How do you keep up-to-date on your technical knowledge? Like many IT folks who work on a large range of technologies, I have a few shelves in my office filled with reference books. I keep this material updated and because I’m often sent review copies of new books and requests to review the latest books from technology publishers, I have a good idea of what technical materials are out there to help me do my job.
When I tell people that I still use real reference books, I often get a response along the lines of “You know, all the information you need is on the web somewhere.I’m surprised you just don’t search it out. Paper books are just so 20th century.” It’s true that a huge percentage of the technical reading I do involves web research. And the folks who are surprised that I use reference books have a point: The web is incredibly useful for finding reference information. It offers speedy searching and the ability to find topics that reference materials might not cover in depth. But technical books have advantages too: The information is right there in front of you; it has a table of contents and an index; and it’s easy to find information about specific computer technologies or software applications.
Tying these two technologies together, reference books and the Internet, I’ve got a subscription to the services offered by http://www.books24x7.com/. This reference site keeps current books, reference reports, analyst information, and other resource information online for access from anywhere with an Internet connection. It offers information collections ranging from inexpensive individual subscriptions to books and reference materials that cover common office user applications to significant technical content focused on IT professionals. It also offers non-computer technology content, with source areas focused on general business practices, finance, and engineering.
You don’t need a subscription to browse the titles and collections, and the simplest way to determine if the site is of value to you or your business is to go take a look. You’ll be able to get a good feel for what the service offers, and if you choose, get a corporate, academic, or individual subscription to the site.
Editor’s note: While you’re at it, you might take a look at the Windows IT Pro website too—we’ve got 15 editors and more than 200 authors who are rock stars in desktop management, Group Policy, Active Directory, virtualization, SharePoint, Exchange, storage, security, scripting, systems administration, and more--writing articles (http://windowsitpro.com/Recent/), blogs (http://windowsitpro.com/Blog/index.cfm?action=blogindex&DepartmentID=990), forums (http://forums.windowsitpro.com/web/forum/default.aspx?forumid=8), and answering tons of FAQs (http://windowsitpro.com/authors/authorid/198/john-savill.html). Not everything requires a subscription fee. And if you don’t see an article on a topic that you think we should write about, you can always contact the editorial department and tell us so (http://windowsitpro.com/AboutUs/Index.cfm?Action=ContactUs).
Books 24x7 APPEARS useful on the surface, but becomes very impractical as you attempt to use it. I have a free subscription here at work. If you skim through a book to see if it is useful or to find certain content, the company will accuse you of stealing the book and threatens to close your account. So skimming is out. The search features are shallow and slow, so it is very difficult to find what you need. Even though I have the free subscription, I don't use it much due to the problems I mentioned and other obstacles.
Additionally, while they have a very large library of books, most of them are lousy books, and the library content is weak. For example, perform a search on their site for books that pertain to SQL Server 2008. There is hardly anything there, and what is there is weak. I wrote to them about this weakness and never heard from them, and they have not added content. I receive a weekly automated e-mail from them, showcasing the new books they've added. While they always have a dozen or more new books, almost all of them are poor quality. I suppose if they got a lot of the really good books, that would cost a lot of money for them. So they have to get books that are not popular, in order to keep costs down. They have to sacrifice quality for quantity.
I also have a subscription to Books 24x7. While it's not great to use everyday I have used it to locate books that are worth buying. I can read multiple chapters and find the depth of knowledge I need on a subject. It's a better way to find a book than reading other buyers reviews.
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