Library Carpentry, NRW: November 12-13, 2018

Library Carpentry, NRW

November 12-13, 2018

10:00 am - 6:00 pm, 8:30 am - 4:00 pm

Instructors: Konrad Förstner (ZB MED), Markus Hennies (HdM), Evamaria Krause (UBA), Katrin Leinweber (TIB)

Helpers: Silvia Di Giorgio, Eva Seidlmayer

General Information

Library Carpentry is made by librarians, for librarians to help you:

automate repetitive, boring, error-prone tasks
create, maintain and analyse sustainable and reusable data
work effectively with IT and systems colleagues
better understand the use of software in research
and much more...

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 librarians and other information workers. You don't need to have any previous knowledge of the tools that will be presented at the workshop.

Where: Universitäts- und Stadtbibliothek Köln, Raum 4.007, Universitätsstr. 33, 50931 Köln. Get directions with OpenStreetMap or Google Maps.

When: November 12-13, 2018. 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). They are also required to abide by Library Carpentry's Code of Conduct.

Accessibility: We are committed to making this workshop accessible to everybody. The workshop organizers have checked that:

The room is wheelchair / scooter accessible.
Accessible restrooms are available.

Materials will be provided in advance of the workshop and large-print handouts are available if needed by notifying the organizers in advance. If we can help making learning easier for you (e.g. sign-language interpreters, lactation facilities) please get in touch (using contact details below) and we will attempt to provide them.

Contact and Registration: Please have a look at vdb-online.org/veranstaltung/800/ for further information.

Organization: We are happy to receive financial support for this workshop by The Association of German Librarians (VDB - Verein Deutscher Bibliothekarinnen und Bibliothekare). The workshop is jointly organized by VDB-Landesverband Nordrhein-Westfalen and instructors and helpers from ZB MED - Informationszentrum Lebenswissenschaften (ZB MED), Universitätsbibliothek Augsburg (UBA), TIB - Leibniz-Informationszentrum Technik und Naturwissenschaften und Universitätsbibliothek (TIB) and Hochschule der Medien Stuttgart (HdM).

Schedule

Day 1, November 12, 2018

10:00	Arrival, Time for setup questions
11:00	Introduction, Jargon Busting
11:30	OpenRefine
13:00	Lunch break
14:00	OpenRefine
15:00	Python 1
16:00	Coffee
16:30	Python 2
18:00	END

Day 2, November 13, 2018

08:30	Python 3
10:00	Coffee
10:30	Git 1
12:30	Lunch break
13:30	Git 2
14:30	Coffee
15:00	Introduction to follow-up online projects, Wrap-up
16:00	END

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

Syllabus

Data Intro

Intro to data
Jargon busting

Python

Version Control with Git

Creating a repository
Configuring git
Recording changes to files: add, commit, ...
Viewing state changes with status
Working on the web: clone, pull, push, ...
Where to host work, and why

Open Refine

Introduction to OpenRefine
Importing data
Basic functions
Advanced Functions

For more information, please have a look at librarycarpentry.org.

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.

GitHub Desktop

Git is a version control system that lets you track who made what changes when. It's primarily a command line tool, while GitHub Desktop is a graphical interface. These tracked changed can easily be shared or published, for example on GitHub.com. For the latter, you will need a supported web browser and an account. 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.

Windows and macOS

Please download the official installer and run it.

Linux

Please download this inofficial installer and run it.

Text Editor

When you're writing code, it's nice to have a text editor that is optimized for writing code, with features like automatic color-coding of key words. The default text editor on macOS and Linux is usually set to Vim, which is not famous for being intuitive. if you accidentally find yourself stuck in it, try typing the escape key, followed by :q! (colon, lower-case 'q', exclamation mark), then hitting Return to return to the shell.

If you already have another text editor installed (e.g. Atom, Sublime, Notepad++, Text Wrangler, Gedit, or Kate) please stick to using it. If you haven't, we suggest you install Atom, because that's what we'll be using in the Git lesson of this workshop.

Python

Python is a popular language for research computing, and great for general-purpose programming as well. Installing all of its research packages individually can be a bit difficult, so we recommend Anaconda, an all-in-one installer.

Regardless of how you choose to install it, please make sure you install Python version 3.x (e.g., 3.6 is fine).

We will teach Python using the Jupyter notebook, a programming environment that runs in a web browser. For this to work you will need a reasonably up-to-date browser. The current versions of the Chrome, Safari and Firefox browsers are all supported (some older browsers, including Internet Explorer version 9 and below, are not).

Windows

Video Tutorial

Open https://www.anaconda.com/download/#windows with your web browser.
Download the Python 3 installer for Windows.
Install Python 3 using all of the defaults for installation except make sure to check Make Anaconda the default Python.

macOS

Video Tutorial

Open https://www.anaconda.com/download/#macos with your web browser.
Download the Python 3 installer for OS X.
Install Python 3 using all of the defaults for installation.

Linux

Open https://www.anaconda.com/download/#linux with your web browser.
Download the Python 3 installer for Linux.
(The installation requires using the shell. If you aren't comfortable doing the installation yourself stop here and request help at the workshop.)
Open a terminal window.
Type
```
bash Anaconda3-
```
and then press tab. The name of the file you just downloaded should appear. If it does not, navigate to the folder where you downloaded the file, for example with:
```
cd Downloads
```
Then, try again.
Press enter. You will follow the text-only prompts. To move through the text, press the space key. Type yes and press enter to approve the license. Press enter to approve the default location for the files. Type yes and press enter to prepend Anaconda to your PATH (this makes the Anaconda distribution the default Python).
Close the terminal window.

OpenRefine

For this lesson you will need OpenRefine and a web browser. Note: this is a Java program that runs on your machine (not in the cloud). It runs inside a web browser, but no web connection is needed.

Windows

Check that you have either the Firefox or the Chrome browser installed and set as your default browser. OpenRefine runs in your default browser. It will not run correctly in Internet Explorer.

Download software from http://openrefine.org/

Create a new directory called OpenRefine.

Unzip the downloaded file into the OpenRefine directory by right-clicking and selecting "Extract ...".

Go to your newly created OpenRefine directory.

Launch OpenRefine by clicking google-refine.exe (this will launch a command prompt window, but you can ignore that - just wait for OpenRefine to open in the browser).

If you are using a different browser, or if OpenRefine does not automatically open for you, point your browser at http://127.0.0.1:3333/ or http://localhost:3333 to use the program.

Mac

Check that you have either the Firefox or the Chrome browser installed and set as your default browser. OpenRefine runs in your default browser. It may not run correctly in Safari.

Download software from http://openrefine.org/.

Create a new directory called OpenRefine.

Unzip the downloaded file into the OpenRefine directory by double-clicking it.

Go to your newly created OpenRefine directory.

Launch OpenRefine by dragging the icon into the Applications folder.

Use Ctrl-click/Open ... to launch it.

If you are using a different browser, or if OpenRefine does not automatically open for you, point your browser at http://127.0.0.1:3333/ or http://localhost:3333 to use the program.

Linux

Check that you have either the Firefox or the Chrome browser installed and set as your default browser. OpenRefine runs in your default browser.

Download software from http://openrefine.org/.

Make a directory called OpenRefine.

Unzip the downloaded file into the OpenRefine directory.

Go to your newly created OpenRefine directory.

Launch OpenRefine by entering ./refine into the terminal within the OpenRefine directory.

If you are using a different browser, or if OpenRefine does not automatically open for you, point your browser at http://127.0.0.1:3333/ or http://localhost:3333 to use the program.