USGS Library Carpentry Workshop Online

United States Geological Survey

Online

March 30-31, 2021

9:00 am - 4:30 pm (MDT)

Instructors: Jesse Johnston, Annajiat Alim Rasel, Trevor Burrows, Archana Yadav

Helpers: Brandon Serna

Some adblockers block the registration window. If you do not see the registration box below, please check your adblocker settings.

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: March 30-31, 2021. Add to your Google Calendar.

Requirements: Participants must have access to a computer 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 jj@jesseajohnston.net or annajiat@gmail.com 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 (Note: all times in MDT and subject to change)

Before Starting Pre-workshop survey
09:00 Welcome
09:10 Icebreaker: Jargon Busting
09:30 Working with Data (spreadsheets)
10:30 Morning break
12:00 Lunch break
13:00 The Unix Shell
14:30 Afternoon break
16:00 Wrap-up
16:30 END

Day 2

09:00 Introduction to Git
10:30 Morning break
12:00 Lunch break
13:00 OpenRefine
14:30 Afternoon break
16:00 Wrap-up
16:30 Post-workshop survey

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.

The Bash Shell

Bash is a commonly-used shell that gives you the power to do simple tasks more quickly. Please find setup instructions in the lesson.

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.

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 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.