Would You Use an Online Library? 49
langeland asks: "I have a friend who is selling subscriptions to an online library of computer literature (for example Books 24x7 or O'Reilly's Safari). He's trying hard to convince me that a library of 3000 books on anything from introductions to various programming languages and reference books to Windows 2003 Server, or MySQL is actually useful. I don't get it - nobody would read a whole book online anyway, so they can only be useful for trouble shooting ad hoc problems (or am I wrong here?). I'm thinking Google is a lot faster for solving problems at the busy job, and you'll probably find good plain web references on most technologies and stick with them. The price for a subscription to Books 24x7 is 400$ a year/seat! Do You have experience with these online libraries? Are they useful and worth the money?"
Virtual Library? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Virtual Library? (Score:3, Insightful)
Assuming you would buy all the books.
Re:Virtual Library? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Virtual Library? (Score:1)
no way... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:no way... (Score:2, Insightful)
But whats bad about the internet is the information isn't always validated or correct.
Re:no way... (Score:2)
buy a few books, google / mls for the rest (Score:5, Insightful)
Just my $0.02 from doing this for a few years.
Damien
Re:buy a few books, google / mls for the rest (Score:1)
But the only book I ever bought related to computers were Tannembaun's "Modern Operating System", at my second or third year at university.
Most things I learned, it was from other people. Others I made up myself.
I tried it... (Score:3, Informative)
Searchable Library (Score:4, Interesting)
I have read 2 ebooks (Score:4, Interesting)
For reference material- the stuff I use the most I print out and put into binders (Like all my PostgreSQL manuals) I have "Unix in a Nutshell" on CD and in print. I use the print version almost exclusively. Even without a searching tool I can find stuff faster.
Last but not least- I don't care what the value of all the thousands of books is compared to the cost of the subscription. What is the difference between what the subscription costs and the cost of the books I would have bought or needed? Factor in the lack of usability and that price difference needs to be huge. It still isn't for any such services I've looked at.
safari for regularly updated reference materials (Score:5, Interesting)
I used to buy the animal books on several topics, mostly perl programming
Then I got the safari subscription
imagine this:
oreilly comes up with fourth edition of dns and bind
I have paper third edition of dns and bind
I use safari to get fourth edition, and I don't need the paper one anymore.
Since a lot of the animal books I use are very sucessful, and get updated every so often, just because I can replace one edition with the next at no charge, I save a bundle of money, provided I don't need hardcopy of the work in question, the web interface to it might actually save me time(mostly searching, although with practice, the internal binary-page search is pretty damn hard to beat, it's the "read entire TOC" that takes a while.)
Of course, I've been known to read entire online volumes on topics I was less familiar with(I can't say I'd do it with something like the perl cookbook) but so far, Safari is working out for me.
Re:safari for regularly updated reference material (Score:2, Insightful)
And do you really need every new edition?
Re:safari for regularly updated reference material (Score:2)
It's however a case of "do more with the same money" instead of "do the same with less money" if that's what you mean.
Great resource (Score:4, Insightful)
Being able to search through a bunch of books and see problems from multiple angles is a really cool thing.
Yes, it's all on Google... but I think that the quality of information in published books is often better and is very convenient to find.
It's actually not bad (Score:2, Informative)
At the time, I was trying to "expand" my skillset, so I got to have access to several virtual books on one subject - for the same price as one physical copy. I also kept a few reference books in my virtual library - again, cheaper than having a hard copy sitting in the shelf.
In the end, it was only useful for me while I was learning new things - I didn't see it as a long-term solution.
Books *TEXT* (Score:2)
How do I get a hold of em? Wel
Books24x7 (Score:2)
Oh, and a lot of the books that Books24x7 gets really suck.
use Public Libraries first. (Score:1, Interesting)
The county I am living is affiliated with http://www.netlibrary.com/ [netlibrary.com]. So being a member of my local library (free), i get access to lotsa computer books via netlibrary. Some books may not be accessible, because local library did not purchase it(or something).
If I cannot find the book online, google and other search engines provide answers to me. Though, not as comprehensive as (e)books, it would serve most of my purpose.
Next stop would be local user group. Become a member of local user group, they have
Re:use Public Libraries first. (Score:2)
Yeah, NetLibrary. I just discovered this recently. It works really, really well for me. My local library doesn't have the contract with them; but in this metro area, there's a reciprocity agreement with library memberships. A library card for my town makes me able to get one for the next town over, which does have access to NetLibrary. So I got a card from them too -- registered online, card snailmailed to me -- and now I can do NetLibrary from home.
If you haven't looked into whether your library, o
They are still missing the point (Score:2)
When we go to the library, or even the book store, they let use browse all the boo
Re:They are still missing the point (Score:2)
"Too high" is my opinion, and since these services continue to exist, the market must think otherwise.
I use O'Reilly Safari (Score:4, Informative)
Of course, it's always a matter of balancing the price they ask with the value you get...
Re:I use O'Reilly Safari (Score:1)
Yeah, there is a silent pressure for you to read the books otherwise you're losing money.
