Library Carpentry is software skills training aimed at the needs and requirements of library professionals (that is, coding and data manipulation that goes beyond the use of familiar office suites). It is made by librarians, for librarians to help you:

• automate repetitive, boring, error-prone tasks
• create, maintain and analyse sustainable and reusable data
• work effectively with IT and systems colleagues
• better understand the use of software in research
• and much more..

Training takes places in face-to-face workshops where one or more of the developed modules are taught. Modules are also made available online (CC BY, published via GitHub Pages) for self-directed study or for adaption and reuse by library professionals.

Thanks to the generosity of British Library Labs, Library Carpentry has £500 (or non-GBP equivalent) available to an individual or group who wish to run a Library Carpentry workshop at a library or for librarians. A Library Carpentry workshop is a face-to-face event where one or more of the currently developed modules are taught. Each module is designed to be taught over a half-day and a typical workshop combines these over one or more days, consecutive or otherwise (for more on what a Library Carpentry workshop is, see our About page).

Applications for these funds should include the following information:

• Where the workshop will be held
• The workshop host and a contact email address
• The workshop instructors(s) and helper(s)
• The format of the workshop
  • For example: 1 day, 2 consecutive days, 3 non-consecutive half-days (or whatever format works for you)
• Which Library Carpentry modules will be taught
  • Maintained lessons are ‘Data Intro for Librarians’, ‘Unix Shell for Librarians’, ‘Git Intro for Librarians’, ‘OpenRefine for Librarians’, and ‘SQL for Libraries’. See https://github.com/data-lessons. If you want to teach something else, describe what it is and why you want to teach it
• How many people the workshops hopes to accomodate
• The communities that will be targeted and why those communities are important
• Plans to capture feedback from attendees that will aid the future development of Library Carpentry
• The expected media presence of the workshop (before, during, and after)
• What the money will be spent on. This can be used to cover:
  • Travel expenses for trainers
  • Refreshments for attendees
  • Room bookings
  • If you want to fund something else, ask James at james.baker@sussex.ac.uk before submitting your application.

Applications should be sent as an attachment to james.baker@sussex.ac.uk by 16 December 2016. The funded workshop should take place by July 2017. Applicatants will be notified in early-January 2017. Those that are not selected, we’ll do our best to support in some way!

By James Baker