Do you use online library of books to help in your study of certification?

chopsticks

Do you think subscribing to them is useful as an aid to our studies?

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Lexluethar

Depends on the topic - but usually no. Google has most of the answers for you.

Trucido

I mean if you dont want to buy the books and live near a library, that makes sense... if they have up to date versions of the topics you're trying to study of course. Worth a shot.

Lexluethar

At this point in history it is really hard to monetize information and knowledge. Yes there are still hard back books out there and by all means i would definitely pick up a book on the topic you are study for from a reputable author (IE Scott Lowe for VMware, MS Publishing for Microsoft Exams, Mike Meyers for A+, ect) but for a subscription based 'library' - I wouldn't waste your money. Fork over 50 bucks and purchase one book, read and study it then fill in the gaps with labs and google. You could absolutely become an MCSA with nothing but Technet articles and you can definitely pass a VCP with nothing but Google searches for KB articles on topics.

Days of encyclopedia purchasing and monetizing knowledge are in the past. The only time i can think of doing something like books24x7.com is if your employer pays for it (some do) or you plan on taking enough certifications in a given year it would offset / be cheaper than purchasing the hard back books.

mbarrett

chopsticks wrote: »

Do you think subscribing to them is useful as an aid to our studies?

It depends on your studies - if you are mostly doing entry-level certs, it's probably going to be more cost-effective to grab a book or two, and supplement that with all the stuff that's available for free these days online.
If you are talking about more in-depth studies, a lot of materials are available behind a paywall - even if you want to try to pick only the ones you're interested in, it's cheaper to just subscribe to Safari or something...the cost of a subscription will be easily be recouped if you read more than a handful of books. You can also pick something up to read just a couple chapters without paying for the the whole book. In the technology industry subjects are updated often and these become available without having to go out and buy an entire new book.

DatabaseHead

Since I am a graduate from WGU I use their books online and magazine subscription when I can. Not really for certifications but for just keeping up on certain topics.

Iristheangel

My work provides me with a Safari subscription. That's been pretty key when I needed to learn new topics on the fly past the usual Googlefu and without buying new books. If your employer is willing to pay for it, Safaribooks is worth it. It'll save a lot of $$ with not having to buy books and I usually like to copy the books over to my Sony Digital Paper so I can highlight. I find I read a lot faster that.

beads

Depends on the book and the nature of the material. I wish there were an online subscription to say Newton's Telecom Dictionary but I buy a hard copy every odd edition. If nothing else its fun to simply open up a random page a learn something I wasn't entirely looking.

Specific books on very specific titles like routing and switching on Safari? Yeah, those topics can change so rapidly that electronic is probably the way to go. Other certification books I still prefer to read paper copy as I am much faster and simply feel it works better in many cases, new learning, for example where I go back and forth rapidly, works best for me. While electronic works best for specific lookups.

Depends on your style. And to a certain degree the age of your eyes. I see more and more people who now "grew up" with computers and monitor screens having to adapt to glasses earlier than generations before them. Once you start needing reading glasses your probably going to want to switch back to paper more frequently. Just a word to wise.

- b/eads

PocketLumberjack

My employer also pays for a Safari subscription and it is very nice. Some days I do crave a physical book though, but its becoming less and less as I read more ebooks.