The following reference lists are sectioned in what we hope is a helpful manner. A very good access point to the World Wide Web is through the pages of the European Neural Networks 'Network of Excellence' (http://www.neuronet.ph.kcl.ac.uk/neuronet). Enthusiasts may care also to consult the following WWW pages, gathered by our network meanderings -- this list is not exhaustive or authoritative (or even necessarily useful ...);
University of Aston Neural Computing http://neural-server.aston.ac.uk Neural Net Group Home Page (Limburg, Belgium) http://www.luc.ac.be/Research/NeuralNet Neural nets (Firenze, Italy) http://www-dsi.ing.unifi.it/neural/home.html Brunel University MSc in NN http://www2.brunel.ac.uk:8080/~hssrkng/NNcourse/entry.html The ANNDEE Project (Vienna, Austria) http://www.ai.univie.ac.at/oefai/nn/anndee USC Brain Project (USA) http://www-hbp.usc.edu:8376/HBP/Home.html Lecture Notes for HKP Text (Textbook) http://www.msci.memphis.edu/~jagota/HKP_VG/page_index.html OAK Repository; software for NNs http://www.acs.oakland.edu/oak/SimTel/win3/neurlnet.htmlThe mailing list `Neuron Digest' is also well worth following for general and specific issues -- this contains a lot of information on software simulators, among other things. Subscription requests should be sent to neuron-request@psych.upenn.edu.
Books
At one time there were no textbooks at all on this subject -- there is now an embarrassment of riches. In addition, the research literature is also very full and much of this material is condensed into useful books.
The following list is not intended to be complete or definitive; which textbook a learner goes for depends on how he or she might like the material to be delivered, so every elementary text mentioned probably has something to offer someone. For what it is worth, my (RDB) feeling is that Carling is the pick of the `simple' ones, Fausett is the best of the less trivial, and Haykin provides a very thorough treatment.