Review by Philip Borlin

Safari presents a number of ways to find the information you are looking for in its hideable sidebar. The most prominent method is a free form search field that includes a handy check box for limiting your search to code fragments only and a link for more advanced search queries. I compared a Safari search for "session bean" with the same string typed into a google search limited to the safari.oreilly.com domain and found the Safari search presentation much more useful. Google's first 6 entries pointed to the same book, while each of Safari's search results was from a different book. In Safari a single result line included a book cover, title, mini bibliography, and most relevant sections (as hyperlinks that take you straight into the book). When you click on a link the search terms are highlighted within the text.

Underneath the search bar are category shortcuts and a more comprehensive list of categories. The category section is a good way to tour around the library for books to broaden your horizon. For instance when I clicked on "Computer Science" I saw a book on digital signal processing I would never have even seen at the local Barnes and Nobles. There is an RSS feature that will give you a live feed of the book titles in the category. On Mozilla Firefox a little icon appears in the bottom right hand corner which, when clicked, installs the feed as a special folder in your bookmarks for easy navigation into a book later on. I was kind of disappointed that although there were 18 books in the computer science category, only 10 showed up in the RSS feed. It seems like they are the 10 newest books, but this diminishes the usefulness of the feature.

In order to read the full content of a book it has to be on your bookshelf. Your bookshelf has a number of slots based on how much you pay per month. The basic account comes with 10 slots and books take one or more slots. Once a book is added to your bookshelf it must stay there for at least a month before it can be removed. When you bookshelf fills up you have to remove books in order to make room for the new ones.

This interface for adding a book to your bookshelf is a bit clunky. If you click on a category and then click on a book the main book page shows up. There is a start reading button that seems like it is the most intuitive button to click. If the book is on your bookshelf then all is well and the book opens before you. If it is not then you are presented with a preview screen that gives you an option to add it to your subscription (I thought we called it a bookshelf earlier?). If the preview screen is long you may have to scroll down to find it. When you click on the “Add it” link you are asked if you want to add it (Didn't I just say I wanted to add it?). Upon clicking yes you are presented with one more screen that verifies that you have added it and you have to click OK to continue. Instead of taking you into the book at this point you am sent to the home page. You then have to click on My Bookshelf, select the book, and then click on start reading to actually get into the book. It seems like this whole process could have been easier if the start reading button took you to a page that had a an "add book to bookshelf" option up top and the preview screen on the bottom. The add button could take you straight into the book with a possible confirmation statement at the top of the page.

Once you have a good selection on your bookshelf, reading the books is extremely easy. A table of contents appears on your sidebar when you enter a book allowing for easy navigation. There are the expected next and previous buttons for reading front to back. There is a bookmark feature which causes a bookmark to show up on your “My Safari” page so you can easily jump back into the book after taking a break. Also, there is an Add Note/View Note feature where you can store notes as you read. In addition each chapter has a download link which allows you to download the chapter as a pdf. Each month you get a certain number of download tokens which you can spend by downloading chapters. The basic account comes with 5.

The overall feel of site is a bit more sluggish then I would like. I browsed the site via a speedy cable modem and would experience intermittent periods of lag. Once I clicked on a link and got an error saying there was no data only to click it again and get the expected result. Another time while trying to download a chapter I was given a timeout error. Compound this with the multi step process needed to add a book to your bookshelf and I have to conclude this site could be a little more usable. The searching works great and the books (once you get them open) are very readable. The value of having such a large library at your fingertips is very enticing and the low price makes this a good bargain. All in all I would recommend Safari with a complaint that the browsing speed and bookshelf features could use a little work.

Click here for a free trial of O'Reilly's Safari Bookshelf.