There
are not enough hours in the day for most HR professionals to read the
newspaper, let alone all the latest books on management wisdom. Oh for the
grown-up equivalent to Brodie’s Notes, those clever books that got many of us
through English A-level. Perhaps it has arrived, in the form of
GetAbstract.com. Based in Lucerne, Switzerland, with offices in Paris, Hamburg,
Florida, Beijing and Hong Kong, GetAbstract.com employs a team of editorial
specialists and journalists to produce concise, five-page summaries or
abstracts of business books. There are more than 1,000 abstracts on the site
and the company claims it can give you an overview of the book in 15 minutes.
Users can download a single abstract in PDF or Palm format for $9.80, or take
out a subscription at $159 for six months or $299 for 12 months, which gives
you access to the entire database. There are other options for corporate users.
You can also tell the site your area of interest and it will select abstracts
for you every week.
