Smithsonian Library Carpentry Workshop

Smithsonian Institution

Online

Sep 15-16 and 22-23, 2020

9:00 am - 12:00 pm

Instructors: Matt Kweskin, Mike Trizna, Jennifer Giaccai, Rayvn Manuel

Helpers: Corey DiPietro, Amanda Devine, Carrie Craig, Sue Zwicker

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General Information

Library Carpentry is made by people working in library- and information-related roles to help you:

Library Carpentry introduces you to the fundamentals of computing and provides you with a platform for further self-directed learning. For more information on what we teach and why, please see our paper "Library Carpentry: software skills training for library professionals".

Who: The course is for people working in library- and information-related roles. You don't need to have any previous knowledge of the tools that will be presented at the workshop.

Where: This training will take place online. The instructors will provide you with the information you will need to connect to this meeting.

When: Sep 15-16 and 22-23, 2020. Add to your Google Calendar.

Requirements: Participants must bring a laptop with a Mac, Linux, or Windows operating system (not a tablet, Chromebook, etc.) that they have administrative privileges on. They should have a few specific software packages installed (listed below).

Accessibility: We are dedicated to providing a positive and accessible learning environment for all. Please notify the instructors in advance of the workshop if you require any accommodations or if there is anything we can do to make this workshop more accessible to you.

Contact: Please email si-datascience@si.edu for more information.

Roles: To learn more about the roles at the workshop (who will be doing what), refer to our Workshop FAQ.


Code of Conduct

Everyone who participates in Carpentries activities is required to conform to the Code of Conduct. This document also outlines how to report an incident if needed.


Collaborative Notes

We will use this collaborative document for chatting, taking notes, and sharing URLs and bits of code.


Surveys

Please be sure to complete these surveys before and after the workshop.

Pre-workshop Survey

Post-workshop Survey


Schedule

Day 1

Introduction to Working with Data (Regular Expressions)

Before Starting Pre-workshop survey
09:15 Introduction to Working with Data (Regular Expressions)
10:30 Morning break
12:25 END

Day 2

Tidy data for librarians

9:00 Previous Day Review and Question Session
09:15 Tidy data for librarians
10:45 Morning break
11:45 END

Day 3

OpenRefine

9:00 Previous Day Review and Question Session
09:15 OpenRefine
10:45 Morning break
12:50 END

Day 4

Introduction to Git

9:00 Previous Day Review and Question Session
09:15 Introduction to Git
10:30 Morning break
11:00 END

Syllabus

Introduction to Working with Data (Regular Expressions)


Setup

To participate in a Library Carpentry workshop, you will need access to the software described below. In addition, you will need an up-to-date web browser.

We maintain a list of common issues that occur during installation as a reference for instructors that may be useful on the Configuration Problems and Solutions wiki page.

Install the videoconferencing client

If you haven't used Zoom before, go to the official website to download and install the Zoom client for your computer.

Set up your workspace

Like other Carpentries workshops, you will be learning by "coding along" with the Instructors. To do this, you will need to have both the window for the tool you will be learning about (a terminal, RStudio, your web browser, etc..) and the window for the Zoom video conference client open. In order to see both at once, we recommend using one of the following set up options:

This blog post includes detailed information on how to set up your screen to follow along during the workshop.

Tidy data

Spreadsheets are useful for data entry and data organization, and some subsetting and sorting of the data as well as getting an overview of the data. Please find instructions to install it and the data used in the lesson in the lesson setup.

Git

Git is a version control system that lets you track who made changes to what when and has options for easily updating a shared or public version of your code on https://github.com.

Follow the instructions on the lesson setup to install Git on your system.

You will need an account at github.com for parts of the Git lesson. Basic GitHub accounts are free. We encourage you to create a GitHub account if you don't have one already. Please consider what personal information you'd like to reveal. For example, you may want to review these instructions for keeping your email address private provided at GitHub. You will need a supported web browser.

OpenRefine

OpenRefine is a tool to clean up and organize messy data. Please find instructions to install it and the data used in the lesson in the lesson setup.