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Expanding the Carpentries Community in California Academic Libraries
As the Data Services Librarian at the University of California, San Francisco, and co-chair of the Library Carpentry Advisory Committee, I have been privileged to witness the transformative impact of data and software training for librarians. Whether it is a cataloging librarian figuring out how to automate data uploads, an instruction librarian realizing there is an easier way to clean their messy class registration data, or a research data management librarian who now has the language to connect with computational researchers, data training allows librarians to become invaluable resources to their libraries and academic communities. I am therefore very excited to share that I will be working with The Carpentries Team on a special project to develop the Carpentries community in academic libraries across California. The goal of this project is to create sustainable communities of academic libraries that can work together to make computational training more accessible to librarians and the communities that they serve. As part of this project, I will be reaching out to promote the work of the Carpentries in regional library groups, piloting new membership models for library networks and consortia, assisting with Library Carpentry workshops across the state, and offering more instructor training opportunities for California librarians.
Are you a California librarian interested in what the Carpentries can offer your library? Want to learn more about hosting a Library Carpentry workshop? Send me an email at ariel.deardorff@ucsf.edu.
This post was guest-authored by Ariel Deardorff, Data Services Librarian at UCSF, and originally published at The Carpentries blog.
Farewell and Thank You to Chris Erdmann
UC3 will bid farewell to Chris Erdmann on September 30th. Chris joined UC3 in May 2018 as Library Carpentry Community & Development Director and has spent the past year and a half expanding the Library Carpentry community in many ways. Chris is moving on to a new role at UNC Chapel Hill, but he will continue to be involved in Library Carpentry as a lesson maintainer and Advisory Group member.
We’ve cross-posted a farewell and final reflection that Chris published on The Carpentries blog.
September 30th will be my last day in the role of Library Carpentry Community & Development Director. I have been fortunate to meet so many amazing people working in libraries and the research community during this time. Thank you to the IMLS, the California Digital Library, and The Carpentries for this great opportunity. So many members of the community have helped Library Carpentry grow these past couple of years, not to mention the initial hard work that went into starting Library Carpentry. Together we have moved Library Carpentry to a formal Lesson Program in The Carpentries. We have welcomed new community members and run more workshops and events around the world. We have improved and expanded the curriculum thanks to the efforts of a diverse community of Maintainers and contributors from around the world. The Curriculum Advisory Committee and the Advisory Group continue to provide invaluable guidance on how we can move forward. Libraries have become an important part of The Carpentries Membership (over 60% are members) and thanks to additional support from the IMLS, libraries will continue to be an important part of the continued success of The Carpentries. I think Elaine Westbrooks, the University Librarian at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (where I will be headed in October), said it best in her post about the importance of libraries in The Carpentries, The Strategic Value of Library Carpentry and The Carpentries to Research Libraries.
I will continue to be a member of the community, as a Maintainer on lessons, as a member of the Advisory Group, and will continue to teach and participate in discussions, so this is not goodbye. Instead, I will close by sharing some of the fun stories I have had with community members this past year and a half:
Tim Dennis reached out to me right when I started and invited me to teach a workshop at UCLA with him, and then weeks later, Tim and Jamie Jamison helped with hosting the Mozilla Global Sprint from the UCLA Library Data Science Lab. I think all of us were on a sugar high during the sprint.
@LibCarpentry #MozSprint @ucla_ssda @UCLA_YRL the cakes have arrived pic.twitter.com/XbFKq8DcEI
— Tim Dennis (@jt14den) May 10, 2018
CarpentryCon was a rush, meeting many members of the community, but I will never forget my reenactment of Run Lola Run through the streets of Dublin with David Kane to get to the CarpentryCon dinner on time or my bus ride through the Irish countryside with Scott Peterson and Daniel Bangert.
Post #CarpentryCon2018, had a great time with @enigmaticocean and @scottcpeterson2 exploring the Irish countryside today! pic.twitter.com/pFOkAQhEbO
— Chris Erdmann (@libcce) June 2, 2018
Thanks to Birgit Schmidt for inviting me to LIBER 2018 to speak about Library Carpentry and The Carpentries. This later led to a Carpentries Instructor Training at LIBER 2019 at UCD Library in Dublin. After LIBER, I was able to join Katrin Leinweber, Mateusz Kuzak, Konrad Förstner and others at the TIB Hannover FAIR Data & Software Carpentries-Based Workshop. This workshop was an inspiration in so many ways!
.@konradfoerstner is again leading us in an interactive activity binning ourselves into how familiar we are with creating installation packages, automated tests, continuous integration #TIBFDS pic.twitter.com/YBsKhr3HFm
— Chris Erdmann (@libcce) July 11, 2018
At the August 2019 University of Calgary Instructor Training, I met so many people that would ultimately become community members helping Library Carpentry grow. I handed out Effin Birds mugs as prizes and was finally able to see Lake Louise with Juliane Schneider. Oh Canada, you’re beautiful.
