Re: [CODE4LIB] Formalizing Code4Lib?
On Tue, Jun 14, 2016 at 12:05 PM, Miles Fidelman <mfidel...@meetinghouse.net > wrote: > I'm rather surprised that nobody has suggested contacting: > - the American Library Association (particularly the LITA division) > I have not made the offer because I think c4l should approach LITA and not the other way around, but we would be open to having this conversation. (With the understanding that there would be quite a lot to discuss!) -- Andromeda Yelton Board of Directors/Vice-President Elect, Library & Information Technology Association: http://www.lita.org http://andromedayelton.com @ThatAndromeda <http://twitter.com/ThatAndromeda>
Re: [CODE4LIB] Heroku
I'm a freelance software developer not embedded in a library, but I use Heroku routinely to host apps I'm developing for fun, or as a testing site, and one of my clients deploys its production app on Heroku. It took me a while to wrap my head around, but I love it to little tiny pieces (and once you do wrap your head around it, it becomes *unbelievably* straightforward). Do you have any more specific questions? On Mon, Jun 6, 2016 at 3:15 PM, Louisa Choy <lc...@wheelock.edu> wrote: > Hi everyone, > > My college is using Heroku to host a web application for another > department. I'm trying to get a sense of how many institutions out there > are using it, what you use it for, what the pool of expertise is like for > it, and what your thoughts on it are. > > Thanks! > -Louisa > > > Louisa Choy > Digital Services Librarian > Wheelock College Library > 132 Riverway > Boston, MA 02215 > (617) 879-2213 > www.wheelock.edu/library > (she/her/hers) > -- Andromeda Yelton Board of Directors/Vice-President Elect, Library & Information Technology Association: http://www.lita.org http://andromedayelton.com @ThatAndromeda <http://twitter.com/ThatAndromeda>
Re: [CODE4LIB] Formalizing Code4Lib?
Eric, I agree that I wouldn't want to have an organization that existed to govern all things Code4lib - but I don't think that's what's on the table here. What I'm hearing is a call for a persistent entity that can do things like sign contracts and hold funds from year to year, pursuant to planning a conference. The governing documents of that entity could *and should* be quite narrowly construed to avoid giving that entity powers of community governance or policy statement. Would such an entity inevitably have its own insiders and outsiders? Yes...but that is hardly different from the status quo, which very much has insiders and outsiders; they are simply not conveniently labeled, which means they can be hard to identify (for insiders as much as for outsiders). If you haven't read "The Tyranny of Structurelessness" yet, I commend it to you. That said, I am quite fond of the merrily anarchic nature of this library collective, and I would want to see the devils in the details of governing docs before I made up my mind. And I find I have a sense of humor about how awful it apparently is for things to have presidents. On Tue, Jun 7, 2016 at 5:09 PM, Eric Lease Morgan <emor...@nd.edu> wrote: > On Jun 7, 2016, at 10:53 PM, Mike Giarlo <mjgia...@stanford.edu> wrote: > > >>> I'm also interested in investigating how to formalize Code4Lib as an > >>> entity, for all of the reasons listed earlier in the thread… > >> > >> -1 because I don’t think the benefits will outweigh the emotional and > bureaucratic expense. We already have enough rules. > > > > Can you say more about what you expect "the emotional and bureaucratic > expense" to be? > > Bureaucratic and emotional expenses include yet more committees and > politics. Things will happen increasingly slowly. Our community will be > less nimble and somewhat governed by outside forces. We will end up with > presidents, vice-presidents, secretaries, etc. Increasingly there will be > “inside” and “outside”. The inside will make decisions and the outside > won’t understand and feel left out. That is what happens when formalization > take place. > > The regional conferences are good things. I call them franchises. The > annual meeting does not have to be a big deal, and the smaller it is, the > less financial risk there will be. Somebody will always come forward. It > will just happen. > > — > Eric Lease Morgan > -- Andromeda Yelton Board of Directors/Vice-President Elect, Library & Information Technology Association: http://www.lita.org http://andromedayelton.com @ThatAndromeda <http://twitter.com/ThatAndromeda>
Re: [CODE4LIB] Internet of Things
Well, the aforementioned Jason Griffey's Measure the Future project could certainly be read as IoT (http://measurethefuture.net/, and I am one of the developers on this project). It's not yet in libraries in the sense that we're working on our alpha test right now, but it should be more widely available later this year. On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 12:13 PM, Lisa Rabey <academichu...@gmail.com> wrote: > A month or so ago, I asked on ALA Thing Tank if anyone was using IoT in > their libraries, and if so: what, how, when, where; details man, details! > Other than someone asking me what the IoT is ( > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_of_Things), I got crickets. > > Yesterday Jason Griffey wrote, "How libraries can save the internet of > things from the web's centralized fate" ( > https://boingboing.net/2016/03/28/how-libraries-can-save-the-int.html) and > this got me wondering again: Is anyone doing something in library land > with IoT? > > Well, are you? > > _lisa > > > > > > > > -- > > @byshieldmaiden | http://exitpursuedbyabear.net > > > “There are moments, Jeeves, when one asks oneself, 'Do trousers matter?'" > "The mood will pass, sir.” - P.G. Wodehouse > -- Andromeda Yelton Board of Directors, Library & Information Technology Association: http://www.lita.org http://andromedayelton.com @ThatAndromeda <http://twitter.com/ThatAndromeda>
Re: [CODE4LIB] code4lib mailing list
On Thu, Mar 24, 2016 at 10:39 AM, Ranti Junus <ranti.ju...@gmail.com> wrote: > Thank you, Eric, for the heads up and your guardianships... > > Mailman is easy to administer, but it has a huge caveat: when a user > request a password (reminder, etc.), it sends it as an email in plain text. Yikes! However, this is no longer true in mailman 3 (if heavily-developed-alpha is an okay answer); passwords are sha512-hashed and *maybe* also salted, though the docs are sparse on that front. (See, e.g., https://bazaar.launchpad.net/~mailman-coders/mailman/3.0/view/head:/src/mailman/utilities/passwords.py , https://bazaar.launchpad.net/~mailman-coders/mailman/3.0/view/head:/src/mailman/config/passlib.cfg , https://pythonhosted.org/passlib/lib/passlib.context.html#passlib.context.CryptContext.encrypt .) -- Andromeda Yelton Board of Directors, Library & Information Technology Association: http://www.lita.org http://andromedayelton.com @ThatAndromeda <http://twitter.com/ThatAndromeda>
Re: [CODE4LIB] code4lib mailing list
Thank you for the heads-up, the previous work, and the offer of future work. I second mailman - it seems to have a good community and continues active development. On Thu, Mar 24, 2016 at 5:29 AM, Eric Lease Morgan <emor...@nd.edu> wrote: > Alas, the Code4Lib mailing list software will most likely need to be > migrated before the end of summer, and I’m proposing a number possible > options for the lists continued existence. > > I have been managing the Code4Lib mailing list since its inception about > twelve years ago. This work has been both a privilege and an honor. The > list itself runs on top of the venerable LISTSERV application and is hosted > by the University of Notre Dame. The list includes about 3,500 subscribers, > and traffic very very rarely gets over fifty messages a day. But alas, > University support for LISTSERV is going away, and I believe the University > wants to migrate the whole kit and caboodle to Google Groups. > > Personally, I don’t like the idea of Code4Lib moving to Google Groups. > Google knows enough about me (us), and I don’t feel the need for them to > know more. Sure, moving to Google Groups includes a large convenience > factor, but it also means we have less control over our own computing > environment, let alone our data. > > So, what do we (I) do? I see three options: > > 0. Let the mailing list die — Not really an option, in my opinion > 1. Use Google Groups - Feasible, (probably) reliable, but with less > control > 2. Host it ourselves - More difficult, more responsibility, all but > absolute control > > Again, personally, I like Option #2, and I would probably be willing to > host the list on my one of my computers, (and after a bit of DNS trickery) > complete with a code4lib.org domain. > > What do y’all think? If we go with Option #2, then where might we host the > list, who might do the work, and what software might we use? > > — > Eric Lease Morgan > Artist- And Librarian-At-Large > -- Andromeda Yelton Board of Directors, Library & Information Technology Association: http://www.lita.org http://andromedayelton.com @ThatAndromeda <http://twitter.com/ThatAndromeda>
Re: [CODE4LIB] yaml/xml/json, POST data, bloodcurdling terror
