In the 1820’s Carl Palmstedt travels through Europe, looking for inspiration to start a school. He returns with a library and other useful equipment. In an attempt to explain the library’s background, two colleagues went to the history collection Chalmeriana to find pieces of a two century large puzzle.
It smells like grandma’s garret. On the shelves are photo albums with pictures from recently built institutions next to catalogues with information about students that lived a century or more ago. Next to the door, diapositives are lined up and on top of that, a student’s lecturenotes from the ’20s.
The year is 1972 when Marie Ekman starts working at the library. Five years later she gets an idea: to collect the history of Chalmers University in one room. The initiative ends up in Chalmeriana – a constant growing collection of student magazines, photographs, history books etc. Today, part of it is digitalized.
Marie Ekman pulls out a large book and flips through a few pages of examined Chalmers students.
– Sometimes someone calls and wonders ”my grandpa went to Chalmers University, can you check what year he graduated?”, she says and reads a students’ lecture notes from the same decade.
May 2015. Marie Ekman in her office.
– These were donated. Look, such a neat hand-writing.
It’s 186 years ago and Carl Palmstedt, the first vice chancellor of Chalmerska Slöjdeskolan, goes to Germany. His purpose is to find material, books and inspiration to start the new school for poor children. Everyone has the right to an education, no matter the size of one’s wallet, Pehr Dubb and his friend William Chalmers agree on. They claim that the begging will never stop unless the children are educated in the possible ways there are to earn one’s bread. The initiative to start a school is made possible through the will of William Chalmers.
May 2015. Marie Ekman, librarian at Chalmers since 1972.
Campus Johanneberg, late 1950’s. The foundation of the new library building is being laid out.
View towards Gibraltargatan.
The staff are inspecting the progress.
The new library building is completed in 1961.
”Of my own free will and with sound mind, I hereby appoint the property I will leave behind as I depart from this earth to a better world, in the matter indicated below. All that which I will leave behind (…) I dedicate to the Sahlgrenska Hospital here in the city and to the future establishment of a certain Industrial School for poor children, who shall learn to read and write and who shall be and remain the sole heirs (…)”
William Chalmers’ will
It’s the 1920’s and the first house is built on campus Johanneberg – ”Origohuset”. The area is the closest one that is free to build upon.
– The students thought it was terribly far away. They believed they were ”deported to the Rocky Mountains”. At the time, the area between the central parts of Gothenburg and Johanneberg was a a part of the countryside, says Marie Ekman.
It’s 1929 and His Majesty Gustav V comes to visit Chalmers to mark the 100th anniversary. During the decade to come Erik Hemlin, the library’s first Library Director, builds a steady organization.
He travels over the Atlantic Ocean to visit the Library of Congress, America’s
national library in Washington, and brings back their classification system LC which will be adapted and used in the library in decades to come.
In 1937, after years of negotiations, the school gets to call itself a University of technology and educate Masters of engineering.
It’s the beginning of the 1960’s and the amount of students has grown. It’s becoming clear that the venue is too small. The relocating of the library is made gradually, from Storgatan to Johanneberg. In -61 the new library opens up but the venues at Storgatan are not abandoned until the early 70’s.
”What makes Chalmers unique is that they managed to open an old established library, which was already set to the closed system. The transformation has taken us three years, said the Library Director Sven Westberg, who praised his staff after their hard work”
Göteborgs-Posten, February 25, 1977
Marie Ekman walks into here office, pulls the chair out with a casual move. She has done that a million times before. On the desk, under a pile of papers, is a remnant from earlier years: her electric typewriter. Forty years ago it was the hottest thing around.
– Things were a little bit different back then, she says and starts talking about the massive change of technology that has characterized her time at Chalmers.
– When I started we wrote loan receipts by hand and when we needed to remind someone about returning their books we had preprinted cards that we sent out. Computers were giant machines that required giant computer halls. Everyone realized they could be useful in libraries, but they were still too ungainly.
Marie Ekman still uses her electric typewriter sometimes, approximately once a year.
It’s the mid ’70s and the first computer for online searching is delivered to the library.
The library is soon connected to Libris, a computer terminal and online database, located in Stockholm. Chalmers Library gets another computer to support the system.
– We named it Orvar. He was regarded a real weirdo, says Marie Ekman.
In 1978 Chalmers Library writes library history. As the first University library in Sweden, they reorganize the collections and parts of the closed book- and magazine collection. Around 800 000 publications are re-signed and the patrons are free to pick out the literature themselves. Other libraries, such as the one at Gothenburg University, follow the example.