Well worth the wait 😀 pic.twitter.com/MqClGciSTb
— Chris Erdmann (@libcce) September 1, 2018
Australian Research Data Commons (ARDC) inspired a global sprint in November 2018, for us to try out a new format, Top 10 FAIR Data & Software Things. The event brought in new members and allowed us all to develop guides on what FAIR meant according to disciplines and/or topics. It was a fun experience ending the day talking to colleagues in Australia and waking up the next day talking to colleagues in Europe.
Great to meet @matkuzak @KristinaHettne Peter Verhaar and others from Leiden and Utrecht. Good luck finishing the #Top10FAIR Sprint today! pic.twitter.com/xqroy6ucC6
— Natasha Simons (@n_simons) November 30, 2018
MTSU invited us to do a three-day workshop at the start of 2019. Somehow we pulled it off with Juliane Schneider and I recovering from the flu and one of our instructors getting the flu just before the workshop. Anna Oates was able to avoid the flu with her super human immune system and delivered her first of many amazing training sessions. Of course, we had to go and see the Parthenon replica in Nashville.
“Nashville Parthenon”by schnaars is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
In February, ARDC hosted a Library Carpentry workshop tour of Australian cities. They continue to be such amazing supporters of The Carpentries along with so many others there. A special thanks to Natasha Simons for showing me Australia along the way.
Hello Brisbane! @n_simons and I are ready to say hello to @Griffith_Uni tomorrow! pic.twitter.com/BBpm0bV85w
— Chris Erdmann (@libcce) February 13, 2019
Electronic Resources & Libraries hosted its first Data Science in Libraries track in March 2019 inspired by The Carpentries efforts. It is great to see them offer the track once more, to have a Carpentries table at the exhibitor showcase, and to hopefully run workshops at the 2020 conference.
NESCLIC members Joshua Dull and @KristyDawnL running a session on jargon busting to give everyone at @ERandL #erl19 a taste of what a Library Carpentry includes https://t.co/GC3JaYX980 #DataScience #libraries pic.twitter.com/BjDU6DhHEW
— Library Carpentry (@LibCarpentry) March 5, 2019
Somewhere in all of this my wife and I had a baby and everyone has been supportive throughout. I remember one conversation though before I went on paternity leave with Yared Abera Ergu about work and family. It was one of those conversations about life that you have with community members on the side that makes working in this community so special.
Thank you all! I hope I have helped you as much as you have helped me. I will see you out there in the community.
Library Carpentry Receives Supplemental IMLS Grant
To support the ongoing work of Library Carpentry and the data and software training to library- and information-related roles, we are happy to report that IMLS has awarded CDL supplemental funding. This supplemental funding will provide continued support for workshops and instructor training, as well as create a membership scholarship program to reach new library communities and consortiums. The funding will also provide continued support for Library Carpentry’s current goals to expand the pool of Carpentries trainers and instructors from library- and information-related roles and to complete and formalise curriculum and lessons currently being developed by community members. The CDL, The Carpentries, and the Library Carpentry Advisory Group are currently planning outreach to various library networks to see how we can work together towards providing data and software training to their communities. Members of these groups will be reaching out in the coming months. Also, this month (September 2019), The Carpentries will launch a new workshop request form that will respond to library driven and related workshops.
About CDL CDL was founded by the University of California in 1997 to take advantage of emerging technologies that were transforming the way digital information was being published and accessed. Since then, in collaboration with the ten UC campus libraries and other partners, CDL has assembled one of the world’s largest digital research libraries and changed the ways that faculty, students, and researchers discover and access information. We facilitate the licensing of online materials and develop shared services used throughout the UC system. Building on the foundations of the Melvyl Catalog, CDL has developed one of the largest online library catalogs in the United States and works in partnership with the UC campuses to bring the treasures of California’s libraries, museums, and cultural heritage organizations to the world. We continue to explore how services such as digital curation, scholarly publishing, archiving and preservation support research throughout the information lifecycle.
About The Carpentries The Carpentries builds global capacity in essential data and computational skills for conducting efficient, open, and reproducible research. We train and foster an active, inclusive, diverse community of learners and instructors that promotes and models the importance of software and data in research. We collaboratively develop openly-available lessons and deliver these lessons using evidence-based teaching practices. We focus on people conducting and supporting research.
The Strategic Value of Library Carpentry and The Carpentries to Research Libraries
Originally posted by Elaine L. Westbrooks
The Strategic Value of Library Carpentry and The Carpentries to Research Libraries
The Data Science Community Newsletter, a helpful resource by Laura Noren and Brad Stanger, helps us track all the data science initiatives sweeping through higher ed. Brown, Harvard, NYU, Stanford, UC Irvine, UIUC, University of Michigan, and others have launched data science initiatives in the past few years and have been announced in each newsletter.
