Well, its been sooo busy with me writing the MOS Study Sharepoint section for the MOS exam 77-886, and being inundated with queries concerning what is the best study guide to use for SharePoint, that I thought lets drop my thoughts in this short blog for you to mull over.
As you are most probably aware, from just searching online and in book stores that its pretty much difficult to get a book that is the SharePoint fountain of all knowledge Bible type book.
From chats with fellow SharePoint workers out their, and getting their view, its pretty much apparent that they all have their favourite book, however, its all based on a perspective that the book they talk about relates to a specific area of the platform.
I think that for me to recommend one study guide is difficult for SharePoint as it is, as you know, a platform rather than an application. This is compounded by the well known fact that there is no such thing as a power SharePoint uber-guru; someone who knows everything to do with SharePoint.
I would suggest that if you want to study SharePoint, choose an area of SharePoint and master that. There is no one book source that covers everything SharePoint. SharePoint Designer / Web Parts development assumes you are going down a SharePoint programmer route. SharePoint infrastructure design assumes SharePoint Architect route. SharePoint configuration, monitoring, installation assumes a SharePoint Administrator / Engineer route. Organizational deployment of the platform for technology replace requires SharePoint project managers, programme managers, SharePoint strategists.
This list expands as the number of appliances to SharePoint increases. For example, take Lotus Notes migration. I know friends who are defined as Lotus Notes migration experts to SharePoint – that’s another angle.
Of course, the MOS Study guide is definitely targeted at a Microsoft Officer and SharePoint Power End User – it’s a primer to a specific exam- however, this is a front end user at UI level, nothing to do with programming / backend administration / installation etc. – there are other books for that.
So, there are so many books / blogs / articles out there that based on the above its difficult for me to suggest which one to go for. In fact, I will go as far as to say there is no best book. The choice is very much what style the prospective buyer of a book on SharePoint 2010 likes the best and indeed whether he/she wants a smaller area covered in more detail or a larger area covered in less.
Thats not to say there are fantasic resources that provides the very latest lists of SharePoint books and guides. I certainly would look here for an idea on what books are out and that list is categorised:
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