I considered leaving json out of the subject line on the grounds that it's less terrifying, but I figured anyone accepting and parsing user data in any format who didn't already know this stuff could benefit from hearing about it. Didn't want people to rule themselves out because "oh, I don't do yaml or xml". The biggest security vulnerability is the one you don't know about yet, right? On Fri, Dec 18, 2015 at 12:48 PM, Eric Phetteplace <phett...@gmail.com> wrote: > Agreed, I thought the JSON criticism was a bit of stretch. It's hilarious > that json.org, *created by Douglas Crockford*, mentions using eval() as a > JSON parser, though. > > Best, > Eric > > On Thu, Dec 17, 2015 at 8:42 PM, Brian Hoffman <brianjhoff...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > > Thanks, this was interesting. But the JSON segment is a little less than > > terrifying as it’s predicated on the misuse of eval(), which is commonly > > and easily avoided. > > > > > > > On Dec 17, 2015, at 11:00 PM, CODE4LIB automatic digest system < > > lists...@listserv.nd.edu> wrote: > > > > > > > > > Date:Thu, 17 Dec 2015 09:22:07 -0500 > > > From:Andromeda Yelton <andromeda.yel...@gmail.com > andromeda.yel...@gmail.com>> > > > Subject: yaml/xml/json, POST data, bloodcurdling terror > > > > > > I strongly recommend this hilarious, terrifying PyCon talk about > > > vulnerabilities in yaml, xml, and json processing: > > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjZHjvrAS74 < > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjZHjvrAS74> > > > > > > If you process user-submitted data in these formats and don't yet know > > why > > > you should be flatly terrified, please watch this ASAP; it's > > illuminating. > > > If you *do* know why you should be terrified, watch it anyway and > giggle > > > along in knowing recognition, because the talk is really very funny. > > > > > > -- > > > Andromeda Yelton > > > Board of Directors, Library & Information Technology Association: > > > http://www.lita.org <http://www.lita.org/> > > > http://andromedayelton.com <http://andromedayelton.com/> > > > @ThatAndromeda <http://twitter.com/ThatAndromeda < > > http://twitter.com/ThatAndromeda>> > > > -- Andromeda Yelton Board of Directors, Library & Information Technology Association: http://www.lita.org http://andromedayelton.com @ThatAndromeda <http://twitter.com/ThatAndromeda>
[CODE4LIB] yaml/xml/json, POST data, bloodcurdling terror
I strongly recommend this hilarious, terrifying PyCon talk about vulnerabilities in yaml, xml, and json processing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjZHjvrAS74 If you process user-submitted data in these formats and don't yet know why you should be flatly terrified, please watch this ASAP; it's illuminating. If you *do* know why you should be terrified, watch it anyway and giggle along in knowing recognition, because the talk is really very funny. -- Andromeda Yelton Board of Directors, Library & Information Technology Association: http://www.lita.org http://andromedayelton.com @ThatAndromeda <http://twitter.com/ThatAndromeda>
Re: [CODE4LIB] free html editors
Another thing you might want to check out - my alma mater has a CS MOOC that's aimed at supporting middle/high school CS classes and teachers - http://www.muddx.com/courses/HMC/MyCS/Middle-years_Computer_Science/about . On Sat, May 16, 2015 at 10:20 AM, Sarles Patricia (18K500) psar...@schools.nyc.gov wrote: I just this minute subscribed to this list after reading Andromeda Yelton's column in American Libraries from yesterday with great interest since I would like to teach coding in my high school library next year. I purchased Andy Harris' HTML5 and CSS3 All-in-One For Dummies for my summer reading and the free HTML editors he mentions in the book are either not really free or are not compatible with my lab's 2008 Macs. Can anyone recommend a free HTML editor for older Macs? Many thanks and happy to be on this list, Patricia Patricia Sarles, MA (Anthropology), MLS Librarian Jerome Parker Campus Library 100 Essex Drive Staten Island, NY 10314 718-370-6900 x1322 psar...@schools.nyc.gov http://jeromeparkercampus.libguides.com/home You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions. - Naguib Mahfouz As a general rule the most successful man in life is the man who has the best information. - Benjamin Disraeli -- Andromeda Yelton Board of Directors, Library Information Technology Association: http://www.lita.org Advisor, Ada Initiative: http://adainitiative.org http://andromedayelton.com @ThatAndromeda http://twitter.com/ThatAndromeda
Re: [CODE4LIB] Code4LibCon video crew thanks
Adding my thanks to the video team. Day 1 had quite a few talks I was specifically looking forward to, and I was super bummed to miss them due to snowpocalypse...but I have been catching up on YouTube, and I'm grateful for the ability to do so. *\o/* Ashley *\o/* Steven *\o/* Josh *\o/* Riley *\o/* On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 1:00 PM, Cary Gordon listu...@chillco.com wrote: I want to deeply thank Ashley Blewer, Steven Anderson and Josh Wilson for running the video streaming and capture at Code4LibCon in Portland. Because of you, we had great video in real time (and I got to actually watch the presentations). I also want to again thank Riley Childs, who could not make it this year. Riley moved the bar up last year by putting together our YouTube presence. For the second year running, we requested and were not allowed to setup and test the day before, and for the second year running lost part of the opening session. Fortunately, we did capture most of what did not get streamed on Tuesday, and I will put that online next week. There is always next year. Thanks, Cary -- Andromeda Yelton Board of Directors, Library Information Technology Association: http://www.lita.org Advisor, Ada Initiative: http://adainitiative.org http://andromedayelton.com @ThatAndromeda http://twitter.com/ThatAndromeda
Re: [CODE4LIB] Craft drink-up event Tuesday
I have the same issue as Tania. Who wants my drinkup spot, and how do I transfer it? (I should arrive Tuesday, but time has lost all meaning. It's my daughter's fifth snow day in two weeks, and we in Boston have always been at war with Noreasterasia.) On Sun, Feb 8, 2015 at 5:38 PM, Tania Fersenheim tan...@brandeis.edu wrote: I am in Boston, and given tomorrow's weather mess it's highly likely I will NOT make it to Portland on Monday. If I make it on Tuesday I will arrive too late for the drink up. Are there any mechanisms to give my drink up spot to someone else? Tania, who has shoveled 3 feet of snow in the last week and doesn't want to shovel another foot tomorrow. -- Tania Fersenheim Manager of Library Systems Brandeis University Library and Technology Services 415 South Street, (MS 017/P.O. Box 549110) Waltham, MA 02454-9110 Phone: 781.736.4698 Fax: 781.736.4577 email: tan...@brandeis.edu -- Andromeda Yelton Board of Directors, Library Information Technology Association: http://www.lita.org Advisor, Ada Initiative: http://adainitiative.org http://andromedayelton.com @ThatAndromeda http://twitter.com/ThatAndromeda
[CODE4LIB] CodeOfConduct4Lib: have a look!
There have been some edits to the CodeOfConduct4Lib since the last conference, including a pull request under discussion now; please have a look, particularly if you'll be at the conference. https://github.com/code4lib/antiharassment-policy -- Andromeda Yelton Board of Directors, Library Information Technology Association: http://www.lita.org Advisor, Ada Initiative: http://adainitiative.org http://andromedayelton.com @ThatAndromeda http://twitter.com/ThatAndromeda
Re: [CODE4LIB] lita
(Putting on LITA Board hat) To pull out some math in case you don't want to sort through the docs, and also make a correction: Yes, LITA's membership decline is faster than average for ALA. No, LITA is not the smallest division; ASCLA and United are quite a bit smaller. (Putting on personal hat) I find myself thinking of LITA less as the technology division of ALA and more as the libtech association where I get to meet non-technology librarians. I love getting to meet people I can talk Django and Heroku with (!), and I meet more of those in code4lib than in ALA. But I *also* love seeing how the tools of the libtech world do, and don't, support the needs of library staff and patrons more broadly. And I love learning how the issues that matter to us as technologists - copyright, data quality, privacy - impact librarians in other subfields. And, to be blunt, there are some damn fun youth services librarians, copyright librarians, instructional librarians, et cetera. And I meet them through LITA. (okay maybe that was my Board hat too. I can wear two hats at once! I am like Hydra. Well. Not Project Hydra. Or Hail Hydra. SO YOU HOPE.) On Mon, Jan 5, 2015 at 11:59 AM, Cindi Blyberg cindi...@gmail.com wrote: You can see the Executive Director's membership reports on ALA Connect: Annual 2014 - http://connect.ala.org/node/225631 (pdf) Midwinter 2014 - http://connect.ala.org/node/216881 (pdf) Annual 2013 - http://connect.ala.org/node/208000 (.docx) Midwinter 2013 - http://connect.ala.org/node/197812 (.rtf) -Cindi LITA Immediate Past President On Mon, Jan 5, 2015 at 11:28 AM, Kevin Ford k...@3windmills.com wrote: I think this just goes to show, with the advent of the Internet, centralized authorities are not as necessary/useful as they once used to be. —ELM -- Maybe. I think it it recession-related. The high water mark for nearly all of the groups on that list is 2007 (2006 for one or two). The overall stats for ALA show the same membership pattern (increasing until 2007, decreasing thereafter): http://www.ala.org/membership/ membershipstats_files/annual_memb_stats I'd be interested to know if LITA's membership decrease is greater (as a percentage) than the others. Perhaps that would suggest forums such as code4lib peeled off some of those would-be LITA members. Otherwise, it just looks like a broader decline in ALA membership, probably for a few reasons: fewer librarians in the workforce, fewer institutions willing to pay professional membership fees, less willingness to pay those fees out of pocket, etc. Yours, Kevin On 1/5/15 10:12 AM, Eric Lease Morgan wrote: I’m curious, how large is LITA (Library and Information Technology Association)? [0] How many members does it have? Apparently it has around 3000 members this year. I found this on the ALA membership statistics page: http://www.ala.org/membership/membershipstats_files/divisionstats#lita Interesting and thank you. Code4Lib only needs fifty more subscribers to equal LITA’s size. I think this just goes to show, with the advent of the Internet, centralized authorities are not as necessary/useful as they once used to be. —ELM -- Andromeda Yelton Board of Directors, Library Information Technology Association: http://www.lita.org Advisor, Ada Initiative: http://adainitiative.org http://andromedayelton.com @ThatAndromeda http://twitter.com/ThatAndromeda
[CODE4LIB] what good books did you read in 2014?
