Introduction to ITIL®

Best Practice

ITIL^® (the IT Infrastructure Library) is the most widely accepted approach to IT Service Management in the world. ITIL^® provides a comprehensive and consistent set of best practices for IT service management, promoting a quality approach to achieving business effectiveness and efficiency in the use of information systems.

ITIL^® is based on the collective experience of commercial and government practitioners worldwide. This has been distilled into one reliable, coherent approach, which is fast becoming a de facto standard used by some of the world's leading businesses.

The Introduction to ITIL^® covers all the products in the ITIL^® series. It provides a thorough and convenient introduction to the field of IT Service Management and the ITIL^® books. It is ideal for the student, the practitioner or those needing a grasp of the concepts in order to interface with Service Managers.

The International itSMF organization, through its International Publications Executive Sub-Committee (IPESC), comprised of a council of members from global itSMF chapters has given its formal itSMF International endorsement to this book.

• Introduction
1. Introduction
2. IT Service Management - Background
• 2.1 Services and Quality
• 2.2 Organization and Policies
• Process Management
3. Introduction to ITIL
• 3.1 Background
• 3.2 Organizations
• 3.3 The ITIL publications
• Service Support
4. Incident Management
• 4.1 Introduction
• 4.2 Objectives
• 4.3 The process
• 4.4 Activities
• 4.5 Process control
• 4.6 Costs and possible problems
5. Problem Management
• 5.1 Introduction
• 5.2 Objectives
• 5.3 The process
• 5.4 Activities
• 5.5 Process control
• 5.6 Costs and possible problems
6. Configuration Management
• 6.1 Introduction
• 6.2 Objectives
• 6.3 Process
• 6.4 Activities
• 6.5 Process control
• 6.6 Costs and possible problems
7. Change Management
• 7.1 Introduction
• 7.2 Objectives
• 7.3 Process
• 7.4 Activities
• 7.5 Process control
• 7.6 Costs and possible problems
8. Release Management
• 8.1 Introduction
• 8.2 Objectives
• 8.3 The process
• 8.4 Activities
• 8.5 Costs and possible problems
9. Service Desk
• 9.1 Introduction
• 9.2 Objectives
• 9.3 Structure
• 9.4 Activities
• 9.5 Effectiveness
• Service Delivery
10. Service Level Management
• 10.1 Introduction
• 10.2 Objectives
• 10.3 Process
• 10.4 Activities
• 10.5 Process control
• 10.6 Costs and possible problems
11. Financial Management for IT Services
• 11.1 Introduction
• 11.2 Objectives
• 11.3 Process
• 11.4 Activities
• 11.5 Process control
• 11.6 Costs and possible problems
12. Capacity Management
• 12.1 Introduction
• 12.2 Objectives
• 12.3 Process
• 12.4 Activities
• 12.5 Process control
• 12.6 Costs and possible problems
13. IT Service Continuity Management
• 13.1 Introduction
• 13.2 Objectives
• 13.3 Process
• 13.4 Activities
• 13.5 Process control
• 13.6 Costs and possible problems 
14. Availability Management
• 14.1 Introduction
• 14.2 Objectives
• 14.3 Process
• 14.4 Activities
• 14.5 Process control
• 14.6 Costs and possible problems 
15. Security Management
• 15.1 Introduction
• 15.2 Objectives
• 15.3 Process
• 15.4 Activities
• 15.5 Process control
• 15.6 Costs and possible problems
16. ICT Infrastructure Management
• 16.1 Introduction
• 16.2 Objectives
• 16.3 Process
• 16.4 Activities
• 16.5 Process control
• 16.6 Costs and possible problems
17. Application Management
• 17.1 Introduction
• 17.2 Objectives
• 17.3 Process
• 17.4 Activities
• 17.5 Process control
• 17.6 Costs and possible problems
18. Business Perspective. The IS view on delivering services to the business
• 18.1 Introduction
• 18.2 Basic Concepts
• 18.3 The value of IT
• 18.4 The approach to business/IT alignment
• 18.5 Understanding the Business viewpoint
• 18.6 Managing the provision of service
• 18.7 Supplier Relation management
• 18.8 Roles, responsibilities and interfaces
19. Planning to implement Service Management
• 19.1 Introduction
• 19.2 Basic Concepts
• 19.3 Stage 1: What is the vision?
• 19.4 Stage 2: Where are we now?
• 19.5 Stage 3: Where do we want to be?
• 19.6 Stage 4: How do we get where we want to be?
• 19.7 Stage 5: How do we check if milestones have  been reached?
• 19.8 Stage 6: How do we keep the momentum going?
• Appendix A: Sources
• A1. Further Reading
• A2. Relevant Wesites

Boring, dry, humourless, etc., are all words that can be used to describe this book.

As for it being an "introduction", I am not sure I agree. In my opinion, you need to have some cursory knowledge about the subject (ITIL) to be able to read it at all!

That said, it is an excellent summary-like book on ITIL, when you want to have just the bare facts presented in an efficient manner.

In short, this is for the already converted, but for them, it is a decent book.