What are good SQL Server books? And other sources of reference.

A. SQL Books Online is a good source, as is Technet with 100's of techie articles/whitepapers on SQL as well as the Knowledgebase. The SQL 7.0 books-online can be downloaded at http://support.microsoft.com/download/support/mslfiles/sqlbol.exe

An un-official "faq" is held at :-

http://forumsb.compuserve.com/vlforums/UK/default.asp?SRV=MSDevApps (download sqlfaq.zip from library 7 (SQL Public))
http://www.sql-server.co.uk
http://www.ntfaq.com/sql.html
http://www.swynk.com/faq/sql/sqlserverfaq.asp

The most up to date copy (apart from the one on my hard-drive) is the one in the Compuserve library - you don't need to be a compuserve member to download it. The other sites all take the info and put it into their own format.

On-line resources :-

SQL Server newsgroups : microsoft.public.sqlserver.* and comp.dcom.databases.ms-sqlserver
GO MSDEVAPP on Compuserve for SQL forums
www.sql-server.co.uk (Copy of SQL FAQ, Code samples, other stuff)
www.mssqlserver.com (Copy of SQL FAQ, reviews, lots of other resources)
www.sqlwire.com (SQL News)
www.insidesqlserver.com (Updates to Kalen Delaney's Inside SQL Server 7.0 book, Q&A and lots of other info is held here)
www.ntfaq.com/sql.htm (Copy of SQL FAQ)
www.swynk.com (SQL Server Mailing List and other resources)
www.dbmaint.com (Code samples)

Magazines :-

SQL Server Magazine, www.sqlmag.com
SQL Server Professional, Pinnacle publications, www.pinpub.com 
NT Magazine has monthly articles on SQL plus the odd one-off article

Books (a few good ones, but this doesn't mean anything not listed isn't good! Many of these go through various revisions, so check you're getting the latest and greatest version) :-

Microsoft SQL Server 6.5/7.0 Programming Unleashed : Sams/various : Good for programming/TSQL

Microsoft SQL Server 6.5/7.0 Unleashed : Sams/various : Good for DBA's, admin, performance, general stuff.

SQL for Smarties : Morgan-K/Joe Celko : Advanced SQL programming techniques, tricks and tips. Not SQL Server specific but highly recommended.

Hitchhikers Guide to VB and SQL Server : MSPress/Bill Vaughn : ISBN: 1572318481 : If you're coding VB to access SQL and you're not sure whether (or how) to use db-lib, odbc, ado, rdo, ole-db, rds, rdo, dmo (I think that's all of them) then this is the bible.

BackOffice Resource Kit Part II : MSPress : Good stuff on SQL 6.5 connectivity and some internals, plus some nice utilities and whitepapers.

BackOffice 4.5 Resource Kit : MSPress : As above but for SQL 7.

Teach yourself Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 in 21 days : Sams/Richard Waymire : ISBN 0-672-31290-5 : A good overall guide to SQL Server 7.0.

Inside Microsoft SQL Server 6.5 : MSPress/Ron Soukup : SQL Server Internals, how it works, why the history. Plenty of good undocumented stuff.

Inside Microsoft SQL Server 7.0 : MSPress/Kalen Delaney : ISBN: 0735605173 : The bible for SQL 7 internals.

SQL Server 7 Database Administration. Prima Press/Ron Talmadge : Probably the best SQL 7 admin type book.

Microsoft OLAP Solutions. Microsoft Press/George Spofford and Erik Thomsen. ISBN: 0471332585. The definitive Microsoft Olap book.

Database Modelling and Design. Morgan Kaufmann/Toby Teory.

Transact-SQL Programming. O'Reilly/Kline, Gould and Zanevsky. What the title says - specific to SQL Server 6.5/Sybase 4.x. Nothing on later Sybase/SQL Server additions/changes to syntax.

Unlocking OLAP with SQL Server 7 and Excel 2000 : Wayne Freeze : ISBN 0764545876

Microsoft SQL Server 7 OLAP Developer's Guide : Bill Amo : ISBN 0764546430

OLAP Solutions, Building Multidimensional INformation systems with CDROM : Erik Thomsen : ISBN 0471149314

OLAP Services Fundamentals, Online Analytical Processing Technology for Microsoft SQL Server with CDROM : OLAP Train : ISBN 0735609047

Microsoft OLAP Unleashed with CDROM : Tim Peterson, Bob Pfeiff, Jim Pinkelman : ISBN 07672316714

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v1.19 2000.02.05
Applies to SQL Server versions : All
Related FAQ articles : n/a
Related Microsoft Kb articles : n/a
Other related information : n/a