Hey, code4lib! I bet you consume fascinating media. What good books did you read in 2014 that you think your colleagues would like, too? (And hey, we're all digital, so feel free to include movies and video games and so forth.) Mine: http://www.obeythetestinggoat.com/ (O'Reilly book, plus read free online) - a book on testing from a Django-centric, front end perspective. *Finally* I get how testing works. This book rewrote my brain. _The Warmth of Other Suns_ - finally got around to reading this magnum opus history of the Great Migration, am halfway through, it's amazing. If you're looking for some historical context on how we got to Ferguson, Isabel Wilkerson has you covered. _Her_ - Imma let you finish, Citzenfour and Big Hero 6 and LEGO movie and Guardians of the Galaxy - you were all good - but I walked out of the theater and literally couldn't speak after this one. Plus, funniest throwaway scene ever. Almost fell out of my chair. _Tim's Vermeer_ - wait, no, watch that one too. Weird tinkering genius who can't paint obsesses over recreating a Vermeer with startling, physics-driven results. Also, Penn Jillette. -- Andromeda Yelton Board of Directors, Library Information Technology Association: http://www.lita.org Advisor, Ada Initiative: http://adainitiative.org http://andromedayelton.com @ThatAndromeda http://twitter.com/ThatAndromeda
Re: [CODE4LIB] Whatever Happened to the Northeast Code4Lib?
Greater Bostonian here, and I've had the same question myself. I don't have the bandwidth to take point on organizing a thing but I'd love to do some minion duty. --ay On Mon, Dec 1, 2014 at 10:18 AM, Clapp, Sharon B. (Library) scl...@ccsu.edu wrote: I'm interested in reviving the Northeast C4L, as well. Sharon Clapp Digital Resources Librarian CCSU – Elihu Burritt Library 860-832-2059 scl...@ccsu.edu -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Leah Root Sent: Wednesday, November 26, 2014 9:02 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] Whatever Happened to the Northeast Code4Lib? Include me as well, please. Leah M Root, Library Publishing/Web Services Developer SUNY Geneseo On Wed, Nov 26, 2014 at 8:59 AM, Parker O'Mara pomar...@plattsburgh.edu wrote: Include me as interested. --Parker Parker O'Mara, Systems Librarian, SUNY Plattsburgh, (518) 564-5196 On 11/25/2014 11:44 AM, Maura Carbone wrote: Count me in as well! -Maura On Tue, Nov 25, 2014 at 11:39 AM, David Mayo pobo...@gmail.com wrote: I'm also definitely interested - I've been looking with a certain amount of jealousy at the various Code4Libs that are out of my range. - Dave Mayo Software Engineer Harvard University - HUIT - Library Technology Services On Tue, Nov 25, 2014 at 9:03 AM, Joseph Montibello joseph.montibe...@dartmouth.edu wrote: Hi, Yale hosted a C4L New England event a couple of years back ( http://wiki.code4lib.org/NECode4lib_2012_Home). I was on the planning committee - it was fun and I know I learned a lot. It was good to have a local event that folks could go to. The nice thing is that for an event like this to happen, we only need a few people willing to work on it, and a little luck in finding an institution to back it. (And of course a two-day event like the one we had at Yale is by no means the right/best/only format - there are lots of other ways that Code4Lib could take shape in New England / the northeast.) Joe Montibello, MLIS Library Systems Manager Dartmouth College 603.646.9394 joseph.montibe...@dartmouth.edumailto:joseph.montibello@dartmouth. edu On Nov 24, 2014, at 3:39 PM, Abigail abigaildiscov...@gmail.com mailto: abigaildiscov...@gmail.com wrote: Hi Matt, Thanks for posting - I'm new-ish to Code4Lib, and in Western MA. Would be excited to see more NE activity. Abigail Systems Librarian Hampshire College On Sat, Nov 22, 2014 at 3:03 PM, Christina Marie Harlow cmh2...@columbia.edumailto:cmh2...@columbia.edu wrote: Hi Matt- We have stuff going in Code4LibNYC, but I'd be happy to help get something going on in the Northeast. Thanks! Christina On Sat, Nov 22, 2014 at 2:40 PM, Matthew Sherman matt.r.sher...@gmail.com mailto:matt.r.sher...@gmail.com wrote: While riffing on an old DC comics title the subject line is my question. I've been working in Connecticut for a little over a year now and I have heard of nothing going on with Code4Lib in this part of the US. I find this sad since I see all sorts of activity in a variety of other spots, particularly in my old beloved midwest stomping grounds. So I was wondering if anyone knows why the Code4Libbers in the northeast have been so quiet? Is the communication being done in some back channel or are there not many of us out in this part of the US? I am just curious as I would love to touch base, collaborate, and learn from other folks in the community. Matt Sherman -- Christina Harlow Metadata Specialist Columbia University Libraries cmh2...@columbia.edumailto:cmh2...@columbia.edu http://www.christinaharlow.com/ @cm_harlow +1 212 854 8457 102 Butler Library, MC -- Abigail Baines Systems Discovery Librarian Harold F. Johnson Library Hampshire College phone: 413-559-5766 email: abai...@hampshire.edumailto:abai...@hampshire.edu - - abigaildiscov...@gmail.commailto:abigaildiscov...@gmail.com web: library.hampshire.eduhttp://library.hampshire.edu blog: theharold.hampshire.eduhttp://theharold.hampshire.edu -- -- Leah M Root Library Publishing/Web Services Developer Milne Library, SUNY Geneseo http://www.geneseo.edu/ 1 College Circle, Geneseo, NY 14454 585-245-6061 | cell 585-802-4676 ro...@geneseo.edu @RootLeah https://twitter.com/RootLeah -- Andromeda Yelton Board of Directors, Library Information Technology Association: http://www.lita.org Advisor, Ada Initiative: http://adainitiative.org http://andromedayelton.com @ThatAndromeda http://twitter.com/ThatAndromeda
[CODE4LIB] coming to DLF? Take my Python workshop (built just for you)!
I'm trying out something new in my Python workshop at DLF this year, and I'm hoping you'll come make it awesome: http://www.diglib.org/forums/2014forum/registration/lbpw/ This workshop is geared toward people who have some prior introductory Python exposure but who, for whatever reason, haven't found that it sticks: there's a concept you're stuck on, you're still looking for an everyday use case, et cetera. I will be designing the curriculum around *your* needs, and follow-up calls afterward will help you apply and troubleshoot your code. Because I'll be designing the curriculum around participants' needs, you must sign up soon to get maximum benefit; we'll be scheduling planning calls shortly. I'm really looking forward to hearing how I can help people take their next steps in code learning. Hope to see you in Atlanta! -- Andromeda Yelton Board of Directors, Library Information Technology Association: http://www.lita.org Advisor, Ada Initiative: http://adainitiative.org http://andromedayelton.com @ThatAndromeda http://twitter.com/ThatAndromeda
Re: [CODE4LIB] C4L DC 2014 Thanks
Thanks, everyone :) I had a great time. Let's do it again sometime. On Aug 13, 2014 9:48 PM, Francis Kayiwa kay...@pobox.com wrote: On 08/13/2014 12:59 PM, Joshua Westgard wrote: A big, public thank you is in order to Laura Wrubel, Dan Chudnov, and their whole team for organizing and running the C4L regional meeting in DC over the past two days, to GWU Libraries and DLF for hosting and sponsoring it, and to Andromeda Yelton and Jason Griffey for leading the workshops. It was a huge success and a lot of productive fun, as I'm sure many others will agree! Thank you all! +1 Indeed. A fantastic event full of win. ./fxk -- Cheer Up! Things are getting worse at a slower rate.
