Sebastopol, CA - March 27, 2008
Safari Books Online® (www.safaribooksonline.com), the provider of digital libraries that increase the productivity of IT professionals, today announced an agreement with Packt Publishing to make Packt's books and other technical publications available online to corporate and individual library subscribers. As Packt Publishing's first online channel distribution partner, Safari Books Online is enabling its subscribers to benefit from access to one of the most comprehensive lists of copyrighted works on Open Source technologies.

Safari Books Online will upload 20 Packt eBooks initially and plans to eventually include all Packt titles within its digital libraries. Subscribers will be able to search and read Packt books, download chapters, and view the full-text of other types of content within Safari Books Online exclusive content collection comprised of thousands of videos, books, pre-published manuscripts, certification guides, and more.

"We're excited to have Packt join our family of publishing partners, which include the most trusted and prestigious group of content creators in the IT community," said Mark Brokering, Director of Content Management and Acquisition for Safari Books Online. "Demand for quality information on Open Source technologies continues to grow, as these technologies play increasingly important roles in the IT ecosystem--and in particular within the enterprise. Packt provides vetted information on niche topics that isn't available from other publishers. This partnership will provide our growing base of subscribers with much-needed expert knowledge on topics that are critical for their work."

"Our partnership with Safari helps meet the evolving needs of today's advanced technical employees who want instant access to information, wherever they may be," said Damian Carvill, marketing manager for Packt. "As a publisher of eBooks for the IT community, we understand how people learn and how they leverage technology to support professional development programs. Working with Safari allows us to achieve a wider distribution of our eBooks to open source professionals. We�re very pleased to make our content available to the hundreds of thousands of subscribers who rely on Safari's network of publications when they need answers to their technology questions."

About Packt

Packt is a modern, unique publishing company with a focus on producing cutting-edge books for communities of developers, administrators, and newbies alike. Packt's books and publications share the experiences of fellow IT professionals in adapting and customizing today's systems, applications, and frameworks. Their solutions-based books give readers the knowledge and power to customize the software and technologies they're using to get the job done. Packt believes in Open Source. When they sell a book written on an Open Source project, they pay a royalty directly to that project. As a result of purchasing one of their open source books, Packt will have given some of the money received to that open source project. For more information, please visit www.PacktPub.com.

About Safari Books Online

Safari Books Online (www.safaribooksonline.com) is an on-demand digital library that delivers expert content in both book and video form from the world’s leading authors in technology and business. Technology professionals, software developers, web designers, and business and creative professionals use Safari Books Online as their primary resource for research, problem solving, learning and certification training.

Safari Books Online offers a range of product mixes and pricing programs for organizations, government agencies and individuals. Subscribers have access to thousands of books, training videos and prepublication manuscripts in one fully searchable database from publishers like Cisco Press, Prentice Hall Professional, O'Reilly Media, Addison-Wesley Professional, Microsoft Press, Sams, Que, Peachpit Press, John Wiley & Sons, Elsevier, IBM Press, Adobe Press, FT Press, Apress, Manning, New Riders, Apple Certified, Course Technology, Splash Media and dozens more. For more information about Safari Books Online, please visit us online.