Atomic Object has always embraced the scholarly side of Computer Science. We encourage conference attendance and participation, writing for trade journals, and sharing technical expertise through our company blog. During the lunch hour, employees frequently give “brown bag” talks—presentations on a particular technology, problem, or methodology. When they’re not developing software at work, employees are expected to develop professionally, that is, to investigate new technologies and hone their skills. And before founding Atomic, our president, Carl Erickson, was a professor of Computer Science at GVSU, making it safe to say that AO’s had these scholastic sympathies from the very beginning.
Another symbol of our academic bent is our rather large library – yes, a physical library – of books, made available for use by Atomic employees. We have books on, to name a few, operating systems, system administration, visual design principles, agile methodologies, project management, and oh so many programming languages. In fact, our burgeoning library was outgrowing its space on our IKEA shelving, not designed to withstand the weight of such CS tomes as Knuth’s 3 volume set, The Art of Computer Programming. Also, the classification system was getting muddled, with newer books horizontally stacked atop older books being the only recognizable taxonomy.
And so we needed a new solution. Luckily for us, our Business Manager, Mary, has a background in commercial interior design and was able to use her skills in drafting to design an entire wall of built-in bookcases. With all the information radiators around the office, wall space has become an increasingly scarce commodity, so the final design left an opening for the whiteboard currently occupying the wall in addition to ample shelving. [Nerdy art history sidebar: The design references the facade of our building, symmetrical, with a large entablature supported by two engaged pilasters.] Our friend Ken Idema (of Ken Idema Builders) created the library shelves, continuing his habit of beautifying our space.
The lot of re-”cataloging” our books – unfortunately – fell on me. Lacking a technical background, you can imagine how mind-boggling it must have been to rely on reason alone to organize books on C, C++, C# and Objective-C. (Let alone Cocoon?)
With the help of a friend, the oversight of an intern, and a little sweat equity, we have made the library easier to navigate (usable) and gave it ample room for growth (scalable).
Through the process of moving and organizing the books, I became rather fond of these books so foreign to my own education – or were they? I couldn’t help but notice the prejudice for modern art cover designs among the books. They featured works by Pete Mondrain, Wassily Kandinsky, M.C. Escher, Georges Seurat (the connection of pointillism to pixels is a given), to name a few.
So please – admire with me the final product – an homage to order, learning, and to craftsmanship (of all kinds).
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[...] of all things wood, Ken Idema of Ken Idema Builders, the west wall also incorporates the Atomic Library, which houses our expanding reference [...]