Re: [CODE4LIB] Do you ever write code? I want to interview you!
I intend to collate all the publicly available ones online somehow. After I've submitted the manuscript, though :) On Jul 8, 2014 8:22 PM, Chris Markman cmark...@clarku.edu wrote: Hi Andromeda, I'm just going to throw this idea out there but I think it would be really cool if in the process of writing this you could convince each contributor to corral their small self-made apps/scripts into a single BitTorrent Sync folder :) My dream is to one day do the same for MarcEdit task automation but your project sounds like an even better use! Best, Chris On Mon, Jul 7, 2014 at 3:59 PM, Andromeda Yelton andromeda.yel...@gmail.com wrote: Hi everyone! I'm writing a Library Technology Report for ALA TechSource about short, useful programs people have written to get stuff done in libraries ( allied institutions). Have you done this? You should answer my questions! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/13Ne0N6ODWHqI_wAGLb2UHW1NiDcUrH4ee3DrEM1AMjc/viewform?usp=send_form No, you need not have developer in your title (in fact, the more diverse job roles I can get among the respondents, the better). Your code can be little gems of perfection or grotesquely hackish; I like it either way. Thanks in advance; obligatory apologies for cross-posting. -- Andromeda Yelton Board of Directors, Library Information Technology Association: http://www.lita.org Advisor, Ada Initiative: http://adainitiative.org http://andromedayelton.com @ThatAndromeda http://twitter.com/ThatAndromeda
[CODE4LIB] Do you ever write code? I want to interview you!
Hi everyone! I'm writing a Library Technology Report for ALA TechSource about short, useful programs people have written to get stuff done in libraries ( allied institutions). Have you done this? You should answer my questions! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/13Ne0N6ODWHqI_wAGLb2UHW1NiDcUrH4ee3DrEM1AMjc/viewform?usp=send_form No, you need not have developer in your title (in fact, the more diverse job roles I can get among the respondents, the better). Your code can be little gems of perfection or grotesquely hackish; I like it either way. Thanks in advance; obligatory apologies for cross-posting. -- Andromeda Yelton Board of Directors, Library Information Technology Association: http://www.lita.org Advisor, Ada Initiative: http://adainitiative.org http://andromedayelton.com @ThatAndromeda http://twitter.com/ThatAndromeda
Re: [CODE4LIB] Very frustrated with Drupal
I am a Django developer, and would certainly prefer working with Django to working with Drupal ;) It's very straightforward to write CRUD views, and there are several CMSes already written on top of Django. (Here is 100% of what I know about them: the lead developer of mezzanine seems nice; django-cms is currently making me want to tear my hair out and it its views are slow.) That said, I would think carefully about whether moving to Django-or-something actually reduces your truck number. I strongly suspect Drupal knowledge is more widespread in libraries than Python knowledge. I assume you've already read the O'Reilly Using Drupal book, and one or more of Nina McHale's things on Drupal in libraries? I'm happy to answer specific questions you have in re Django. Andromeda Yelton LITA Board of Directors, Director-at-Large, 2013-2016 http://andromedayelton.com @ThatAndromeda On Wed, May 14, 2014 at 9:35 PM, Joshua Welker wel...@ucmo.edu wrote: Warning: incoming wall of text. I've been working for the past several months on building a library website with Drupal. This is my second try building a website with Drupal. I chose Drupal for two main reasons: CCK/content types, and its ubiquity in the library community. Theme development was going relatively well, if a little overly complicated. But once I started trying to do anything beyond developing static pages, I have become more and more frustrated with Drupal. Drupal supports custom content types out-of-the-box, which is great, but if you want to actually do anything with that custom content other than have it function as a plain page, you have to use the Views module. Views is great, but views can easily become very complicated, with custom rewrites, grouping, relations, contextual filters, etc. Plus, a lot of functionality in Views requires more modules (for instance, basic data manipulation). This is to build rather run-of-the-mill list features like a database list or a list of events. And a lot of the advanced features in Views require a solid understanding of SQL (groups, distinct, joins, etc), which kind of defeats the notion that it is easy for non-developers to administer. Now, at this point, I have modules extending my modules. And those modules have multiple dependencies on other modules. I am getting worried now. It feels like my website is a house of cards. I've run into several instances already where one of these plugins is updated and breaks compatibility with the whole stack, and there is nothing to do in this case but open an issue on the project tracker and pray for the best. I have looked into building my own modules, but the umpteen APIs and hooks required to do something simple as perform some regex on field data completely overwhelmed me (and I am fairly experience with web app development). It's not just Views, either. Anything more complicated than static pages and navigation menus requires relying on the module ecosystem. Not only is the whole thing quite precarious, but it defeats one of the two main purposes of a CMS: ease of administration. I want to know that if I get hit by a bus tomorrow, someone will be able to come in and take over without too much difficulty. But when I go back and look at my views, I can sometimes barely understand the work I did a week ago. It is very difficult to keep straight which functions are coming from which modules, and all those modules have separate (often poor) documentation. At this point, I am seriously contemplating dumping Drupal and moving to a full-fledged framework like Django, Flask, or Laravel and adding some WYSIWYG CRUD controls for pseudo-CMS functionality. ActiveRecord-like systems are much easier to use IMO than fiddling for hours with Views, and I have full control of what is happening. I honestly think it would be just as easy for someone to inherit a custom-built framework app as it would be to inherit my already-convoluted Drupal site. At least the framework is well-documented and should allow my app to be understandable to anyone with some programming experience. Does anyone want to talk me off the ledge here? I know a lot of you are using Drupal for your websites. What are the killer features that keep you using Drupal? If any of you have experience building websites using frameworks, what are your experiences? I really want to like Drupal, but it seems to be more trouble than it's worth. -- Josh Welker Information Technology Librarian James C. Kirkpatrick Library University of Central Missouri Warrensburg, MO 64093 JCKL 2260 660.543.8022
Re: [CODE4LIB] Very frustrated with Drupal
In the case of Django, if buy _Two Scoops of Django_ and slavishly follow its best practices (plus normal best practices like writing comments), your code will be pretty maintainable by others. CRUD views are dead simple to write and the class-based views introduced in 1.5 impose enough uniformity that your code should be pretty readable, unless you're doing a lot of custom processing (in which case how maintainable it is by others is a question about you, not about Django). At any rate, I usually haven't found it too difficult to read others' Django apps (and have often done so profitably in the absence of good documentation, alas). Andromeda Yelton LITA Board of Directors, Director-at-Large, 2013-2016 http://andromedayelton.com @ThatAndromeda On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 10:47 AM, Joshua Welker wel...@ucmo.edu wrote: Thank you all for the responses. I hope my original email did not come off as too abrasive. The issue for me is that I am having a hard time figuring out what exactly is the use case for Drupal. Do you want a dead-simple website? Use Wordpress. Do you want to add some complex custom apps? Use a framework. Do you want the worst of both worlds? Use Drupal. Getting a non-trivial Drupal site up and running requires as much work as learning a full-fledged framework like Rails, Laravel, or Django. And the experience you gain using Drupal is not going to carry over at all into any future non-Drupal endeavors because the Drupal platform is completely unique and doesn't seem to follow any basic paradigms like MVC. When doing something like basic data manipulation requires overriding core functions using custom PHP functions in my theme, the entire point of using a CMS in the first place has just been defeated. If I get hit by a bus, not only will someone have to relearn Drupal and all its modules, but they will also have to wade through my spaghetti-code efforts at patching functionality into Drupal. What I would love is a CMS based on plain SQL tables, ActiveRecord, and simple CRUD controls instead of abstract entities and fields that try to be everything to everyone (and fail to be anything for anyone). But I don't think such a thing exists, so I am interested in rolling my own with a framework. Right now, my framework choices are narrowed down to Ruby on Rails, Laravel (PHP), Django (Python), and Flask (Python). For anyone who has used these, do you have any insight into how maintainable your projects are and how easily they are managed/inherited by others? Josh On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 9:02 AM, Jason Bengtson j.bengtson...