Why search by Publisher ?

I have a long term habit of reading only Cisco Press and O’Reilly books. I have become accustomed to the consistent layout and the authorial tone and I think that this helps me to absorb information faster (1). But it took me a while to work out how to list only Cisco Press books.

Now I can get a list of all the Cisco Press books, even those that are now out of print. I find this most useful when I looking for a book on new technology like CS-MARS or FWSM because they can be hard to search for (since dozens of publishers have books that mention these). By searching for the publisher first, then searching for a topic using the “Search Within Results” button means I can get to the book I want faster.

The Trick

The trick is to put the word ‘publisher’ in front of the search. In the following screen capture you can see that I have entered publisher cisco press

The next step is to enter the topic you want to search for, reset the search type drop down box, and hit the ‘search within results” button. See the following graphic:

And now I have a list of 40 books that mention the FWSM module. Which is a much better result for working out which is the most recent or relevant to what I am looking for.

Moderately Shameless Plug – for a good cause

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(1) Whether true or not, as long as I think so, then that is good enough for me. I had a much more detailed post on how I read and learn Permananent and Ephemeral Knowledge and Exam Study and also On Reading and Learning From a Computer Screen