But instead of having to lug thousands of heavy and bulky books with him, he can access them all online on his laptop computer, download them, search them for specific topics of interest and print out sections that he needs through a contract Sun has with technical book publisher Safari Books Online.

"It's allowed me to get out of my research world," Mathur said. He has searched for information on such topics as Web 2.0, Java design, Java patterns, project management and business models, he said. "This capability is just amazing ... allowing me to have that extra breadth of knowledge."

Sun began using the Safari online book service three years ago for 1,000 employees, including Mathur, but high demand among the engineers and others at Sun led the company to expand it to 2,000 workers the next year.

With demand still increasing, two weeks ago Sun announced that the company is expanding the online book offerings to all 34,000 of its worldwide employees.

"It was just rapid adoption," said Cindy Hill, Sun's library manager. "Not only were people signing up for it, but they are using it."