@gmail.com wrote: When I came into this position I inherited some work the former tech manager had done in installing and experimenting with Drupal as a tool to replace our current CMS-less ColdFusion environment. I also quickly grew unhappy with it. I've been experimenting with MODX, which I like so far. If you're a PHP developer, MODX will be of particular interest (and PHP is a pretty common server-side technology if you worry about the bus factor). I haven't had as much time to mess with it as I'd like, but I've built some wireframes with it and so far I like it. I second the low quality of most of the commercial, enterprise stuff. We used Cascade Server at UNM and it was absolutely wretched. It's been a long time, but when I last built a WordPress site I remember that as being easy to use and I think it's gotten more flexible/powerful. I've got a fiend who's really sold on it and HAM/TMC uses it for their website. Best regards, *Jason Bengtson, MLIS, MA* Head of Library Computing and Information Systems Assistant Professor, Graduate College Department of Health Sciences Library and Information Management University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center 405-271-2285, opt. 5 405-271-3297 (fax) *jason-bengt...@ouhsc.edu jason-bengt...@ouhsc.edu* *http://library.ouhsc.edu http://library.ouhsc.edu/* *www.jasonbengtson.com http://www.jasonbengtson.com/* NOTICE: This e-mail is intended solely for the use of the individual to whom it is addressed and may contain information that is privileged, confidential or otherwise exempt from disclosure. If the reader of this e-mail is not the intended recipient or the employee or agent responsible for delivering the message to the intended recipient, you are hereby notified that any dissemination, distribution, or copying of this communication is strictly prohibited. If you have received this communication in error, please immediately notify us by replying to the original message at the listed email address. Thank You. j.bengtson...@gmail.com On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 8:47 AM, Jason Sherman jsher...@usao.edu wrote: Joshua, From my perspective, the module ecosystem is the greatest strength that Drupal has. Modularity is one of the central design goals of the system, so if you
Re: [CODE4LIB] Python in Your Library
I'm writing a Library Technology Report for ALA TechSource on short, useful programs people have written (in whatever language) in libraries, soask me again in six months and I'll have a giant list for you ;) (In the meantime, if you've written short -- under a hundred-ish line -- programs that do fun or useful things for your library, and ideally if developer is *not* in your job title, let's talk.) IMO advantages of Python include: * (Relative) ease of learning and reading * Python makes it particularly easy to write string-manipulation-type stuff * Tons of high-quality packages available (pymarc, written by code4libbers, is particularly library-relevant) * A large, often friendly user community that cares about outreach and diversity * For me personally, it's the only programming language I know that's ever felt *fun* to write The main disadvantage in a library context is that the big open-source projects used in libraries tend not to be in Python. Also, if you want to use Python for a web app, you're going to also want to learn Django or Flask or something (which, mind you, are great; it just feels like a hurdle if you're used to embedding PHP in HTML pages). So if your goal is to script some part of your workflow (especially if you need to munch on MARC, csv, text, data...), Python is awesome. If you want to be hacking on Hydra or Koha or Drupal or Wordpress or something, you'll need a different language. Andromeda Yelton LITA Board of Directors, Director-at-Large, 2013-2016 http://andromedayelton.com @ThatAndromeda On Wed, May 7, 2014 at 9:13 AM, Julia caffr...@simmons.edu wrote: Hi All, This is my first time posting to Code4Lib. Now seems like a good time. I am wondering how you have applied Python in your library. What projects have been successful? What have you heard of other libraries doing? What advantages or disadvantages does it have compared to other scripting languages used in the library field? If you have any thoughts on any of those questions, I'd love to hear from you. Thanks, Julia caffr...@simmons.edu Simmons College Library
Re: [CODE4LIB] Fwd: Diversity
Important: this post was the subject of quite a lot of fury on Twitter, being similar to an earlier essay by Shanley Kane of the same title https://medium.com/tech-culture-briefs/a1e93d985af0 -- a fact which the Coding Horror post initially neglected to attribute. Sara Chipps, quoted in the Coding Horror post, has also publicly expressed displeasure at how the original version of the post used her words (I'm not sure whether the edits have addressed this). And people on the autism spectrum have expressed some outrage over how they are implicitly blamed for tech sexism (something that Shanley did not do in her post, which moreover has more suggestions for what you can do). So I submit that the first thing men (and everyone) can do in this thread is read Shanley first. Andromeda Yelton LITA Board of Directors, Director-at-Large, 2013-2016 http://andromedayelton.com @ThatAndromeda On Sat, Apr 26, 2014 at 8:09 PM, Peter Murray peter.mur...@lyrasis.orgwrote: Michele’s message below came out of the Sustaining Cultural Heritage Open Source Software symposium last week. Peter Begin forwarded message: From: Michele Kimpton mkimp...@duraspace.org Subject: Diversity Date: April 25, 2014 at 1:44:45 PM EDT To: sch...@googlegroups.com I thought I would share this excellent blog post on diversity in computer programming from a colleague, given our hot topic yesterday. http://blog.codinghorror.com/what-can-men-do/ Michele Kimpton Chief Executive Officer DuraSpace organization mkimp...@duraspace.org -- Peter Murray Assistant Director, Technology Services Development LYRASIS peter.mur...@lyrasis.org +1 678-235-2955 800.999.8558 x2955
[CODE4LIB] Fwd: Stripe offering $22,500 for 3 months of open source work
Sumana asked me to forward this to y'all. So if any of you can think of any open source projects that might benefit from your being paid to work on them full-time for a few months... Andromeda Yelton LITA Board of Directors, Director-at-Large, 2013-2016 http://andromedayelton.com @ThatAndromeda -- Forwarded message -- From: Sumana Harihareswara suma...@wikimedia.org Date: Fri, Apr 25, 2014 at 12:17 PM Subject: Fwd: Stripe offering $22,500 for 3 months of open source work https://stripe.com/blog/stripe-open-source-retreat Apply by May 31. If you have a plan to improve an open source project, and you could live in San Francisco for three months to work on it full-time, please apply. You don't have to be a student! You do have to be a coder and the project has to already exist. We’re looking for projects where this grant can make an especially large difference While decisions will be based on impact and merit, we’d be especially psyched to fund people from backgrounds often underrepresented in the open-source community. I'd LOVE for someone to use this grant to work on one of these: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Upstream_projects#Components -- Sumana Harihareswara Senior Technical Writer Wikimedia Foundation
Re: [CODE4LIB] Python CMSs
On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 7:13 PM, Coral Sheldon-Hess
co...@sheldon-hess.orgwrote:
Here's a broad question, re: Python and Django: If you've made the switch,
what has your experience been? Has Django (or any other Python framework)
given you something cool that was lacking in your previous
language/framework/CMS? Has it helped you build something awesome? Have you
found it enabling or limiting in any way?
I found it shockingly straightforward to get started. djangobook.com is
excellent, though out of date. I agree with Francis that Two Scoops is
indispensable. #django is friendly. docs.djangoproject.com is pretty good
most of the time (although when it is not you can tear your hair out for a
week *cough*FormWizard).
I haven't done a CMS on Django; I have worked on http://unglue.it and
http://customfit.makewearlove.com, both Django-based. Oh, and there's
http://www.babyanimalslovelita.org/ , because building toy Django projects
in a day FTW.
I love that it lets me work with database *concepts* without ever having to
write a line of actual SQL ( *shudder* ). (I mean, yes, you can write SQL,
you may run into cases where you want to for performance reasons, although
to be honest you probably won't. But you don't HAVE to.) And south handles
the black magic of database migrations pretty effectively, for when you
need to make changes. Also that there's probably a module that does X, for
most values of X.
And then a more specific question: Given the following requirements, do you
have a Django-based CMS you'd recommend?
Here is 100% of what I know about Django-based CMSes: the Mezzanine
maintainer seems like a decent sort.
* There's a chance we'll want to offer other editors access to it, at some
point, so it would be nice if I can provide a WYSIWYG interface, which I
also am going to want the option to *turn off*, for my own sanity.
There's a flatpages app that probably does this. In a couple weeks I'll
even be able to tell you something about it.
plans, so easy JavaScript (preferably jQuery) integration is a must.
Write it into the template just like you'd write it into HTML anywhere.
* Because I probably won't be here forever, it's of the utmost importance
that whatever we end up with is easy to maintain.
Yeah, this is my main concern with your idea -- the roll-your-own flavor
means that you are RIGHT NOW reducing your institution's truck number to 1.
I want to hear your documentation and training plans so I can stop
twitching.
