Essential SharePoint Books: A Bookshelf That Won’t “Gather Moss”

Ok, I admit that the joke attempt wasn’t even remotely funny ;-)

Being in SharePoint business for several years now has exposed me to lot of SharePoint-related books that exist. I remember back in the SPS 2003 times when those books were easily numbered with the fingers on one hand. Now, however, there are more than two dozen of them and the choice of which one to buy isn’t always an easy one.

I’ve divided the SharePoint books in three categories:

• Introductory (those for absolute beginners or people that hasn’t messed with SharePoint)
• Intermediate (for those that want to venture beyond the basic steps)
• Advanced (for the people that breathe SharePoint every day)

In this post I am listing three good books for beginners. In the next posts I will do the same for intermediate and advanced-level SharePoint books, too.

Introductory Level Books

<table border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" width="886"><tbody><tr><td valign="top" width="274">Title</td><td valign="top" width="112">Author</td><td valign="top" width="74">Publisher</td><td valign="top" width="241">Description</td><td valign="top" width="119">Audience</td><td valign="top" width="64">My Rating</td></tr><tr><td valign="top" width="274"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596529589/rescogi-20">SharePoint 2007: The Definitive Guide</a></td><td valign="top" width="112">Various authors</td><td valign="top" width="74">O’Reilly</td><td valign="top" width="241">Comprehensive and easily readable, it is an introduction and review of SharePoint usage and administration.</td><td valign="top" width="119">Administrators<br>End-users</td><td valign="top" width="64">7/10</td></tr><tr><td valign="top" width="274"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0596514077/rescogi-20">Essential SharePoint 2007</a></td><td valign="top" width="112">Jeff Webb</td><td valign="top" width="74">O’Reilly</td><td valign="top" width="241">Nicely illustrated and fairly well written. Not so extensive as “The Definitive Guide” but good enough.</td><td valign="top" width="119">Administrators<br>End-users<br>Developers</td><td valign="top" width="64">8/10</td></tr><tr><td valign="top" width="274"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321421744/rescogi-20">Essential SharePoint: Delivering High-Impact Collaboration</a></td><td valign="top" width="112">Scott Jamison<br>Mauro Cardarelli</td><td valign="top" width="74">Addison-Wesley</td><td valign="top" width="241">Concise and nicely summarized book about the business applications for SharePoint, with special attention to planning and information architecture.</td><td valign="top" width="119">Analysts<br>Consultants<br>Managers<br>End-Users</td><td valign="top" width="64">8/10</td></tr></tbody></table>