I had the opportunity, at work (and a bit outside of work), to learn the GitHub API, as wrapped by Python’s github3 module. I found the documentation really hard to follow, maybe because I don’t have a lot of experience reading API docs, or because it wasn’t organized in the…
I’ve been rolling this post around in my head for a couple of days, in between attending conference and binge-(re)watching Firefly. It turns out, I have put a lot of time and effort—and, more importantly, thought—into creating and running a WiT group, so I have a lot to say…
I’m taking CS50x through edX this year, along with some local ladies. My goal for myself is to get through the projects a little faster than one per month (yes, they’re called “weeks” in the courseware, but there are 12 of them, with everything due on December 31), 1) so…
A friend asked me how one might learn to code, if they’ve never coded before. I rattled off some of the resources I knew about, but promised to send links. And then I realized that, of course, this friend isn’t the only person with this question… So I figured I’d…
I’m going to say something I probably shouldn’t (for, indeed, what other purpose do blogs have?), but I hope that doing so will help other people, if they’re having similar issues. My admission: I’ve been feeling like an utter fraud and a complete failure at a significant portion of my…
I’ve enjoyed the Coursera Python MOOC so far, though I didn’t end up with a local—or even a distance—cohort of people taking it with me. Things have been kind of hectic, both at work and with outside projects and medical stuff, and I ended up doing the homework on Saturday,…
My last post was a serious downer, and I apologize for that. I debated skipping the medical stuff, but I really felt like I needed to justify my decision to back out of ALA—if not to everyone else, then at least to myself. (And enough people have asked “What did…
About class (and teaching/learning programming): In Week 1 we covered functions, the modulo operator, comparisons, and if/elif/else. They offer a tool called “Pystep,” where you can see functions being evaluated. I am not sure whether it is actually more helpful or more confusing to someone who is unfamiliar with programming,…
Or something like that. (It’s a possible mis-quote of my department head. He was trying to make me feel better with this statement, and it was surprisingly effective.) This is the story of Librarians Build Communities (LBC) in Alaska. To jog your memory: LBC is an advocacy program, where librarians…
While I’m not the first to tackle librarianship and identity, by a [very very] long shot, it’s on my mind right now. Earlier this week I was told to train a new part-time reference librarian (<grumpy>with not a lot of warning</grumpy>). Training someone to do reference in this library is…