* I'm used to MODx's page-ID model, where I can move pages around, and as
long as I don't delete/recreate a page (thereby changing its ID), I don't
have to change any links anywhere else in the CMS. I'd really like
something that will work equally well, since the odds that I'll nail the
information architecture on the first try are probably slim. :) (Maybe this
one should go without saying, since I know WordPress and many other CMSs do
this, but if you have to err, err on the side of being explicit, right?)
Django has a built-in concept of named URLs. You declare the names when you
define the URLs and best practice is to reference them in templates by
their names:
{% url myurlname %}
This means you can futz around arbitrarily with what the URLs in your
location bar look like, and none of the template references change (and
yes, it's like *clouds part, angels sing* ). There's a hiccup if you
decide you need to move some URLs to a new namespace, but it's not
conceptually hard work to fix that, just conscientious.
* A nice forms-builder plugin (module?) would be a great thing to have, as
well. We use FormIt in MODx, and now I'm spoiled.
Building django forms from database models is tremendously slick and makes
your CRUD operations very straightforward. There's a crispy-forms module
you can use to make them all pretty; frankly it's a pain (the documentation
is copious yet never QUITE seems to answer your question), but it does give
you eleventy bajillion tools for making things look exactly like you want,
and is Bootstrap-friendly. Forms not linked to db models take a bit more
work, but I have rarely found the need to write them.
Andromeda Yelton
LITA Board of Directors, Director-at-Large, 2013-2016
http://andromedayelton.com
@ThatAndromeda
Re: [CODE4LIB] Code4lib 2014 Diversity Scholarships: Call for Applications
I would like to add that the diversity scholarships have a multiplier
effect, beyond enabling some people to go to conferences. I spent about a
year deliberating whether I was cool enough to be part of code4lib, and
whether I was willing to risk that it might be a gender-hostile space
(something that is, sadly, common enough that many women need to weigh this
risk before joining tech communities). One of the big things that
convinced me that joining would be okay was the existence of these
scholarships.
Note that I have never *applied* for a code4lib diversity scholarship. But
the fact that the community was, literally, willing to put its money where
its mouth is, was a powerful signal to me that I probably wouldn't have to
deal with rape jokes or groping or people assuming I'm dumb because I'm
female.
(It turns out it's better than that, really. It's not just that you all
aren't awful - you're actively excellent. I would've settled for
technologically useful plus not-awful...this is better.)
Finances are a limiting factor on conference attendance for people of all
demographic groups, and I would endorse plans to surmount that. But
finances *and other demographically-specific issues* are barriers to
conference attendance for members of minority groups. In my mind the
code4lib diversity scholarships primarily address these other issues. A
major reason to have money on the table is that it proves to the world at
large - not just the recipient - that these efforts are credible and
sincere.
Andromeda Yelton
LITA Board of Directors, Director-at-Large, 2013-2016
http://andromedayelton.com
@ThatAndromeda
On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 2:35 PM, Nicholas Schiller
schil...@vancouver.wsu.edu wrote:
To respond to the question Mr. Eveland posed, I believe that cis men of
Arab or North African decent or cis men who identify as multi-racial or
multi-ethnic may be technically excluded by the specific phrasing of the
diversity scholarship, given how the definitions are used by the US census
bureau. (I would personally recommend people fitting those descriptions to
apply anyway.) These are at least two groups who may not receive the career
advantages and privilege accorded to white cis men (like myself), but may
not qualify according to a strict reading of this particular assistance and
award opportunity.
Beyond that, I would like to specifically contradict the assumption that
this is a zero sum game and assistance for traditionally under-served
demographics hurts others. If I am reading the posting correctly, the funds
for these awards comes from CLIR/DLF, vendors, and private donations. As
others have pointed out, other avenues, not specifically tied to diversity
or demographics, are available for those in need. This will make Code{4}Lib
better for all. After all, given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow. By
making efforts to specifically invite people who have not have felt welcome
or been excluded in the past, this assistance is making a better Code{4}Lib
for everyone.
White cis men who have financial need have avenues, as others have
referred to. Additionally, this scholarship is not the ONLY form of aid. No
avenue for financial assistance has been taken away from white cis men.
This is *new* aid that was not available in the past. Scholarships in the
past have been given for staff from public libraries that use
Evergreen/Koha. Those awards did not harm staff from academic libraries or
public libraries that purchase commercial products. In precisely the same
way, taking action to make the conference accessible to people not
traditionally served by it does not harm anyone. Indeed, by making the
community more welcoming, it strengthens the group and brings in more eyes
to make the bugs even shallower.
Re: [CODE4LIB] Python applications for libraries
On Fri, Oct 18, 2013 at 9:14 AM, Joseph Umhauer jumha...@niagara.eduwrote: I'm considering taking on online course for programming using Python. But not sure if it would be useful in my work at an academic library. So hey! If it's the one I'm teaching, I'm building it around things that are as real-worldy as I can get -- I'm thinking a PyMARC and a CSV application. I want there to be as short a runway as possible from we investigate stuff in class to we can actually do real things at work. I'm happy to see this thread, though, because I may yet tweak the examples :) And want real-world projects to point people at for future learning. Andromeda Yelton LITA Board of Directors, Director-at-Large, 2013-2016 http://andromedayelton.com @ThatAndromeda
[CODE4LIB] testing Django on Heroku
Has anyone successfully run ./manage.py test for a Django on Heroku? I'm running into the problem that the magically-created postgres user doesn't have createdb privs, so can't create the test database. Assume I've read the obvious StackOverflow and not found it helpful. So if you've gotten this to work, how? And if not, do you have an alternative testing strategy that doesn't fill you with nagging misgivings? Thanks for your help. Here's a magic sparklepony: http://fc08.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/218/c/1/neon_twilight_sparkle_wallpaper_by_ultimateultimate-d5a30mn.png Andromeda Yelton LITA Board of Directors, Director-at-Large, 2013-2016 http://andromedayelton.com @ThatAndromeda
[CODE4LIB] PyCon Call for Proposals
Attention Pythonistas! The Call for Proposals for PyCon speakers is out: http://us.pycon.org/2014/speaking/cfp/ PyCon will be April 9-17 in Montreal. (It's long because it includes tutorials and development sprints as well as conference talks; people don't necessarily attend all of it.) The Python Software Foundation sponsored the introduction to Python workshop at ALA Annual and they'd be interested in seeing proposals from the library world. But I have a conflict for early April, so y'all are going to have to supply the proposals :) Have fun! Andromeda Yelton LITA Board of Directors, Director-at-Large, 2013-2016 http://andromedayelton.com @ThatAndromeda
Re: [CODE4LIB] test
I would not want to be a bore by beating this dead horse some more and rhyming couplets are a chore so code4lib, I do implore in lieu of internet furore let's revert to threads of yore or patching bugs, or hacking core or gitignoring .DS_Store or begging zoia more, more, @more or beering at the liquor store -- Aw, screw it. This is fun. --ay On Mon, May 6, 2013 at 10:03 AM, Mark Pernotto mark.perno...@gmail.comwrote: I've never seen this before On Mon, May 6, 2013 at 6:57 AM, Michel, Jason miche...@miamioh.edu wrote: Schofield - I was gonna say that! I'll just show myself to the door. On Mon, May 6, 2013 at 9:54 AM, Michael Schofield mschofi...@nova.edu wrote: Quoth the raven, Nevermore! -Original Message- From: Code for Libraries [mailto:CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Andreas Orphanides Sent: Monday, May 06, 2013 9:50 AM To: CODE4LIB@LISTSERV.ND.EDU Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] test A vacuum nature does abhor. On Mon, May 6, 2013 at 9:48 AM, Peter Schlumpf pschlu...@earthlink.net wrote: This is a test. Please ignore. -- Jason Paul Michel User Experience Librarian Miami University Libraries 513.529.3935 miche...@muohio.edu @jpmichel https://twitter.com/jpmichel
[CODE4LIB] Intro to Python preconference at ALA Annual (early bird deadline approaching)
The LITA/ALCTS Library Code Year Interest Group is sponsoring a introduction to Python programming preconference at ALA Annual (June 28, Chicago). Based on the highly successful Boston Python Workshop, this is a friendly, supportive crash course that welcomes people at all levels of technical experience. I'm coteaching and I'm *super* excited about the chance to share this language with new Pythonistas. I've found it fun and empowering to learn, and I hope lots of others will too. Interested? You can register for the preconference at any time, but the early bird deadline for Annual is this Friday, so if you're planning to go to the conference and haven't registered yet, this is a good time -- rates will go up next week. More information at http://ala13.ala.org/ticketed-events#LITA . Andromeda
Re: [CODE4LIB] back to minorities question, seeking guidance
Like Rosy, I've been sitting on this wondering what to say, and am now following Karen, even though I wish I had more in the way of anthropological or statistical insight... Anyway. I recommend reading Unlocking the Clubhouse, which sheds a lot of light on the sometimes-subtle factors that disincentivize women's study of programming. I'd familiarize yourself with Boston Python Workshop, Railsbridge, and Hacker School -- not just their curricula but what they do to build inclusive cultures (notably Hacker School's explicit social rules: http://marthakelly.github.com/blog/2012/06/04/hacker-school-day-one/ ). The one time I TAed at Boston Python Workshop, I found the things that had the most visible positive impact on students' engagement and confidence were: 1) Naming impostor syndrome when it arose. Telling people it was a real thing with a name and they were not the only ones to experience it. (People's eyes got really wide over this one.) 2) Modeling fallibility: making it normal and okay to not know everything, to need to ask someone else or Google it. Making it clear you don't have to be omniscient to be a real technologist. (Students' relief over this was so strong it was painful to see.) I'd read http://geekfeminism.org/2012/05/21/how-i-got-50-women-speakers-at-my-tech-conference/. Then I'd try to be very aware of who speaks up in class, and whether you might be unintentionally encouraging some people more than others or allowing some to dominate, and keep in mind that people's silence may have more to do with confidence than competence. And I'd try to avoid reinventing the wheel. The Ada Initiative has done some of this work. So has GeekFeminism. So has Open Hatch. Lastly there's really no substitute for building a real thing that works, is there? Getting that high? Do what you can to give your students quick wins, not only so that they get that high, but so that they can build a self-image of themselves as capable of this stuff (which they may need to persevere as the material gets more challenging throughout the semester...) Andromeda On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 11:34 AM, Shearer, Timothy J tshea...@email.unc.edu wrote: Hi Folks, I'm teaching systems analysis at SILS (UNC CH) this semester. Though the course is required for the IS degree, it's not required for the LS degree. However, the majority of my students this semester are LS. And the vast majority are women. Apropos of the part of the thread that dealt with numbers: For those of you who came into this community and at some point went through a MSLS or MSIS program I am wondering if there are things I could try to do that might have an impact on better aligning the ratio of men to women in code4lib and the technology end of the field in general to that in the general population? Was there a moment of clarity? A person who said or modeled the right thing? A project that helped uncover a skill you didn't know you had? And, I am not just interested in what I can do through one class, but also what the curriculum and school could do more holistically. Thanks, Tim
Re: [CODE4LIB] You *are* a coder. So what am I?
