Python at ALA

Before the preconference

Preconference

What To Do Next

Wrap up, credits, and next steps

Goals

  • Tell us how we did
  • Leave here with ideas of what to do next!

Housekeeping

Please come to our interest group meeting (Saturday at 1, Hilton-Marquette)

You can also join our Connect group to stay in the loop about (and create!) future opportunities.

We need a volunteer to write a TechConnect post! (We'd love it if you blogged, tweeted, Instagrammed, tumblred, etc. your experience in your own social media spaces, too. Tag it with #ala2013py.)

If you're not yet on the class Google group (ala2013py), please ask a TA to be added so that you can get follow-up info and talk Python with your new friends!

Finally, we need you to give us feedback on how this preconference went.

Next steps!

The CatCode wiki has lists of resources and support groups.

Staff member Becky Yoose maintains LibCatCode, where you can ask and answer questions at the intersection of code and metadata.

More projects! The Boston Python Workshop has a project using the Twitter API that we didn't do today. They're also developing projects for an Intermediate Python Workshop.

Free Python courses to review at your leisure: Google's Python class, Think Python, Learn Python the Hard Way.

How I taught myself to code in eight weeks is a great syllabus for reviewing and extending today's work.

Talks from Boston Python Workshop's project nights.

OpenHatch matches prospective open source software contributors with free projects. It includes training missions to build your skills, a directory of bugs seeking fixes (which you can browse by language and difficulty), and a listing of face-to-face events.

Start a project in the Library Code Year IG github org. (Don't know how to git? We've got you covered.)

Find collaborators, coconspirators, and partners in crime. Stay in touch with each other. Get active in the Library Code Year Interest Group, LITA, ALCTS, CatCode, LibCatCode, Code4Lib, LibTechWomen, a local Python user group -- (probably) not all of them, but wherever you feel at home.

Above all, build something. Anything. Start from scratch, or start from someone else's code. Break it. Fix it. Keep going.

Credits

Again, a big thank you to the Python Software Foundation and Polly-Alida Farrington of PA Farrington Associates for feeding us lunch.

This curriculum was very lightly modified from that of the Boston Python Workshop. As part of the PSF's commitment to diversity, this organization has taught Python basics to hundreds of people, mostly women.

The stylesheet came from Railsbridge, the program that inspired the Boston Python Workshop. If you enjoyed today and would also like to learn some Ruby, look into Railsbridge.

Thank you to LITA and ALCTS for supporting the interest group, and the LITA staff in particular for their help in running this event.

And thanks to our great staff members, who ran around answering Python questions all day!

Back to After lunch