--- title: "Convincing Management to buy books" url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2004/6/13/convincing-management-to-buy-books.md" canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2004/6/13/convincing-management-to-buy-books.html" published: "2004-06-13T13:39:00" updated: "2004-06-13T13:39:00" tags: ["Off Topic"] author: "Roy Osherove" description: "Johanna Rothman gives a very interesting take on how to convince your manager to buy books . If you don't know who she is, she's a world class consultant who's also been doing lectures here in Israel at SELA university…" usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)." license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" --- # Convincing Management to buy books By Roy Osherove June 13, 2004 In [Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic) **Historical article** · Originally published June 13, 2004; technical details may be outdated. Johanna Rothman gives a very interesting take on [how to convince your manager to buy books](http://www.jrothman.com/weblog/archive/2004_06_01_mpdarchive.html#108627627555391018).  If you don't know who she is, she's a world class consultant who's also been doing lectures  here in Israel at SELA university about product development and project management. We've also met her for a Blogger dinner some time ago, it was really interesting. My take on Johanna's words: 1. some books do not go old or stale even after 20 years ([Code Complete](https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1556154844/iserializable-20) (which actually has version 2.0), [PeopleWare](https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0932633439/iserializable-20), [Design Patterns](https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0201633612/iserializable-20)… and many more) 2. Some books go stale after a while but the benefit you get from them reimburses you many times over in that period of time. ([plenty of those](http://weblogs.asp.net/rosherove/articles/6802.aspx)) 3. People feel like you are taking care of them when you make a library and invite them to take books home. 4. Books are often better than online material because: 1. You can take them with you to the bathroom, or bed, or train 2. You can hand them over for someone 3. It is harder for most people to read from the screen of the computer 5. I'm not waiting for management to buy me books. I buy them myself. But management \*should\* buy them, because there's nothing better than a library to get to at the end of the day and pick out something you've been really wanting to read, like [project management](https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1556159005/iserializable-20), [architecture](https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321127420/iserializable-20), [problem solving](https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1883629004/iserializable-20) or [the .net framework annotated reference](https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321154894/iserializable-20). 6. I don't think there is one developer I know that thinks books are not a good investment. That many smart people can't be wrong. BTW : one comment listed under Johanna's post says that the guy would rather buy his own books so that he can take them with him when he moves jobs. Definitely something to think about. One thing you need to remember is that regardless of management - you should worry for your own education. No one else will. It also makes for a great answer to one of my favorite interview questions: “So tell me about the last book you've read to do with technology”. ## More in Off Topic [All posts in Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic) - Jun 17, 2004 ### [\[ot\] Devil Duckie](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/6/17/ot-devil-duckie.html) - Jun 13, 2004 ### [Tech-Ed Swag? In Israel? What's that?](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/6/13/tech-ed-swag-in-israel-whats-that.html) - Jun 12, 2004 ### [\[ot\] Piano is love](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/6/12/ot-piano-is-love.html) - Jun 11, 2004 ### [Moving from a green screen is hard](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/6/11/moving-from-a-green-screen-is-hard.html) --- ## About the author **Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery. ### Sites - [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership. - [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts. - [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin. - [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model. - [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps. - [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes). ### Social - X: https://x.com/royosherove - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/ ### Contact - Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7 ### License Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/