On Fri, Feb 15, 2013 at 8:59 AM, Joe Hourcle onei...@grace.nascom.nasa.govwrote: Last year, we targeted the beginner's track as a sort of 'Perl as a second language', assuming that you already knew the basic concepts of programming (what's a variable, an array, a function, etc.) Would it be worth us aiming for an even lower level of expertise? Yes. Check out Boston Python Workshop and Railsbridge, which both assume no prior expertise (e.g. you've never seen a command line), and which regularly draw dozens of attendees. --ay
[CODE4LIB] in search of a project to contribute to
OK, y'all convinced me; I want to commit something to my very first big-girl open source project. Now, which? * I primarily speak Python (plus Django). I know a little jQuery. I could dust off a tiny bit of PHP (though I'd rather not) and am not averse to an excuse to learn (more than four hours of) Ruby. * I don't work for a library so I don't have access to, e.g., most ILSes; I need to be able to assemble the development environment from open-source parts. * Big ++ if the project has good documentation (not just of the code but of how to set up the dev environment, run tests, shave all the yaks, etc.) * friendly people ++ too. Andromeda (and her copious spare time. ha.)
[CODE4LIB] barbecue bourbon, 2/13
Me: I'm going to Chicago next week! My friend: My cousin manages a restaurant in Chicago. You should go there and tell him I sent you. Me: *reads menu* *sees things like artisanal barbecue and more than 40 kinds of bourbon* ( http://chicagoqrestaurant.com/ ) Reservation's at 7 on Wednesday for a party of 8. Add yourself: http://wiki.code4lib.org/index.php/2013_social_activities#Bourbon_and_barbecue. It'd be great if someone who knew something about Chicago public transit (i.e. not me) edited the wiki to include what time we should meet at the hotel, too. Andromeda
Re: [CODE4LIB] Zoia
FWIW, I am both an active #libtechwomen participant and someone who is so thoroughly charmed by zoia I am frequently bothered she isn't right there *in my real life*. (Yes, I have tried to issue zoia commands during face-to-face conversations with non-Code4Libbers.) I think a collaboratively maintained bot with a highly open ethos is always going to end up with some things that cross people's lines, and that's an opportunity to talk about those lines and rearticulate our group norms. And to that end, I'm in favor of weeding the collection of plugins, whether because of offensiveness or disuse. (Perhaps this would be a good use of github's issue tracker, too?) I also think some sort of 'what's zoia and how can you contribute' link would be useful in any welcome-newbie plugin; it did take me a while to figure out what was going on there. (Just as it took me the while to acquire the tastes for, say, coffee, bourbon, and blue cheese, tastes which I would now defend ferociously.) But not having zoia would make me sad. And defining zoia to be woman-unfriendly, when zoia-lovers and zoia-haters appear to span the gender spectrum and have a variety of reasons (both gendered and non) for their reactions, would make me sad too. @love zoia. Andromeda On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 10:38 AM, Karen Coyle li...@kcoyle.net wrote: ... and BTW, if people see Zoia as a bit of a problem during the conference, doesn't that mean that Zoia is a bit of a problem all of the time? Is there a reason to be polite and inclusive during the conference but not every day? Could this have any relation to the felt need to create #libtechwomen? kc -- Karen Coyle kco...@kcoyle.net http://kcoyle.net ph: 1-510-540-7596 m: 1-510-435-8234 skype: kcoylenet
Re: [CODE4LIB] Zoia
Merged #4. --ay On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 2:52 PM, Nick Ruest rue...@gmail.com wrote: Starting the work. Remove poledance and euph: https://github.com/code4lib/** supybot-plugins/pull/4https://github.com/code4lib/supybot-plugins/pull/4 -nruest On 13-01-18 01:17 PM, Kevin S. Clarke wrote: I think there has been general consensus that there are some offensive plugins and that the bot should be held to the same level we expect from a person, but noone (yet) has stepped up to volunteer to go through all that's available and make an effort at cleaning things up. As we all know, things don't get done in Code4Lib without someone doing the work. Anyone want to step up and volunteer to go through what's there and take a stab at it? Even a first pass might advance us to the next level of discussion... or a list of plugins in question could be farmed out to individuals interested in making the changes? Kevin (taking a step backwards) On Fri, Jan 18, 2013 at 12:41 PM, Tim Donohue tdono...@duraspace.org wrote: FWIW, there are a few zoia commands I've noticed that could come across as sexist (especially if you see Zoia as being a female bot). I don't think they are used that frequently, but I have seen: @poledance (have zoia display a poledancer) @euph (have zoia respond in a euphemism) This isn't meant to spoil any of the fun of having zoia around. For the most part, I don't take offense to zoia. But, I do find zoia annoying / noisy (which is why I'm rarely in code4lib IRC). Though there are some useful / helpful zoia commands in there. I like Jon Gorman's suggestion of having a friendly, helpful bot and a wise-cracking one. That way, those of us annoyed by the ongoing wise-cracking can ignore it, while still having access to the helpful stuff. (And it may be easier to turn off the wise-cracking parts during the conference if desired.) - Tim On 1/18/2013 10:26 AM, Karen Coyle wrote: Actually, I find the playing with Zoia itself offensive. As per my response to my own message. It objectifies women. Treats them as play-things. Makes me very uncomfortable. If we want to have an information bot, perhaps like the one used by W3C which takes minutes for meetings (Zakim, I believe it is), that seems reasonable. But to have a play-thing that is gendered is a really, really bad idea. In fact, to have a play-thing of any kind on the channel might not be a good idea. I know that some folks find it fun, but it is akin to the locker-room shenanigans (at least as I experience it), and it's a HUGE in-joke that makes it obvious to anyone new that they aren't in. kc
Re: [CODE4LIB] Mentorship Program
In terms of structure, drupalladder.org and Dreamwidth ( http://wiki.dwscoalition.org/notes/Dev_Getting_Started ) are good models for how to scaffold the process for new developers, and to help new community members regardless of skill level find places they can contribute and understand the socially accepted workflow. --ay On Thu, Dec 6, 2012 at 1:33 PM, Rosalyn Metz rosalynm...@gmail.com wrote: Hey Shaun, I was actually thinking about some of this this morning, so I'm happy to see there is someone else out there thinking about the same things. I like the idea of some type of structure to a program, I wonder if maybe we could combine Karen's idea of training with a mentorship program. I also like your idea of projects being a way to recruit future volunteers, both because it helps us know where to go to find people, but also because it would help newbies figure out what's out there in the Code4Lib world (it took me forever to realize that the website was something i needed a password to in order to vote). If you already started a wiki page point me to it, I'm happy to start fleshing out ideas! Rosalyn On Thu, Dec 6, 2012 at 10:07 AM, Shaun Ellis sha...@princeton.edu wrote: Hi Rosalyn, I agree that we should encourage women to step up and mentor other women at Code4Lib. I also see the pairing of women mentors with women mentees as fitting into an overall mentorship program, and I would be interested in collaborating with you and others to help frame it out. I don't think it needs to be very formal, but it would be important to give some structure to it so folks know what they are getting into, how to make sure everyone meets their goals, and measure the effectiveness of the program in terms of meeting code4lib goals (such as increasing diversity, getting more volunteer help, etc.). We can start a wikipage to start to flesh this out, unless folks would like to use a different forum. In addition to the RailsBridge workshop, I was thinking that Code4Lib community projects would be a great way to both learn and recruit future volunteers. I was also trying to find the list of maintenance projects wiki page that someone (Jonathan?) was referring to as being top priorities for Code4Lib. Is this it? http://wiki.code4lib.org/**index.php/AdminToDo http://wiki.code4lib.org/index.php/AdminToDo Thoughts? -Shaun On 12/5/12 3:57 PM, Rosalyn Metz wrote: So rather than focusing on statistics and math, I'd like to steer the conversation in a different direction. Let's say Ross is right and more women chose to take the survey based on the topic -- maybe that's a way to get women involved in Code4Lib. Karen had the idea of creating a women Code4Lib IRC channel, maybe that can be a place to start. Or maybe we have a few women that are willing to step up and be a Code4Lib mentor to other women -- similar to what we do for the new member event at the conference. I'd even be willing to step up and organize that if people like the idea. Thoughts? On Wed, Dec 5, 2012 at 4:00 PM, stuart yeates stuart.yea...