The library starts expanding physically and the extended parts towards the Chemistry Department is built. Meanwhile the library gets ”Vind i seglen” – a wooden sculpture made by Bengt Lundin, which still can be seen hanging from the ceiling of the quiet study room.
It’s the ’90s and the staff is adapting to the new, technical world. The library starts
building the digital library and in the year 2000 they offer more electronic resources than printed. The following years is a challenging period for the library and for a some time there is a reduction in staff members, says Daniel Forsman, Library Director since 2013. It wasn’t until 2009, the same year he started at Chalmers, that a new business plan for the library was written.
– We found a new focus where the library is responsible for collecting and disseminating information about Chalmers research results. That was the beginning of new contacts at the institutions. After that we hired people with front edge competence to strengthen the ones we already had. Along came new energy, new initiatives and a developing era, with new electronic services, a new website and the agile way of working.
1961. The Main Library at campus Johanneberg opens up.
1985. Library Director Sven Westberg starts digging for the new library building extension towards the chemistry building.
It’s May 2015. Although the many changes the library has gone through, there are things that stay the same. Daniel Forsman and Marie Ekman agree on that the core is constant.
– We are still here for the same reason: to help people find exactly what they need, says Marie Ekman.
– We’re still making sure that people have access to the information they need to be successful in their research. We’re still building services and we’re still the place where people go to find information, help and inspiration. It’s just taking new forms, says Daniel Forsman.
What do the staff working at the library have in common? Some of their personal qualifications, according to Daniel Forsman, Library director.
– It’s about how they act in a changing world and their will to learn new things, he says.
At Chalmers, the traditional Library meets the modern, although the core values are still the same.
Bookbinder Tina Hansson has worked at Chalmers for 20 years. Before that she was self-employed in Fjällbacka. – When it comes to producing books, the modern work is terrible. Tina demonstrates by opening a book and the binding breaks with a click sound. If one sews with a linen thread, which I still do sometimes, it will last for a hundred years, she says. Chalmers is one of two libraries in Gothenburg that still has an employee with the professional title bookbinder. It’s early afternoon and with a pair of tweezers she picks out small and large letter stamps from a tray. Her hand is steady. The letters are soon to be printed in gold on a velvet cover. Tina Hansson studied silver- and woodcrafts at Stenebyskolan during the late 80’s. Most of her time she spent in the sketching aula. When her teacher recommended her to study to become a bookbinder, Tina responded with a sigh. – Never ever, I thought. But then I applied, got in and after 14 days I knew it was the right thing for me, she says. Her two rooms are across the hall from each other. They are both full of small boxes with colourful patterns. – I think my grandmother kept her pins in this one. I’ve brought some private things here. This has become my second home, she says. The steps to the second floor can be compared with time-travelling. Here, Märta Sjöblom has just sent an e-mail to 6 000 new students on an online course called Sustainability in Everyday Life. She works in the MOOCs project, producing Chalmers first Massive Open Online Courses. Digital and Blended Learning is changing the way Chalmers conducts education. During development of the Sustainability Course three teachers collaborated for the first time, coming up with a new format. It was challenging since it is aimed towards students in all ages from all cultures, says Märta Sjöblom. Märta Sjöblom works with film editing in the project MOOCs, Massive Open Online Courses. The courses offer short video lectures, flipped classrooms, discussions and analysis. – Everything is available online. It’s the new way of learning, Märta Sjöblom thinks. – No one can keep their concentration for longer than seven minutes, and there are still lectures that last for two hours. The old ways of learning are out-of-date. We all know they are wrong, from a pedagogic point of view, but it takes a lot to change the ways, she says. Chalmers is one of a few universities that do online education in the form of MOOCs. – Chalmers is at the forefront when it comes to technical and library-development. I’m not suprised we decided to do this. There’s a reason we are nominated to become Library of the year. Even though the forms are always changing, the values stay the same and the core of what a librarian do is persistant. To edit film is untraditional, but other moments are not. – To cater information for our users is what we always have done. It’s just taking different forms. Some of the ”domesdayprophets” say that the online education is the downfall of the universities. But MOOCs is the future, even though it’s not the only future, Märta Sjöblom says.
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Lined up in proper rows, pink and yellow post-its are covering the white board. They describe what needs to be done in the Research-project.
Rolf Johansson and Kristin Olofsson are two of the people in the project. The goal is to establish an online database where Chalmers research projects and publications are gathered and displayed.
In 2010 a change of work methods began to develop at the Library. The former ways of working were ineffective, according to systems developer Rolf Johansson.
