The Carpentries project comprises the Software Carpentry, Data Carpentry, and
Library Carpentry communities of Instructors, Trainers, Maintainers,
helpers, and supporters who share a mission to teach foundational computational and data science
skills to researchers.
Want to learn more and stay engaged with The Carpentries? Carpentries Clippings is The Carpentries' biweekly newsletter, where we share community news, community job postings, and more.
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Library Carpentry
is made by people working in library- and information-related roles to help you:
automate repetitive, boring, error-prone tasks
create, maintain and analyze sustainable and reusable data
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.
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 committed to making this workshop
accessible to everybody.
We are dedicated to providing a positive and accessible learning environment for all.
We do not require participants to provide documentation of disabilities or disclose any unnecessary personal information.
However, we do want to help create an inclusive, accessible experience for all participants.
We encourage you to share any information that would be helpful to make your Carpentries experience accessible.
To request accessibility support for this workshop, please fill out the
accessibility support request form.
If you have questions or need assistance with the accessibility support form please email us.
Glosario is a multilingual glossary
for computing and data science terms. The glossary helps
learners attend workshops and use our lessons to make sense of computational and programming jargon written in English by offering it
in their native language. Translating data science terms also provides a teaching tool for Carpentries Instructors to reduce barriers
for their learners.
Workshop Recordings:
Carpentries workshops are designed to be interactive rather than lecture-based, with lessons that build upon one another.
To foster a positive online learning environment, we strongly recommend that participants join in real time.
As a result, workshop recordings are not recommended and may not be available to learners.
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.
Surveys
Please be sure to complete these surveys before and after the workshop.
Mid-Workshop Break: No sessions Thursday, May 14 – Sunday, May 17.
Day 4: Monday, May 18
09:00
Introduction to OpenRefine
09:30
Importing & Exploring Data
10:15
Faceting and Filtering
10:30
Break
10:45
Clustering & Working with Columns
11:30
Transformations (GREL) & Exporting
12:00
Wrap-up
Day 5: Tuesday, May 19
09:00
Python: Variables & Types
09:45
Lists & Built-in Functions
10:30
Break
10:45
Libraries & Introduction to Pandas
11:30
For Loops & Looping Over Datasets
12:00
Wrap-up
Day 6: Wednesday, May 20
09:00
Advanced Pandas & Filtering Data
10:00
Conditionals & Writing Functions
10:30
Break
10:45
Data Visualization with Python
11:30
Post-workshop Survey & Wrap-up
12:00
End of Workshop
Setup
To participate in a
Library Carpentry
workshop,
you will need access to software as described below.
In addition, you will need an up-to-date web browser.
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:
Two monitors: If you have two monitors,
plan to have the tool you are learning up on one monitor and
the video conferencing software on the other.
Two devices: If you don't have two monitors,
do you have another device (tablet, smartphone) with a medium to large
sized screen? If so, try using the smaller device as your video
conference connection and your larger device (laptop or desktop)
to follow along with the tool you will be learning about.
Divide your screen: If you only have one device
and one screen, practice having two windows
(the video conference program and one of the tools you will be using
at the workshop) open together.
How can you best fit both on your screen?
Will it work better for you to toggle between them
using a keyboard shortcut?
Try it out in advance to decide what will work best for you.
This blog post includes detailed information on how to set up your screen to follow along during the workshop.
Spreadsheet Software
To interact with spreadsheets, we can use LibreOffice,
Microsoft Excel,
Gnumeric,
OpenOffice.org,
or other programs.
Commands may differ a bit between programs, but general ideas for thinking about spreadsheets is the same.
For this lesson, if you don't have a spreadsheet program already,
you can use [LibreOffice](https://www.libreoffice.org).
It is a free, open source spreadsheet program.
Windows
Download the Installer:
Install LibreOffice by going to the
installation page.
The version for Windows should automatically be selected.
Click Download.
You will go to a page that asks about a donation, but you don't need to make one.
Your download should begin automatically.
Install LibreOffice:
Once the installer is downloaded, double click on it and it should install.
Mac OS
Download the Installer:
Install LibreOffice by going to the
installation page.
The version for Mac OS should automatically be selected.
Click Download.