At first it feels great - whooah! - look how many technologies I am going to learn!
I found a much better way to read e-books for free.
It's called P2P
I must be aging, fancy not downloading pr0n but Tcl/Tk manuals instead! (someone shoot me please?)
Very useful (Score:3, Interesting)
I thought the same thing you did, but while I was using it I had a revelation: I read alot of crap online already. Being a programmer/analyst/support rep, having a computer library on my computer was far more logical than having the 5 shelves of books behind me. They had some problems... They lacked Photoshop books (in recent versions anyway), and others of their books were a little out of date (though my bookshelves behind me are far more out of date). But even with those deficiencies, I found the service very useful. The search capabilities were excellent. In a technical crisis, I used it to solve a problem and it proved far faster with a lower "signal to noise ratio" than Google or other internet searches. I wouldn't have dreamed of going through the 30 books behind me in a crisis.
During the pilot I read two books nearly cover to cover (I skipped a couple of chapters with the click of a mouse). But I was also able to gather snippits of very good information out of about 40 of the books they had related to my job. The efficiency improvement would be worth $400 a year.
obscure and overwhelming is valuable (Score:2)
General interest stuff like your friend seems to be pedaling should be and is free.
Safari (Score:2)
For instance, last month I got a couple of the BSD books so I could get started learning FreeBSD. I skimmed through the chapters until I had enough to get me going. After that I switched over to using Google though to do some of the real troubleshooting after things didn't work out exactly right.
That said, Safari has a large selection, but some of the books are a little dated. Sometimes you don't realize that when you're just
$15.00 a month (Score:2)
I get 5 sci-books a month - and get to download them in normall HTML.
webscriptions.net [webscription.net]- from the publisher Baen. There's some free books there too to get you hooked.
Baen's books are generally light reading - usually fun and interesting.
Takes up Valuable Screen Space (Score:2)
If screen space were cheap, and I could have a couple of tablets/screens that I could use all at once, I would use online resources exclusively, as they are usually faster to use.
However, I currently only have on monitor, and a lot of desk space. So I'm going to buy books instead to take of this space.
Re:Takes up Valuable Screen Space (Score:2)
I can have 1 screen with my code on it, and another with the app I'm developing on it running so I can see what each code change does without having to switch windows.
Or I can have a help document open on one screen, and my code on the other. Or my SQL Enterprise manager open on one screen, code on the other. I can have my development envir
wrong audience (Score:2)
Safari Works for me... (Score:1)
I subscribe... (Score:2)
Safari (Score:2)
I am a paying Safari subscriber (minimal yearly plan) and have found it useful and worth the price. In some of the cases the book search feature worked well for me - couple of projects at work that required specific implementations of something I have never done before. A quick Safari search retrieved the results, I subscribed to the book and had the necessary code in front of me. Granted, the same could probably be done with Google, only would take more time to find, and at that time I was charging per hou
electronic book (Score:2)
Paper will always beat reading of a screen.
It also cuts back on paper consumption.
Books 24x7.com (Score:2)
Re:Books 24x7.com (Score:2)
I have a Books24x7.com subscription through work. While the selection of content is ok, the books themselves can leave a lot to be desired. For starters, they only have deals with certain publishers (not surprisingly, O'Reilly is not on the list). Often the books are out of date, or just not that good in the first place.
A bigger problem is the web interface -- for most books you only get to read a couple of paragraphs before you have to advance the page. I want to be able to read an entire chapter at
Institution (Score:2)
My workplace subscribes to SciSearch [isinet.com] and I find it indispensible.
Being able to do keyword searches through titles and abstracts of articles from decades past has really been a boon to researchers.
It's unfortunate that the information is not freely available.
It would also be great if the full texts of old works were put online so searches in the bodies of these old papers were possible.
I won't read extensively on the screen; I'd need a handheld, lightweight, portable, bright, better than 300 dpi, at lea
Safari is outrageously useful. (Score:2)
Chris DiBona
I couldn't live without safari (Score:2)
There's a few titles I keep in my shelf at all times -- Programming Perl, Java in a Nutshell. Those I will upgrade when new editions come out. I rotate others as necessary (i.e.: one month I find myself using LDAP at work a lot. A few months later, it's Objective C). It works out great for me since
NetLibrary (Score:1)
Value (Score:1)
I do research and buy databases of content for a living. I use "online libraries" every day more times than I can count. For many of the databases I use, I have monthly charges in the thousands. A database that is only $400/year is cheap and I woudn't think twice in most circumstnaces about buying it. I have something I buy in print that costs that much - just so I can answer one question that is asked once or twice a year.
Try going to something like MarketResearch.com [marketresearch.com]. Most of the reports in there are at
We have paid for Safari (Score:2)
As I find it hard to get good information from a google search without a lot of work, I do prefer books.
The problem is that you can't own all the books and can't just drive to a computer book store at any moment.
Being able to search and have it go through all the books a service has instead of all the useless newgroups is well worth the money.
Knowing that for $270 per seat having access to search all those books is great. Our initial test of 5 engineers for the last year worked out well.