SEBASTOPOL, Calif. – June 25, 2012 – Safari® Books Online (www.safaribooksonline.com), the on-demand digital learning library for technology, digital media and business professionals, today announced it has signed a contract with the Australian Government Department of Industry, Innovation Science, Research and Tertiary Education’s eBusiness Division to handle online learning programs for the division’s almost 400 employees. The contract with the Australian government agency is designed flexibly to ensure employees have access to learning content from Safari Books Online for 3 years.

“We’ve found Safari Books Online to have much more current, comprehensive and higher quality content than its competitors—there’s really no comparison,” said Deb Namara, HR Coordinator for eBusiness Division, Department of Industry, Innovation Science, Research and Tertiary Education. “Our IT group is delighted with the material that’s now available to them through our subscription to Safari Books Online and they are really happy that the website is so intuitive and easy to use. When we went out to bid, we also found that Safari Books Online’s flexible business model met our dynamic environment better than any other vendor.”

The Department of Industry, Innovation Science, Research and Tertiary Education had a different online learning product for a few years but its capability was limited and it was not being utilized very much by staff. Employees complained that the site was not user-friendly, the content was not up-to-date and reporting was difficult. Before choosing Safari Books Online, a pilot program was designed so the department could test drive the learning library before committing to purchasing the seats. They quickly learned that the range of content was vast and relevant, and that Safari Books Online is very intuitive and easy to use.

The Australian Government’s Minister for Industry and Innovation, the Honorable Greg Combet, mentioned that, “Future prosperity for Australian industry and the working families who depend on it relies on our ability to boost innovation, better our skills base, further research and development, and, importantly, improve productivity.” One of his own Departments, the Department of Industry, Innovation Science, Research and Tertiary Education, is a beacon of leadership for government agencies, academia and industry alike.   Leading by example, the department is using the most comprehensive and current knowledgebase of technology resources from Safari Books Online to support hundreds of technology team members and help them keep their technical skills up to date, innovate, and improve job productivity.

“Hundreds of team members are getting smarter, faster with access to our growing collection of more than 20,000 books, 1,600 videos, and to the world class expert authors behind them,” explains Mike Reid, who  led the Safari Books Online effort to respond to the Australian government’s needs. “With Safari Books Online, employees are now handling difficult technical challenges ‘right the first time’ and ‘at the moment they encounter them’ instead of stopping work, waiting to get an authoritative answer, or attending a lengthy training class” said Reid.

Safari Books Online has quickly become a central part of the Australian department’s culture and is reducing the time required to achieve various learning goals. The goals accomplished by using the Safari Books Online learning resources tie back to and support the goals of the individual, the department and the entire government entity with its national mission.

About Safari Books Online
Safari Books Online (www.safaribooksonline.com and www.safaribooksonline.de) is an on-demand digital library that delivers a wide range of vetted learning resources in both book and video form from the world’s leading authors in technology, digital media 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 O’Reilly Media, Prentice Hall Professional, Addison-Wesley Professional, Microsoft Press, Sams, Que, Peachpit Press, Focal Press, Cisco Press, John Wiley & Sons, Syngress, Morgan Kaufmann, IBM Redbooks, Packt, Adobe Press, FT Press, Apress, Manning, New Riders, McGraw-Hill, Jones & Bartlett, Course Technology and dozens more. For more information about Safari Books Online, please visit us at www.safaribooksonline.com and www.safaribooksonline.de.

Media Contacts
Rich Mullikin
Rocket Science
rich@rocketscience.com
415-464-8110 x216

Rose St. Clair
Safari Books Online
rstclair@safaribooksonline.com
707-827-4100

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