A recent paper titled Creating Institutional Change in Data Science from the Moore-Sloan Data Science Environments (MSDSE), NYU, UC Berkeley, and the University of Washington, highlights the importance of library services and spaces in driving these initiatives on campuses. “Partnering with our libraries”, according to the paper, “has been an important component of these efforts.” The report also notes that libraries’ engagement with The Carpentries has strengthened ties with groups on campus.
As the MSDSE report shows, libraries can serve as the institutional home for data science initiatives within their communities. In general, libraries are a natural hub for researchers, citizens, students, programmers: we help bring people together to tackle difficult challenges.
In the report, we also see the demonstrated need researchers worldwide have to learn software and data skills. In higher ed, departments, labs, student groups all go through the cycle of creating and re-creating local meet-ups and training programs to address these needs.
Thankfully, The Carpentries curriculum and workshop offerings have expanded in recent years to respond to this need for data science training. Libraries are partnering with The Carpentries to sustain these training efforts with the help of data-savvy librarians and innovative spaces. Libraries at places like University of Oklahoma are realizing the potential of leveraging The Carpentries at scale to bring together researchers from different disciplines, foster collaboration, and be a hub for data science activities on their campuses. We also find in a recent IMLS data sciences in libraries report the recommendation that libraries should start partnering with The Carpentries to address the computational skills gap on campuses while also serving as another connection point to industry where there is a need for highly skilled and qualified candidates in data science.
At the University Libraries at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I see the benefits of partnering with The Carpentries. Doing so allows us to spend our time more efficiently through developing training material collaboratively at a global scale. This in turn allows librarians to focus on relationships, and teaching a common curriculum that teaches computational skills across many disciplines. Software and data skills are now needed in every discipline and, via Carpentries training, the Libraries can learn about and implement additional services that can help UNC-Chapel Hill researchers excel.
The University Libraries sees The Carpentries as a strategic way to better aligning our services to the UNC-Chapel Hill research community. In October, we will launch our initiative to train a significant number of our staff, library school faculty, and students and help them develop as instructors. The idea is simple: the Libraries will act as a hub for Carpentries activities on campus and work with our institutional partners to integrate the training in a variety of ways. I am excited about Library Carpentry and I anticipate that other libraries will equally benefit from The Carpentries efforts.
Crossposted from Library Carpentry blog: https://librarycarpentry.org/blog/2018/08/22/library-carpentry-strategic-value/
Building a Community: Three months of Library Carpentry.
Back in May, almost 30 librarians, researchers, and faculty members got together in Portland Oregon to learn how to teach lessons from Software, Data, and Library Carpentry. After spending two days learning the ins and outs of Carpentry pedagogy and live coding, we all returned to our home institutions, as part of the burgeoning Library Carpentry community.
Library Carpentry didn’t begin in Portland, of course. It began in 2014 when the community began developing a group of lessons at the British Library. Since then, dozens of Library Carpentry workshops have been held across four continents. But the Portland event, hosted by California Digital Library, was the first Library Carpentry-themed instructor training session. Attendees not only joined the Library Carpentry community, but took their first step in getting certified as Software and Data Carpentry instructors. If Library Carpentry was born in London, it went through a massive growth spurt in Portland.
Together, the carpentries are a global movement focused on teaching people computing skills like navigating the Unix Shell, doing version control with Git, and programming with Python. While Software and Data Carpentry are focused on researchers, Library Carpentry is by and for Librarians. Library Carpentry lessons include an introduction to data for librarians, Open Refine, and many more. Many attendees of the Portland instructor training contributed to these lessons during the Mozilla Global Sprint in June. After more than 850 Github events (pull requests, forks, issues, etc), Library Carpentry ended up as far and away the most active part of the global sprint. We even had a five month old get in on the act!
Since the instructor training and the subsequent sprint, a number of Portland attendees have completed their instructor certification. We are on track to have 10 certified instructors in the UC system alone. Congratulations, everyone!
Great talks and fun at csv,conf,v3 and Carpentry Training
Day1 @CSVConference! This is the coolest conf I ever been to #csvconf pic.twitter.com/ao3poXMn81 — Yasmina Anwar (@yasmina_anwar) May 2, 2017 On May 2 – 5 2017, I (Yasmin AlNoamany) was thrilled to attend the csv,conf,v3 2017 conference and the Software/Data Carpentry instructor training in Portland, Oregon, USA. It was a unique experience to attend and speak with many … Continue reading →
Source: Great talks and fun at csv,conf,v3 and Carpentry Training