For many years I wanted to join the ACM, but I never had the money (first as a starving student, and then as a starving small-business owner.) Last December, however, I began work at ePublishing so I decided to take a bit of my salary and join both the ACM and the IEEE. Both organizations are a great idea for anyone working in the computing industry.

While I’ve gotten a lot out of my IEEE membership, I absolutely love the ACM Professional Development Centre —especially the free online books offered to all members.

The ACM offers access to both O’Reilly’s Safari® Enterprise Library and SkillSoft’s Books24x7. I still have a large collection of books I’ve purchased, and I will continue to purchase new books in the future, but for the price of one or two hardcover books, I can have access to a full library for a year. It’s a great way to discover whether a book is good enough to own.

If you are trying to stay current with what’s happening in this industry, I would highly recommend becoming a member of both the ACM and the IEEE.