Who should pay for programming books?

Question

Who should pay for books, you or the company you worked for? It seem I always have problem getting budget approval for an interesting programming book. So I usually buy book with my own money. But I've bought 100$ books that I justed browsed through and never open again. So when it come to buy a new book, I'm never certain I'll get 100% the benefit of what I pay for. Furthermore, when a company buy me a book they can put it as charge so it lowers their taxes. But then I'm expected to pass it along to fellow programmers.

On the other hand, if I need to improve my programming skills and stay competitive I should invest in my own "training".

(I guess a related question would be; why a company is so reticent to buy books for their programmer. Maybe they do not see the benefits of it?)

(EDIT) Since I am a resident of Québec, http://my.safaribooksonline.com/ is online for me. Great to know!

Answer 1

It depends. At the old place, they were bought for me. Where I work now, I will buy my own.

The difference is that I lost all that information when I walked out the door there.

Answer 2

Maybe they're concerned you'll waste their money on $100.00 books that aren't useful?

Answer 3

I buy all my own on Amazon used books. Recently got a $40 Exchange Web Services book for $2 (+ $6 shipping). That way when I leave the books go with me.

Answer 4

My old workplace had a budget for buying books, but except in a few cases of books about very specific technologies, I never took advantage of the offer.

I like my programming books. I want to keep them.

Answer 5

If you want to keep the book, you. If your employer has a policy in-place that says they will buy $x amount of books, then let them... but you don't get to keep them when you leave. Personally, I buy all my own stuff.

Answer 6

I tend to make my job pay for technical books on specific technologies, lets say WCF. Because they change fast and often and they will be outdated fast enough.

I buy with my money the concept/practice books, like Domain-driven design or Refactoring or GOF design patterns, as they are books I often come back and understand more of it as I become a better developer.

Answer 7

I have always bought my own books, if (as sometimes happens) I don't find them useful then I just sell them on (you can normally get at least 80% of the cost back)

As a programmer it is you're responsibility to make sure you are at the top of your game. There is one exception to this: If your company expects you to learn a new technology/language then I would argue that they should front the cost to any literature.

Answer 8

The company I work for, pays for all the (technical) books I read, and they get passed around to other programmers in the organization. For me, it is generally easy to get approval to buy a new book.

As I see it, companies should certainly invest in books for their programmers. It is an asset for the company that you are willing to learn and improve in your spare time; which is much more valuable than the price of a few books.

However, if I worked at a company that did not pay for books, I am sure I would by the ones I find interesting myself. It would be an investment in my own skills, and I find it generally interesting and rewarding to learn new stuff.

Answer 9

My rule is that I'm willing to buy a book if I'm interested in it long term and/or if I expect the knowledge to be useful to me long term. I ask my employer to buy it if it will only be useful for one job or if it's a subject that I'm less into but that my employer needs me to know about.

Answer 10

I buy my own because I want to keep them. If you don't want to lay out $100 for a book you aren't going to read, why are you surprised that your company doesn't want to either?

Answer 11

A previous employer of mine had a policy that worked pretty well. When a programmer wanted to obtain a new book, he or she had two options:

(1) The company pays 100%. In this case, the company owns the book.

(2) The company pays 50%. In this case, the developer owns the book (and can take it with him or her when they leave).

Naturally, all purchases were still subject to manager approval, but the managers were pretty liberal about approving requests.

Answer 12

If there is a subject that I am personally interested in, I will buy myself a book.

If there is a subject which I feel is beneficial to my current work as it pertains to my employer, I will convince my boss to purchase the book(s) to add to our library. If it is something that I feel is both beneficial to my work at my employer as well as to my own personal development, I will probably pick myself up a copy for my own personal library at home.

Answer 13

Internet Bookshelf - Safari Books Online

http://my.safaribooksonline.com/ is all you'll ever need, pretty much, if you are not convinced that a publisher other than O'Reilly is 'the best'. Oh, but it does appear that at least some Microsoft Press books are included in the library. I just ran across "Programming Microsoft Visual C# 2008: The Language" (http://my.safaribooksonline.com/9780735625402).

A cheap monthly membership is less than $25/mo. It should be easy to get an employer to justify spending that much money on you, and you are certainly worth it to pay for it yourself, right (if you must). I love it. It works great when you have more than one monitor.

---

Search Engines

What I really love is that Safari has opened up their books to be indexed by search engines, though you can't read them unless you subscribe. So, I am starting to see more hits that come directly from the pages of Safari's book titles, thereby letting me go directly to the book in question. Then I can favorite the book and/or bookmark the page in the book for future reference.

---

Public Libraries

Many large public libraries in the US offer the same. If you live in a metro area, check your library's web site.

[Insert examples here, please]

Answer 14

I consider my programming books to be tools. I purchase them myself and own them, and I believe that makes me a little more valuable to potential employers.

Answer 15

When you say "interesting programming book", it sounds like a personal interest. This might not be something that the company should pay for, especially if another programmer in the company wouldn't share that interest.

Books that companies should pay for are reference books, like best practices books. In this case, the company will not only benefit from you using the book, but other employees as well. In this case, the company can be seen as buying the book to train many programmers or supplying a tool for a team. There's no need to pay for your own training/references if the company will gladly do so.

To answer your question, companies probably don't see the value of the book... especially if you're just going to read a section and never look at it again. If you sell the book to your manager like a thesaurus of programming instead of a reader's digest, they'd probably buy that book for you.

Answer 16

buying programming books is for me a way to say thank-you to the people who have contributed to an interesting piece of software. very rarely do you find a book that will tell you more about a subject in computing than you can find online. purchasing one of the fsf manuals for example is an acknowledgment of what they have done. i don't expect to learn much from the book.

Answer 17

You should pay for them if you want to keep them.

They should pay for them if you need them to do your job, but you won't care about holding onto them after you leave that job.

If they offer to pay for them and they let you keep them anyway (as at one place I worked), you should say thank you.

Answer 18

I had a similar question about if a client should be billed for learning a technology.

My friend told me if it's a general technology you need for your career, you dont' charge. If it's specific to the task at hand, and you will probably never use it again, you charge.

I think the same thing applies for the books. Advancing your career, you pay for the book. Only doing it for the current task, company pays.

Answer 19

One issue with company purchases is that they may think you are already getting the job done without the expense. And, if you're not sure a book is worth it, it is hard to convince a boss that it is. One way to push for something like this is to suggest a company library. Perhaps that way they are less likely to consider the books purchased as your property instead of company property.

Another option on the personal level is to get yourself an ACM.org membership with access to their digital library. That would provide you with access to online books from two services (O'Reilly Safari and Books24x7) as well as online training courses through Skillsoft. Many years ago, I used to purchase $100s of dollars of books each month. Now, I have both the ACM membership and a separate 10-slot Safari account. With these, I rarely purchase a paper book any more. If you consider doing this, it may also be worth checking into whether professional association fees are tax deductible.

Answer 20

Membership of ACM or IEEE Computer Society plus an additional fee for access to their Digital Libraries gives you access to lots of books for, in comparison to $100 a pop purchase costs, a reasonable annual fee. If memory serves, both include access to Safari, though whether or not that's everything in Safari I don't know.

If, like me, you work for an organisation which pays your fees for professional society membership, you pay nothing.

More than once I've looked at a book in the digital library only to find that it is a real dud, despite all sorts of rave reviews, and been heartily glad to have saved my pennies. Once or twice, I've so liked a book online I've gone out and bought it.

Regards