when I did buy them, from Half.com,” she said.