– It was getting untenable. Different people said ”do this and do that” and the boss said something else. Someone heard about Scrum and we trained in its methodology. It didn’t take long until we saw results. Things were done immediately, says Rolf and continues:
– It’s more honest this way. The idea is to be more transparent so that the whole organization can see what is going on. With an agile method we are thinking more about visions and less about details; What do we want to achieve and what is our strategy?
– The biggest readjustment when we decided to implement Scrum was working as a team. It’s not common amongst developers, says Rolf Johansson.
– It’s important to find out about the user experience in the beginning of a work process, to make sure we create a valuable product. We usually do that by interviewing and observing. We talk a lot about empathy and quantitative and qualitative methods, says Kristin Olofsson.
The word scrum derives from the game of rugby. A scrum (short for scrummage) is a method of restarting a play in rugby that involves players packing closely together with their heads down, attempting to gain possession of the ball. The teams are looking to solve the assignment – by running, by throwing the ball to another team member or by any other means go the distance.
– Scrum provides us with methods to adapt to changing conditions. We have to be agile. It’s necessary, says Kristin Olofsson and remembers a workshop she participated in.
– I remember them asking if we at any point during the last six months had had to completely revise our plans after six months. Almost everyone said yes. There’s no point in planning two years ahead. If you are on the wrong path, you don’t realise that the product is bad until it’s too late to do something about it.
On the ground floor Lars Andersson and Lari Kovanen, systems developers, are working on the Chillin project. One of the walls is covered with a purple space pattern.
– It represents our endless work, says Lars and laughs.
They are, together with a few colleagues, optimizing the interlibrary loan system called Chillin. The project started off a few years ago as the previous system couldn’t meet new requirements. Their work is also done according to Scrum principles.
– We never get caught up in creating the wrong things, cause we have a system for continous reconcilations. If our surroundings or conditions change, we are fast to react, says Lari Kovanen.
– We work in a large team and because of that we have a lot of different angles on the project. It’s necessary to have many points of view, says Lars Andersson.
The work is divided in ”sprints”, periods of two or three weeks. In the beginning the team plan their work, creating ”user stories” – specific assignments describing what should be done during the sprint. The sprint ends with a ”retrospective” within the team and an open ”sprint review”, where the library staff is invited to participate in a discussion on the results.
– When the sprint ends there is no more time. No one can say ”I just need another day and I’ll be done”. During retrospective we talk about what worked well and what should improve. If something was not completed we discuss why, says Rolf Johansson.
The first agile project at Chalmers Library was completed in 2012 with the library’s new
website. The project was a collaboration between the library and an agency, who didn’t work according to the Scrum method.
– They worked according to a traditional development methodology. But I think we inspired them, because now they have also applied an agile work method, says Lari Kovanen.
– There’s a reason why it’s a popular method. It’s a great tool when handling a complex problem, says Lars Andersson and summarizes the core of agile work methodology:
– The main principle is to respond to changes around you. Always have an eye on your surroundings and ask yourself; is this relevant?
Scrum dictionary
Scrum – a work method developed in the 1990’s by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland. It was first described as ”a flexible, holistic product development strategy where a development team works as a unit to reach a common goal”.
Sprint – a period of time, usually two to four weeks, where development work is done to deliver a potentially shippable product increment. It begins with sprint planning and ends with sprint review and retrospective.
Sprint planning – the team starts the sprint here, identifying what items from the product backlog can likely be done in the sprint and what effort is needed. Developers then collaborate in decomposing each item into smaller work items needed to deliver each item.
Sprint review – occur at the end of a sprint and is an open meeting for anyone interested in the team effort. The team presents the results and different perspectives of their work during the sprint. The team also takes valuable feedback from stakeholders.
Sprint Retrospective – a team meeting at the end of a sprint. It’s an evaluation where the whole team talks about what was good and what can be done better about the work process. The aim is to continuously improve they way the team work together.
Stand up – happens every day within the team. It’s a meeting between team members to identify what has been done since the last meeting and what the plans are to do next, to meet the sprint goal. Impediments are also identified, so they can be removed.
Product Backlog – a prioritized list of features, bug fixes and other items needed to deliver the product and turn it into something valuable for the users. Usually the items are written as user stories, explaining what is needed, who needs it and why.
User Experience (UX) – is all about aspects and methods to find out and meet user behaviour and user needs . I’ts about empathy with the user that primarily focuses on the person’s context, emotions, goals and motivations with the aim to come up with with products and services that’s gives the user value and a good user experience. Different UX methods are used for identifying different aspects, like personas, effect mapping, customer journey mapping or Lean UX.