I had always wanted to work at a company that had a library of intereresting/educational books I could borrow; so when I started at JDS Australia in late 2005, I brought in a few of my technical books in case anyone else wanted to borrow them. Gradually other people brought in books too, until there was quite a nice collection.

I like to think that consultants who have read Death March and The Mythical Man Month will be a little wiser than their brethren who have just flicked through Learn x in 24 Hours. The lives of technical people will definitely be more pleasant if they have a manager who has read Peopleware, and everyone will be kept busy if the sales guys have read and applied Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion.

So, for the greater good (or something), I am throwing open the (metaphorical) doors of my personal library to people who don’t work at JDS. If you know me and would like to borrow any of the books listed below, please let me know.

Note that inclusion on the book list doesn’t mean that I recommend the book, just that I have it in my collection. 🙂

Testing, Performance and Scalability

Programming Languages & Software Development

Project Management, Managing Technical People, Running a Technology Company

Geek Interest

Miscellaneous

Sales, Marketing, Psychology

Dilbert

 

Published On: August 15, 2010Tags: ,

Related Posts

2 Comments

  1. Stuart Moncrieff August 15, 2010 at 1:36 pm

    I guess that even more than wanting to work at a company with lots of cool books to borrow, I wanted to work with the kind of people who were interested enough in technology that they would actually buy and read books about it.

    • Stuart Moncrieff August 15, 2010 at 7:10 pm

      And another thing…

      I think that maintaining a “professional library” is probably an indicator of a company that cares about staff development. One of the first things I noticed when I visited the ThoughWorks Melbourne office was a printout on the wall where staff could put a tick next to the books that they wanted the company to buy. I remember thinking that ThoughtWorks must be a pretty cool place to work.

      Maybe “do you have a library of books that employees can borrow” would be a good question to ask at a job interview.

Comments are closed.