Use of O’Reilly for Libraries up 28%!
The tarsier featured on the cover of Learning the vi Editor is incorporated into the O’Reilly logo. The illustration is from Wikipedia.
I serve on the Los Altos City Library Commission. The following is my personal opinion about a service provided by the Santa Clara County Library District.
Education Rocks
I am the wrong person to engage in a conversation about the value of education. Like many Los Altans, I’m an embarrassing overachiever in the degree department. But sometimes you need more – a BA (’79), an MBA (’89), and a JD (’09) may not be enough to stay employed.
The Silicon Valley economy is cyclical and can be brutal. We are often subject to resource actions that come in sine waves, triggered by economic slowdowns (or accelerants). Change is the only sure constant. Everyone must recalibrate at some point in their career. This is nothing new. Staying skilled up is existential as our economy ebbs and flows.
Enter the Library. The library has always been my gateway to education, the place where I’ve started all of my journeys.
Enter O’Reilly for Libraries
O’Reilly for Libraries will get you on your way. It’s free from the Library, easy to use, and just one of the library’s many services. With 30,000 hours of video and 50,000 books focused on business and technology, the site is continually updated, managed, and curated about everything from Angular to WordPress.
O’Reilly for Libraries is an important FREE resource, available to anyone who wants to take advantage of the service. Resource centers and learning paths allow you to drop in where you need to. There are case studies and playlists available.
It’s free for the price of your library card, which is free. The only expense is you spending the time to read. Did I mention FREE?
Geek Gold Standard
O’Reilly purchased a service known as Safari back in 2014. In 2020, they unleashed a new website and user interface. Having used both iterations for my own purposes, O’Reilly for Libraries is vastly improved. They implemented a crisp SSO that recognizes your library credentials straight through. There’s no need to present your credentials twice.
Accessibility is top-notch, without comparison. The materials and the catalog are always current. O’Reilly pays attention – not once did I hit a dead link. The software performance is snappy, I didn’t give up once on the content because of the O’Reilly for Libraries product.
O’Reilly books are the gold standard for geek docs (technical documentation for the rest of us). You would know an O’Reilly book by its cover. They often feature beautifully drawn tarsiers, lemurs, koalas, meerkats, and other animals and fauna. O’Reilly authors are arguably the best, almost always the top experts in their subject.
Tim O’Reilly, who did not pay me to write this review and has long retired to a life of good works, has always been on the cutting edge and I’ve always been a fan.
All You Need is a Library Card – Get One!
Then, log on to Santa Clara County Library and check out the O’Reilly offerings. Your library is always there as a free resource and it’s not limited to just learning about technology with O’Reilly. Your library provides you with the resources to train up in just about any subject and skill imaginable, and new services get added all the time.
It’s all FREE with a Santa Clara County Library Card.
Los Altos Librarian Jesse Landels kept it reall in the 1920s
Find out how.
Read Marian Abel’s History of the Los Altos Library (1914 to 1964)
About me
No one will argue that reading matters. I love to write. I love to talk. I often do too much of both. Blame my library. My ability to read, write, and comprehend English, my second language? Blame the library.
My city, Los Altos, is exceptional, blessed with two libraries. I owe libraries a debt I will never be able to repay, so I serve. In March, I finished my fifth year on the Library Commission. You can read My Library Story here.