@vuw.ac.nz ** wrote: On 06/12/12 09:05, Sara Amato wrote: I'd been staying out of this discussion, but the thought occurs to me that someone with access to the list of subscribers might run that against a list of traditional boy/girl names, and be able to make some guesses…. That idea runs into problems both with non-western names (there is more than one kind of diversity) and those people whose experience of gender in the workplace have led them to use non-gender-specific identifiers. cheers stuart -- Stuart Yeates Library Technology Services http://www.victoria.ac.nz/library/ http://www.victoria.ac.nz/**library/ http://www.victoria.**ac.nz/library/ http://www.victoria.ac.nz/library/ -- Shaun D. Ellis Digital Library Interface Developer Firestone Library, Princeton University voice: 609.258.1698 | sha...@princeton.edu
Re: [CODE4LIB] What is a coder?
On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 10:46 PM, Jonathan Rochkind rochk...@jhu.eduwrote: A coder is someone who writes code, naturally. :) code is something intended to be interpreted or executed by a computer or a computer program. I think everyone agrees that anyone is welcome at code4lib. I agree with this *now that I am here*, but I did not know that it would be the case in advance. When people ask me to self-identify as a coder I get totally deer-in-headlights and tend to not raise my hand unless told to do so point-blank. What is a coder is a great question but for the purposes of diversity outreach who self-identifies as a coder (or technologist) is more relevant, and I think that's a question where you're going to find systematic demographic differences in the skillset required before people are willing to say me. Andromeda
[CODE4LIB]
On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 10:14 PM, Ross Singer rossfsin...@gmail.com wrote: I had a conference proposal that I can up with the night before the CfP closed that was project board for libraries to jointly collaborate on developing the sorts projects that get built over and over again at every library, with the idea that collaborative development could both immediately expand the development teams at any given library, but also foster this sort of mentor/learner relationship. I for one would love to see help with this. Andromeda
[CODE4LIB]
On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 9:11 AM, Chad Nelson chadbnel...@gmail.com wrote: Is there something this community needs to do to encourage more women to feel like they can and should speak / propose sessions? This is relevant to my interests! This blog post, and its follow-up, by organizers of two different conferences are the best I've seen on this topic: http://geekfeminism.org/2012/05/21/how-i-got-50-women-speakers-at-my-tech-conference/ , http://2012.jsconf.eu/2012/09/17/beating-the-odds-how-we-got-25-percent-women-speakers.html My personal experiences: I pitched a talk to PyCon 2013 (waiting to hear back). I would never in a million years have thought of doing this, because I don't think of myself as being enough of a developer to have anything to say at a real tech conference. But one of the PyCon organizers asked me personally to do so, which was in fact all I needed to start taking seriously the idea that I might have something to say that people might want to hear. This is pretty much exactly the approach in the blog posts above. Women are less likely to think they have things to say, less likely to realize that talk-driven development is an option, more likely to believe they have to meet a very high level of expertise before they get to pitch talks -- but when you *ask*, they turn out to have just as many interesting things to say as the men. (I expect the same is true for other underrepresented groups.) When you don't see People Like You in the room (along whatever axis of like feels relevant), it's a lot harder to believe that there's a place for you there. Someone telling you specifically that there is makes a huge difference. And honestly? It's not as if it's *hard* to identify diverse library technologists. You just have to actually sit down and do it, because if you put out a passive call you'll get the same people you always do, and the ones who aren't Like That won't step up. Even if the environment once they get there is totally friendly. I'm on the planning committee for LITA National Forum 2013 and I'm trying to take this approach -- brainstorming about people groups who are outside of our core constituency but are doing interesting tech stuff, or know people who are, and personally asking them to pitch a talk. When we get those, we'll subject them to exactly the same scrutiny as all the rest, but having a broader range represented should give us some really interesting possibilities for the final program. I'd really like to see a wide range of use cases and speakers represented. (Speaking of which, y'all can has CFP: http://litablog.org/2012/10/lita-forum-2013-call-for-proposals/ Pull reque -- er, Google Form submissions -- eagerly awaited.) Andromeda
Re: [CODE4LIB] Diversity of presenters (was bibliotechy's fat fingers)
On Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 10:02 AM, Ross Singer rossfsin...@gmail.com wrote: I would be interested to see the gender breakdown in the CfP for comparable conferences (LITA National, Access) and if Code4lib's numbers are noticeably lower, meeting with those groups to determine why. I would be happy to run the Forum 13 numbers after our CFP window closes in the spring and engage in that sort of conversation. (I don't speak for the committee as a whole, of course.) FYI, for Forum 12, the (non-keynote, non-poster-session) speakers were 41% male, 56% female (small% I-couldn't-tell-from-names-or-find-photos). I don't know about the ratio of proposers as I wasn't on that committee. I don't know whether I feel good or bad about the 41/56 ratio -- I mean, it's kinda even (yay!) but dramatically unrepresentative of librarianship as a whole (boo!) I feel much twitchier when I break down the list by race (71% white, though that's actually less than librarianship as a whole, yikes) or library type (76% academic? oh my). I am *extremely confident* that library technology use cases are not limited to white people in academic libraries. But if the conversation is limited to those use cases, the technology actually produced is likely to be as well. Andromeda
[CODE4LIB] Call for participation: LITA/ALCTS Library Code Year IG meeting at ALA 2012 Annual
Call for participation: LITA/ALCTS Library Code Year IG The Library Code Year interest group is having its first meeting at Annual. We're dedicated to helping librarians learn to code and to apply that in their work lives. What does that mean? You tell us! At our first meeting we'll be figuring out how we can best support librarians of a variety of tech skill levels in moving forward. We're also looking for a few speakers to give lightning talks: What strategies, or roadblocks, have you found in learning to code? How have you used programming to improve library service models or workflows? The Library Code Year Interest Group seeks speakers for lightning talks (5 minutes) on any aspect of coding and libraries, including projects you have completed, your experience learning to code or thoughts on projects you would like to see in the future. Our inaugural meeting will be Saturday, June 23, 1:30-3:30 at the Doubletree Suites (Tuscany AB). Speakers at all levels of coding skill and from all types of library backgrounds are invited to participate. Saturday, June 23, 2012 - 1:30pm to 3:30pm Doubletree Suites Tuscany AB http://ala12.scheduler.ala.org/node/651 Hope to see you there! Feel free to email me off-the-list (andromeda.yel...@gmail.com) and/or post your topic at ALA Connect : *http://connect.ala.org/node/167971* * *Thank you! Andromeda Yelton
