Would You Use an Online Library?

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?

[Firehawke]

Well, it's nice to have physical books, but sometimes space is a concern. In comparison, a virtual library is MUCH smaller to store. Also compare the costs of all of those books to the price for the subscription and it comes out cheaper in the long run. Still, preference would go a long way towards if you'd even consider it in the first place.

no way...

[chrisopherpace]

at $400/seat/year, Google does just fine for me. Wikipedia as well. Google information is *MAYBE* a week old, whereas your friend's information is probably at least 100x that. That's what's so greate about the internet, information always gets updated.

Re:Virtual Library?

[pphrdza]

compare the costs of all of those books to the price for the subscription and it comes out cheaper in the long run

Assuming you would buy all the books.

buy a few books, google / mls for the rest

[DamienMcKenna]

My recommendation is to buy some _good_ books for the core technologies you use and use a combination of web sites (via google), mailing lists and IRC for the rest. Books are your best source for how to do things right, mailing lists and IRC are your best source for what to do when it doesn't work right.

Just my $0.02 from doing this for a few years.

Damien

Great resource

[duffbeer703]

I subscribe to O'Reilly's Safari, and find it a really helpful resource.

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.

Re:no way...

[jmpoast]

That's what's so greate about the internet, information always gets updated

But whats bad about the internet is the information isn't always validated or correct.

Re:Virtual Library?

[Firehawke]

Well, thinking from my own position as a sysadmin with a situation where I end up doing a little of everything on occasion, including debugging systems I didn't develop.. well, having access to books even outside my normal ken would be handy. Why spend $30 on a book I'll use three times? If I end up doing the research through the library enough, I'm more than breaking even.

Re:safari for regularly updated reference material

[BinLadenMyHero]

> I use safari to get fourth edition, and I don't need the paper one anymore.

And do you really need every new edition?