CSC News
NC State Runs Safari Books Online Trial
During the month of November the NCSU Libraries is conducting a trial of the Safari Tech Books Online service.
At the end of the month the Libraries will evaluate the performance of the product and the satisfaction of the NCSU user community. Information from this trial will be used to determine whether the Libraries will establish a subscription to this service and, if so, the parameters of the subscription.
This month the NCSU community should evaluate this product to meet their needs for online information technology books. Please consider comparing Safari to the NetLibrary service that is already available to the NCSU community. Comments on your Safari experience can be sent to orion_pozo@ncsu.edu.
Safari Tech Books Online is a joint venture of the two IT publishers, O'Reilly & Associates and The Pearson Technology Group. While many of the titles available through Safari are also available through NetLibrary and other online book services, titles from these two publishers are only available through Safari.
This product differs from other online book services in that it is an annual lease -- NC State will not own the content. Institutions lease slots rather than books and can swap titles in and out on a monthly basis, which makes this a very dynamic product. Also the pricing is based, not only on the number of slots, but also on the number of users that can access the database at the same time. Anyone trying to use Safari at NC State above the allowed maximum will be turned away until someone else logs off.
The trial will be for the full set of over 2,000 Safari titles with five simultaneous users. However, any actual NC State Libraries subscription will most likely be for a much smaller group of titles and less simultaneous users. Use patterns during November will help the Libraries to see which titles are needed most and how many people can be expected to use the product at one time.
Comments on the trial should be emailed to Orion Pozo, Collecting Manager for Engineering and Computer Science.
At the end of the month the Libraries will evaluate the performance of the product and the satisfaction of the NCSU user community. Information from this trial will be used to determine whether the Libraries will establish a subscription to this service and, if so, the parameters of the subscription.
This month the NCSU community should evaluate this product to meet their needs for online information technology books. Please consider comparing Safari to the NetLibrary service that is already available to the NCSU community. Comments on your Safari experience can be sent to orion_pozo@ncsu.edu.
Safari Tech Books Online is a joint venture of the two IT publishers, O'Reilly & Associates and The Pearson Technology Group. While many of the titles available through Safari are also available through NetLibrary and other online book services, titles from these two publishers are only available through Safari.
This product differs from other online book services in that it is an annual lease -- NC State will not own the content. Institutions lease slots rather than books and can swap titles in and out on a monthly basis, which makes this a very dynamic product. Also the pricing is based, not only on the number of slots, but also on the number of users that can access the database at the same time. Anyone trying to use Safari at NC State above the allowed maximum will be turned away until someone else logs off.
The trial will be for the full set of over 2,000 Safari titles with five simultaneous users. However, any actual NC State Libraries subscription will most likely be for a much smaller group of titles and less simultaneous users. Use patterns during November will help the Libraries to see which titles are needed most and how many people can be expected to use the product at one time.
Comments on the trial should be emailed to Orion Pozo, Collecting Manager for Engineering and Computer Science.
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