My how ITIL has grown: the size of the new ITIL V3 2011

We have more news on ITIL V3.1 V3 "2011 Edition", from itSMF International. Of most note is the extraordinary increase in the size of ITIL. I mean the physical size.

According to the latest update:

the page count has increased from 1,343 to 1,959 pages with the biggest increase being for Service Strategy with over 200 additional pages and SD, ST and SO all having around 100 additional pages each.

...and if you found it tough lugging the ITIL books around before, get this:

the weight of the suite has increased from 4.459 KG to 6.981 KG

That's 15.4 pounds, for those still using medieval measurement systems.

I blogged recently about how OGC and TSO keep calling these updates "minor". They did it for ITIL V3, PRINCE2 2009, and now ITIL V3.1. 600 new pages and an extra 2.5 kilos is a minor update???

There isn't much other exciting news in this latest blurt from itSMFI, except that those in the know will be able to tell the books apart in the bookshelf:

the jacket images have been reversed from a black to a white background, a 2011 flash has been added and ITIL has been added to the title to ensure it is easy to tell the difference between the editions.

Comments

Fast readers

It is truly amazing how fast some readers are. I have already seen a rather comprehensive comparison of all changes. Reading close to 2000 pages in one day and even comparing it to the previous vers.. sorry edition is quite an achievement.

Guess a) is the writer an ITIL trainer and b) was the report quite positive. I'm quite sure you all guessed right.

Aale

perish the thought

Of course perish the thought that anyone takes competitive advantage of advance access due to being a reviewer, or even ... gasp... gets advance access other ways.

There was that company who ran a pilot ITIL V3 Foundation course before the training industry even had the syllabus...

minor

As Arjen Droog points out on Twitter, the size increase says nothing about the extent of the revision to the existing pages as well.

Heavier books = harder to throw.

This is comforting to know that it'll be easier to throw the ITIL V3 "refresh" books at the OGC compared to when "ITIL 2012" arrives and people start throwing 2011 at them.

Size does matter

More pages, heavier, does not mean more content. At one stage I thought I read somewhere the books might be printed in a small more compact format - if so that would account for the extra pages. Not sure how to account for the weight except to say that 4.459kg divided by 1343 pages = @3.32g /page. 6.981kg divided by 1,959 pages is about @3.56g/page. So I can only suspect the density of ink is greater, or the page thicker? Perhaps more text than diagrams - who knows. Size and weight may matter to some, perhaps those who resell and ship, but I would value more a list of new concepts in each volume - perhaps a table of contents????

Dense and thick

When you use terms like Density and Thickness regarding ITIL and OGC, I think of things other than the size of a book.

Best Regards,
BobGrins

Kilos

Rather an extra of more than 2.5 kilos.

Un saludo,

Pablo

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