Difference between revisions of "Mentorship Program"

Revision as of 20:10, 3 March 2015

Goals

• Bring people together to build individual capacity and empowerment
• Increase diversity in participation and presentation at Code4Lib (both online and at conferences)
• Increase number of volunteers for developing and maintaining Code4Lib software projects

Structure

Structure of the relationship between mentor and mentee can and should be defined at the outset by the parties involved. However, here are a few simple guidelines you may or may not want to follow for success:

• Set up a clear overall goal and timeframe. "Learn Ruby" is ok, but is not specific enough. "Create and deploy experimental Vote2Promote discussion board in Ruby on Rails" would be better.
• Set up expectations. For example:
  • Set aside time each week to collaborate on articulating weekly goals.
  • Establish a communication platform and expected response time in advance.
  • Establish "office hours" in chat room or IM for questions and review of progress
• Evaluation: We would love to know what worked or didn't work for advice to future mentors

Platforms for communication

This is generally worked out between the mentor and the partner. A mentor is not a replacement for reading the manual (RTFM). Please read the following before asking questions of the mentor (or the listserv for that matter): How to Ask Questions the Smart Way

• Instant Messenger
• Trello
• IRC Chat Room (Code4Lib)
• Email

Participants

Please state whether or not you have a preference for your mentor or partner to be male, female, or some other unique demographic characteristics. Otherwise, it will be assumed that you don't mind either way.

Mentors

Bess Sadler - I currently have a couple of pro bono projects that would be good learning opportunities for someone interested in learning more about Blacklight, Ruby on Rails, Solr, museums, or libraries in Africa. I am also happy to be a mentor generally, and I'm open to suggestions about what form that might take.

Eric Larson - I have been working in large academic libraries as a web designer/application developer for a decade. I am also the co-founder of a business successfully selling software to libraries. I would be interesting in mentoring people on entrepreneurship in libraries. I can offer advice on how to form a company, how to market your product, what it costs to exhibit at conferences, etc. I would also be happy to mentor people new to the field of library application development. I can answer all those questions you are afraid to ask elsewhere.

Partners

Bess Sadler - I have been a developer for Digital Humanities and Library software projects for over a decade, but I am relatively new to library management and administration and I would love to find a mentor with more experience than I have in those areas.

Jessica Wood - Currently a cataloger, looking for projects to improve my coding skills and get past the basic "learn to code" stuff, and to move more into the tech side of librarianship.

David Anderson - Looking to get some (any) experience with Solr and/or Drupal. Happy to contribute a small amount of free labor to interesting projects in exchange for knowledge. Currently a federal systems librarian, got MLS a year and a half ago. Been in the library field for 9 years in a wide variety of roles, if anyone wants to learn from my mistakes.

Jeffrey Sabol - Would like to gain experience coding in Ruby and Ruby on Rails. I would also like to learn about Solr and SQL databases. If anybody currently uses OCLC's WMS I would like to learn more about that system. I currently work as the Electronic Resources and Systems Librarian at Marymount California University. I would be willing to assist and help with any project that would help me learn these skills.

Code4Lib Community Projects for Mentorship Opportunities

• Wiki Cleanup? - Lots of pages are out of date and other pages are hard to find. Perhaps even migrate from MediaWiki to Github Wiki.
• Drupal Upgrades?
• Code4Lib Journal WordPress Upgrades?
• RailsBridge Workshop (either at Conference or individual effort)