[Ruby] Ruby books available online through the Seattle Public Library/Safari

[Tom Lianza]

On 10/11/06, James Moore <banshee at banshee.com> wrote:
>
> Someone just posted to the Seattle Perl mailing list about the public
> library access to Safari, O'Reilly online book access system.
>
> If you live in Seattle, apparently you get Safari for free, or at least
> your
> tax dollars at work.  Check it out, so to speak...
>
> http://www.spl.org/default.asp?pageID=collection_digibooks


I've used this and it's pretty cool, but if you're like me you might wonder
how they chose their titles - there is only a subset of the full set of
O'Reilly books available via the library's copy of Safari.  I e-mailed them
back in February because they didn't have a copy of "JavaScript: The
Definitive Guide" which I refer to often.  The response was:

"The Library's Safari Tech Books Online collection includes titles published
by O'Reilly for the three most current years (2004-2006). Titles are added
on a monthly basis as they are published. The collection grows throughout
the calendar year and then in January the oldest year's titles drop off and
we begin to receive titles published in the new year.
"JavaScript: The Definitive Guide 4th Edition" by David Flanagan was
published in 2001 and therefore isn't available in the Library's Safari
collection. The 5th Edition of this book is scheduled to be published in
June of this year. We typically get access to the title the same month in
which it is published."

So, that's just an FYI.  It should be a good resource for newer books, but
older titles, or titles that aren't updated often, will likely not be
available.  In August they did add the new version of the Javascript book,
which is sweet.