Abstract
Librarians play a crucial role in cultivating world-class research and in most disciplinary areas today world-class research relies on the use of software. This paper describes Library Carpentry, an introductory software skills training programme with a focus on the needs and requirements of library and information professionals. Using Library Carpentry as a case study of the development and delivery of software skills focused professional development, this paper describes the institutional and intellectual contexts in which Library Carpentry was conceived, the syllabus used for the initial exploratory programme, the administrative apparatus through which the programme was delivered, and the analysis of data collection exercises conducted during the programme. As many university librarians already have substantial expertise working with data, it argues that adding software skills (that is, coding and data manipulation that goes beyond the use of familiar office suites) to their armoury is an effective and important use of professional development resource.
Highlights
Jonathan Rochkind (2007) argued in his Editorial Introduction to the inaugural issue of The Code4Lib Journal that:
As many university librarians already have substantial expertise working with data, it argues that adding software skills to their armoury is an effective and important use of professional development resources
These three sets of data point to three provisional findings and recommendations: 1) Library and information science professionals both value the acquisition of software skills as part of their professional development and report a low competency in such skills
Summary
The Library Carpentry syllabus delivered in during the exploratory programme was aimed at beginners, required no prerequisite knowledge, and was tailored to align with the needs and requirements of library and information science professionals through the use of relevant examples, data, and exercises. That attendees understood the importance of openly licensed software with strong and diverse user communities and how these characteristics could support both self-directed learning and professional development. To support the delivery of these learning outcomes, the syllabus was built around use cases with clear relevance to library practice and functionality found in multiple software tools. The latter was important in syllabus construction. The choice to offer a session that focused on the interactive data cleanup tool OpenRefine, for example, was made because OpenRefine is a powerful software tool for manipulating tabulated data that is well liked by librarians and is underpinned by a strong user community, and because OpenRefine queries are built on both regular expressions and programming languages (Jython, Clojure, and the bespoke General Refine Expression Language) that introduce learners to clear, well-documented, and well-constructed programming syntax
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