I am a member of the Association for Computing Machinery. One of the membership benefits is access to SafariBooksOnline.com, books24x7.com and elementK.com
These online book services provide a large selection of current books with relevant topics that fall under Business, Personal Improvement, Engineering, IT and Technical areas. These books, in my opinion, would be useful to just about any Information Technology or Computing professional. One note: the selection is tailored for ACM members. ElementK also provides online lessons for those who want to keep their programming or management skills sharp.
Many times, the information I need to resolve issues is not always found on the internet. In the past, I would run to the public library or to a bookstore and hope to find a book that had the information I needed. Of course, if the book isn’t on the bookshelf, then that doesn’t work so good.
Now, I check out these online sources first before I go to a bookstore. Usually, I will find a book that has the information I need in it. Depending on the retail cost of the book, after using this service just 3 or 4 times, it pays for the cost of the membership.
Sometimes, you need to have a physical book with you. I look over the online books before I buy one. Usually you can tell after the first chapter or two if you’re going to like the book or not.
Till next time, check out the free trial to see what I mean
