PyGotham is a fine conference, but it is online again this year, and I have frankly reached my limit on how many online events I can attend. At this point, my eyeballs rebel at the prospect of watching another Zoom presentation. So I am considering some other things. Like PyCon. PyCon 2023 in Salt Lake… Continue reading In person
Librarian achievement unlocked
I’m running my first survey, so I feel like a real academic librarian now. Surveys are so ubiquitous in our field that I’m surprised I’ve managed to avoid doing one so far. It has been an interesting process. To administer the survey, my college set me up with a Qualtrics account and an IRB application… Continue reading Librarian achievement unlocked
Code4Lib debrief
Well, Code4Lib wrapped up today, and it was as good as I had hoped it would be. It’s wonderful to talk to librarians who share similar responsibilities, interests and preoccupations to mine. I feel a great deal of mutual support and empathy for these colleagues who are on similar paths. The conference sessions got me… Continue reading Code4Lib debrief
Seven years
As of today, this blog has been running for seven years. While there have been some hard times, there have also been some optimistic moments where I’ve been really glad to do this kind of work. And while I’ve posted some charts over the years, I’m proud to say that I have yet to post… Continue reading Seven years
Why we need version control in LibGuides
LibGuides doesn’t have version control. In my opinion, it really should. I’m not the first to suggest this. I am told that others have also requested this feature. Hopefully Springshare is working on this. One of the hurdles in implementing version control is that it can sometimes be confusing. Git is certainly daunting to newcomers.… Continue reading Why we need version control in LibGuides
Creating a desktop application using Python (part 2)
Usually code works for a while, until it doesn’t. That happened to me this week with new-books-desktop, my desktop application for producing our monthly new books list. I had recently lost the virtualenv that was being used to build the executable to a replaced hard drive, and was hoping that it would be easy enough… Continue reading Creating a desktop application using Python (part 2)
LibGuides for non-librarians
Next month, I’m planning to teach a workshop for non-librarian faculty on how to use LibGuides. This will be a first for me. LibGuides is a very library-focused tool, and I am curious to see how it goes over with non-librarians. On the one hand, LibGuides is a very accessible, general-purpose CMS that would seem… Continue reading LibGuides for non-librarians
StackOverflow
I really dislike StackOverflow. While I acknowledge that it is sometimes useful, I really don’t like the negativity, the showboating, and the pile-on mentality toward people who deviate at all from a perfectly asked question. So when I recently realized that a giant archive of StackOverflow comments is available to download (https://archive.org/details/stackexchange), I saw an… Continue reading StackOverflow
Code4Lib
I am very excited to be attending Code4Lib’s upcoming conference, taking place in May in Buffalo. It will be my first return to an in person conference since the before the pandemic. I am excited about all of it: the train ride to Buffalo, staying in a hotel, the conference sessions, the socializing. There is… Continue reading Code4Lib
Self-taught
A very democratic trait amongst programmers is that they are generally very open to people who are self-taught. I assume this is because the typical yardstick of a good programmer is what they can produce with code, not their credentials. In some respects, this is very meritocratic, and in theory you can do well if… Continue reading Self-taught
