Article:		Are "how to" books archaic?
Subject:		what's next for howto books?
Date:		2003-11-10 01:54:02
From:		ramonf
We're talking about knowledge absorption here, and how relevant information is selected and organised for this purpose. So that information has a shorter shelf-life nowadays? True. That the rate of arrival of new information has increased dramatically? Also true. But this doesn't make "howto" books obsolete. I would have rather thought that it endangers NON-howto books actually. For the exabytes of information being released nowadays, the need to distil knowledge into howto style is, if anything, more urgent. More tools and more complementary styles are needed for this purpose. At the risk of flattering, I think O'Reilly are doing sterling work in this direction.

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• what's next for howto books?
  2003-11-10 14:19:48  Tim O'Reilly | [Reply | View]
  
  
  Thanks. Books like the Hacks series and the Cookbook series both try to use more of a web-style "useful bits" model rather than "single connected narrative." We think that's a good start towards giving people just what they want when they want it. Similarly, we've tried to do things with In a Nutshell and Pocket Guides/Pocket References to boil down essential reference info into the shortest possible compass for sophisticated users. Lots of experimentation to find the right style and approach.