Announcing the Library Carpentry Curriculum Advisory Committee

Helping keep lessons on track

By Chris Erdmann

I’m happy to announce the members of the inaugural Library Carpentry Curriculum Advisory Committee (CAC):

The Carpentries Handbook provides a description of the philosophy guiding the Committee and the responsibilities of Curriculum Advisors.

At our first meeting, we scoped out some of the initial items that the CAC will investigate including lesson coordination and formalization. We discussed improving instructor material and will read Teaching Tech Together by Greg Wilson. We will also seek out guidance from The Carpentries to help us determine our first steps.

In the meantime, I wanted to welcome Carmi, Katrin, Mark, Tim, and Erika and thank them for taking on this important role.

Interest in Joining the Committee

Carmi Cronje

I’m interested in learning about the Library Carpentry community’s needs in Australia, keeping in tune with new tech developments and working with CAC to evaluate which can be put in the pipeline for future lesson development. Supporting and fostering communication between lesson maintainers to optimise processes for the community to contribute to lesson development is also a priority.

Katrin Leinweber

Thanks for inviting me to help the LibraryCarpentry community! My goal is to improve the existing lessons, and develop new ones where needed effectively.

Mark Laufersweiler

I have been active with Carpentries for nearly 6 years as a learner, helper, instructor, and Trainer. When changing jobs from meteorology to work at the OU Libraries as the Research Data Specialist, I helped to make the library the focal point for Carpentries as part of our outreach for researchers and better research data management practices. I look forward to facilitating curriculum development for instructing library staff to promote computing skills that will help with changing roles and duties in libraries.

Tim Dennis

I’m very excited to serve on the first Library Carpentry Curriculum Advisory Committee. I’m looking forward to working with the Committee and community to make our lessons meet the evolving needs of Librarians and information professionals. I’m also eager to help create a lesson development process that supports its contributors so we can grow a vibrant community around our curriculum.

Erika Mias

The first Carpentries workshop I attended was a Library Carpentry one in 2015: The curriculum has adapted and expanded so much since then and I am pleased to have this chance to give back to the LC community in a new way by working on the CAC. Since 2015 I’ve been a helper at and instructor at several workshops and worked with collegues to adapt LC lesson material for special training within a univerity library. I’ve served on the African Task force since 2017, worked as a collections manager in natural history collections, a digital curation officer in a university library and also worked as an admin for African Carpentries.