Almost no one knows this, but the Seattle Public Library offers free access to two incredibly useful websites that normally cost a lot of money:

Lynda.com — offers thousands of online video courses on a wide range of topics. They are particularly well-known for their expert courses on creative professions such as 3D modelling, animation, graphic design, audio design, etc. They also offer courses on programming, professional development, and more.
Proquest: Safari Books Online — offers tens of thousands of e-books on a wide range of technical topics, including programming, game development, engineering, IT, etc. They even have non-technical topics like business, creativity, personal development, and more.

I’ve written before about how the best way to “teach yourself” anything really comes down to finding good teachers and good resources to learn from. No one’s path to mastery can consist only of Google searches to hyper-specific StackOverflow questions. Oftentimes you just need a good book or a course to introduce you to all of the fundamentals and all of the jargon of a particular field or tool.

How to Access These Resources

Get a library card.
1. This requires proof that you live in either Seattle or live in one of the accepted areas in King County.
2. If you don’t live here, you can also buy a three-month visitor card or a one-year non-resident card.
3. Make sure to save the PIN that’s associated with your library card.
How to sign in from your computer:
1. Lynda.com — https://www.lynda.com/portal/sip?org=spl.org
2. Safari Books — http://proquest.safaribooksonline.com.ezproxy.spl.org:2048/
3. Bookmark the above links. Then use your library card number as your username and your PIN as the password.
How to sign in on mobile:
1. Lynda.com — Download the Lynda mobile app for your phone, then on the login screen, navigate to the Organization tab, scroll down to the Web Portal section, and type in spl.org as the organization URL. Then login as usual with your library card number and PIN.
2. Safari Books — You can’t sign in using their mobile app, so you’ll have to visit their website from your phone’s web browser using the same link in step #2.

Have fun learning!

I gave a lot of talks at the UA GameDev Club when I was in college, but few were as good as this one. I gave this talk in the Fall of 2013, and the advice that I had to share came from the dozens of resources that I’ve read over the years, as well as my own experience in recruiting for projects and working as an intern at Microsoft.

The video player below is set to start playing at the beginning of the talk (so about 20 minutes into the recording), and the talk is about 40 minutes long.

If you want to learn more about how to get into the games industry, here are some super awesome resources that you should check out:

From Student to Designer by Liz England – Some of the best resume advice I’ve seen in a long time, plus advice that specifically relates to getting into the AAA part of the games industry.
Effective Networking by Darius Kazemi – A well-written series of articles on how to network effectively within the games industry.
Study Hacks by Cal Newport – An empirical look at what it takes to be a good student and to have a successful career. In the video, I cite his book So Good They Can’t Ignore You.
Sloperama’s Game Biz Advice – May or may not be starting to get out of date, but many of the articles on this site do a great job of kicking you out of the “I wanna be the idea guy” phase that most novice designers go through.
And the following episodes of Extra Credits:

Good luck!

Superheroes in Racecars

A blog about game design, programming, and many other awesome things.

Tag Archives: career advice

Seattle Public Library Has Free Access to Lynda.com and Safari Books Online

How to Access These Resources

[Video] Career Advice to Students: Become someone who people want to work with.