BookList

MHVLUG Books

The following books have been donated to MHVLUG by Prentice Hall and O'Reilly. In the past we gave these out as door prizes, and asked people to write reviews. However no one ever did. :( Hence, we have a new book policy: Write a Review... Get a Book... in that order.

Book Review Policy

The policy is simple: once you write a book review and post it to the MHVLUG website, you get to choose any of the books listed in the Up For Grabs section. If you write a review of it, you get another book, and so on and so forth.

Wait, how do I bootstrap into this?

The clever reader will realize that you don't get any of the books below until after a review is written, so how do you get started in this? Easy, write a review of ANY O'Reilly or Prentice Hall book, and publish it on our site. A lot of books have already been given out, so people with those can use them to bootstrap. Many of the rest of us have a shelf full of tech books, many by either of these publishers. For anyone else, Mid-Hudson Valley Library System has a very extensive selection as well.

Does the review have to be positive?

No. But the review must be original and honest. Anyone found gaming the system will be permanently banned.

Where can I pick up my book?

At the next MHVLUG meeting. You do have to be local to participate.

Why the change?

2 Reasons:

  1. The publishers have given us books in the hopes of getting reviews. We've been really bad about this and should reward the publishers by reading the books and actually sharing our opinions (good or bad).
  2. The random nature of the book door prize was pretty much ensuring that books weren't going to the people that wanted/needed them most. The new merit-based approach will mean that for a small amount of effort, and contribution of content to the MHVLUG site, a member can get the book they wanted.

Up For Grabs

This is the current list of books that are available.

Reviews

Given Out

BookList (last edited 2005-05-17 22:30:51 by AdamRubin)