You will go to a page that asks about a donation, but you don't need to make one.
Your download should begin automatically.
Install LibreOffice:
The file LibreOffice\_X.X.X\_MacOS\_x86-64 (whichever version of LibreOffice you have selected) should have been downloaded.
Double click on this file, and LibreOffice will be installed.
Linux
Download the Installer:
Install LibreOffice by going to the
installation page.
The version for Linux should automatically be selected.
Click Download.
You will go to a page that asks about a donation, but you don't need to make one.
Your download should begin automatically.
Install LibreOffice:
Once the installer is downloaded, double click on it and it should install.
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.
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
Conda-forge,
an all-in-one installer.
Regardless of how you choose to install it,
please make sure you install a Python version >= 3.9
(e.g. 3.11 is fine, 3.6 is not).
We will teach Python using the Jupyter Notebook,
a programming environment that runs in a web browser (Jupyter Notebook will be installed by Miniforge). 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).
OneDrive is used by many institutions to sync your user folder (C:\Users\[your-username]\) within an organisation.
It may cause issues with the installation of the Carpentries environment.
If you have OneDrive set up, please ensure that you can access your C:\Users\[your-username]\Downloads folder:
Open File Explorer
Right click on the "Downloads" folder in the left-hand navigation pane
Select "Properties"
In the "Location" tab, ensure that the path is set to C:\Users\[your-username]\Downloads
If you encounter problems, please contact your IT support team and workshop organisers for assistance before the workshop.
Save the file to your C:\Users\[your-username]\Downloads folder.
Make sure that the filename is carpentries_environment.yml and the "Save as type" option is set to YML file (*.yml) The following steps requires using the Miniforge Prompt command line. If you aren't comfortable doing the installation yourself stop here and request help at the workshop.
Open your Start Menu from your taskbar, or use the Win Windows key.
Search for the application "Miniforge Prompt", and click the icon to open it.
Once open, ensure the prompt shows your C:\Users\[your-username] folder. If it does, continue to Step 8 below:
In this case, the prompt shows C:\Users\froggleston. Your username will be different!
If it doesn't:
Find your username by typing whoami and press Enter
Your username will be shown as [machine-name]\[your-username]. You only need the [your-username] part after the slash, i.e. froggleston in this example.
Type cd C:\Users\[your-username] and press Enter
Continue to Step 8 below
If you get stuck, please contact your workshop organisers to get assistance before the workshop starts.
In the Miniforge Prompt window, run the following commands:
Type cd Downloads and press Enter
Type conda env create -f carpentries_environment.yml and press Enter
The installation may take a few minutes depending on your internet connection speed. Once complete, you can close the Miniforge Prompt window.
Download the appropriate Miniforge installer for macOS The following steps require using the shell. If you aren't comfortable doing the installation yourself stop here and request help at the workshop.
Open a terminal window and navigate to the directory where the executable is downloaded (e.g., cd ~/Downloads).
Type
bash Miniforge3-
and then press Tab to autocomplete the full file name.
The name of file you just downloaded should appear.
Press Enter (or Return depending on your keyboard).
Follow the text-only prompts in the terminal. To move through the text, press Spacebar.
Type yes and press Enter (or Return) to approve the license.
Press Enter (or Return) to approve the default location for the files.
Type yes and press Enter (or Return) to prepend Miniforge to your PATH (this makes the Miniforge distribution the default Python).
Download the appropriate Miniforge installer for Linux The following steps require using the shell. If you aren't comfortable doing the installation yourself stop here and request help at the workshop.
Open a terminal window and navigate to the directory where the executable is downloaded (e.g., cd ~/Downloads).
Type
bash Miniforge3-
and then press Tab to autocomplete the full file name.
The name of file you just downloaded should appear.
Press Enter (or Return depending on your keyboard).
Follow the text-only prompts in the terminal.
To move through the text, press Spacebar.
Type yes and press Enter (or Return) to approve the license.
Press Enter (or Return) to approve the default location for the files.
Type yes and press Enter (or Return) to prepend Miniforge to your PATH (this makes the Miniforge distribution the default Python).
![Miniforge Prompt [your-username] as froggleston](assets/img/miniforge_prompt.png)
