How to get O’Reilly Online Learning for free
If you live in California, apply for the San Jose Public Library’s card. It’s free for anyone living in California, and you don’t have to show up in person to get the eLibrary access. Only takes a few seconds.
Once you get your card number and PIN you can search their catalog. In my case, I was looking for this FTTx Networks book. On the right side, you’ll see a link under “Online resource”. Clicking that will take you to a login page where you enter your library card number and PIN. You’ll then have access to the book for free! You don’t have to worry about the book being checked out either. The login gets you to their whole library, which includes books from multiple publishers, audio books, tutorials, and videos of their conference events.
If you don’t live in California, you’ll have to dig around to see if libraries around you offer an O’Reilly subscription with your library card.
California libraries you can get online library cards from
Here is a small list of CA libraries that let you apply for a digital library card without having live in the city or show up in-person to the local branch:
- Alameda County Library - temporary eCards that get deleted after 30 days for non-residents, but anybody in California can convert their eCard to a get a full Library Card and have it delivered to them by mail (limited time only).
- Altadena Library
- Azusa Public Library - virtual card only good for 6 months.
- Burbank Public Library
- Inglewood Public Library
- Los Angeles County Library - if you live in Los Angeles County
- Pasadena Public Library - offers temporary cards that expire after 30 days are are not renewable.
- San Jose Public Library
- Crowell Public Library in San Marino - offers an eCard, but seems to be a manual process and not instant. Should get a response from them within 2 business days.
- Sonoma County Library - their eCards expire after 120 days
Why collect cards from various libraries? So you don’t have to wait for titles to become available in the Libby, Overdrive, Hoopla apps as you’ll have many more sources to choose from.
You don’t have to be a resident of the city, just a resident of California most of the time.
Other great perks from CA libraries (that aren’t all virtual)
- State park passes
- Laptop loans
- Hot spot borrowing
- Poster printing, cnc mills, laser cutters, vinyl cutters, sewing machines, others in the maker spaces
- Passport Services
- Seed library
- Learn a new language
How I got around to finding this stuff
Been thinking about starting a fiber ISP in my neighborhood. Saw someone mention the FTTx Networks book somewhere on the interent (or ChatGPT), so I thought I’d check it out and see if it could fill some gaps in my knowledge.
I wasn’t ready to buy as I couldn’t tell if it covered what I needed so I started looking to see if the library had it. I used WorldCat to search the libraries in my area, but no luck.
After a bit of scrolling on Google, I see that O’Reilly had it. The same O’Reilly that has those tech books with the animals on the cover. For a few years now, they’ve had an online subscription based service that has their books and a bunch from other publishers accessible online. They sell the subscription to individuals for about $50/month. Not something I wanted to pay for. They also sell subscriptions businesses, schools, and also libraries.
Knowing that libraries have subscription to LinkedIn Learing (formerly Lynda), there might be one with an O’Reilly subscription. I started looking for libraries that offered instant access eCards and luckily San Jose was one of the first one I tried that had the fka Safari Books Online subscription.