A guide to buying school books without mistakes

2026-05-28

In any proper supplies list or bibliography, each book will be detailed with the title, perhaps the author, the publisher, and a 13-digit code. That code is the ISBN-13 (International Standard Book Number), and it is the one shown in the barcode.

The ISBN is a standardized code that identifies the exact edition and language of each book. lolalist uses that code to find exactly each book listed, and that precision is the basis of the comparison: a direct comparison is valid only if we are comparing the same thing. It would make no sense to compare the same title in different editions, hardcover or paperback, and so on. lolalist's purpose is for you to find the right book at the best price. If the best price is the one offered by the school, buy it without hesitation: lolalist will have helped you confirm it. That said, remember that nothing forces you to buy all the books in the same place.

Although we can search for books by title in the lolalist search engine, if we want to make sure we have the exact edition requested, the ISBN is essential. That is why we recommend uploading the PDF or copying and pasting the text from the list exactly as it appears, with all the codes.

If there is an error in the ISBN, lolalist will not be able to find it and will say so, to avoid leading you into mistakes. If you search by title, all matches with that title will be shown across all available editions.

For reading books (as opposed to textbooks), the edition does not affect the text of the work, so any edition of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez will be valid, regardless of its ISBN. The same is not true of adaptations of works, as can happen with Don Quixote, which may have versions adapted for children that differ from one another, so the ISBN becomes relevant again here.

It is important to read carefully the list passed on by the school. It may include relevant notes telling us what we should and should not buy.

On the other hand, lolalist can be used to search for any book on any topic, as well as bibliographies from any field, not only school lists. Upload your title or your list and find the best price in seconds.

If you want to know more about how lolalist finds exactly each book on the list, I suggest reading: How Lolalist identifies each book