Revision as of 06:27, 3 December 2016

Welcome to code4lib BC!

Begun in Summer 2013, this chapter aims to create connections and professional development opportunities for folks from British Columbia and surrounding areas.

Code4lib BC Unconference 2016

Registration is now open for Code4Lib BC's fourth annual unconference!

• December 1 and 2, 2016
• Dodson Room, Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, UBC, Vancouver BC
• Register now ($30 for both days)
• Propose a lightning talk or breakout session

What's it all about?

It's a 2-day unconference - a participant-driven meeting bringing together a diverse and open community of library developers and non-developers engaging in effective, collaborative problem-solving through technology regardless of their department or background.

The event will feature lightning talks in the mornings, breakout sessions in the afternoons, with coffee, tea and snacks provided. Lightning talks are brief presentations which are typically 10-15 minutes in length on topics related to library technologies. Breakout sessions are an opportunity to bring participants together in an ad hoc fashion for a short, yet sustained period of problem solving, software development and fun. If there is a neat project you're been working on, a cool new tool you want to show off, or an interesting development in the world of library technology that you want to discuss, Code4Lib BC is a great opportunity to share with the community - let us know about it!

What's included: wifi, power, coffee/snacks

What's NOT included/what to bring: a laptop, lunch (on-campus options here and here), your ideas and enthusiasm

Hashtag: #c4lbc

Code of Conduct: As a Code4Lib event, we adhere to the Code4Lib Code of Conduct, which seeks to provide a welcoming, harassment-free environment. Need an ear, hand, or help? C4LBC helpers: @therealarty (she/her) @skrrrl (he/him)

Schedule

Thursday, December 1

Friday, December 2

Program

Alphabetical by presenter/facilitator.

Lightning Talks

Defining Projects using Gherkin Syntax, Sara Allain, Artefactual

• The team at Artefactual has recently started using Gherkin, a human-readable syntax for defining software feature acceptance tests, in select software development projects. In this lightning talk, Sara will show how Gherkin acceptance tests are developed and how they're used by both end-users and developers.

Building Quick and Dirty Library Tools with Google Apps Script, Terry Brady, Georgetown University

• The ubiquity of Google Drive solves many problems (file sharing, web publishing, bulk editing) that are cumbersome to build in a home-grown application. With a little bit of JavaScript magic, you can build a custom solution on top of the Google Apps your users use every day. See http://georgetown-university-libraries.github.io/#google-sheets for some examples. Google Apps Script is a server-side implementation of JavaScript supporting API calls to Google Services. This presentation will describe the various ways that your custom code can be deployed for a library audience (formula function, embedded in a document, web service, document add-on).

A Single Page Web App to Inventory 900,000 Books!, Terry Brady, Georgetown University

• After completing a reorganization of our stacks, the Georgetown University Library needs to perform an inventory of 900,000 books within our stacks. This project needs to be completed before migrating our catalog to a new ILS (integrated library system) vendor in 2017.
• The Georgetown University Library has developed an application that allows student workers with a barcode scanner and a Chromebook to rapidly move through the stacks and scan each item. The tool queries the ILS database to verify the item's status and location, while allowing the user to verify the Title, Call Number and Volume of each item. The tool will also highlight call number sorting errors with each scan.
• This presentation will describe the solution that we have developed and the challenges that were overcome during the project. The code (and a video demonstration of the project) are available at https://github.com/Georgetown-University-Libraries/BarcodeInventory.

Introduction to Docker, James Fournie, VCC

• Docker is an open-source application container engine that is taking the IT world by storm. James will introduce you to Docker -- what Docker is and isn't and how Docker might help you or your organization write or deploy software.

TechBC Memory Project metadata upgrade, Holly Hendrigan

• Holly will provide an update to the TechBC Memory Project, her oral history project that has undergone a substantial makeover since last December's Code4Lib. She will tell the story of all the moving parts that came together when the collection migrated to SFU Library's Digital Collections.

UX Design of a Research Data Management Micro-site, Jessica Gallinger, SFU

• The SFU Library is creating new web content to help researchers manage their data. Receive a whirlwind tour of the UX methods (personas, interviews, prototyping, user testing, etc.) applied to design an effective micro-site around the needs of the end user. A high-fidelity prototype in InVision will be demoed.

Islandora On This Day module, Mark Jordan, SFU

Makerspaces and the Maker Community in the Lower Mainland, Maryann Kempthorne

Makers Making Change, Chad Leaman, Neil Squire Society

• Makers Making Change, a community based initiative that links makers, volunteers with technical skills, with people with disabilities with the goal of making affordable, open source assistive technolgies for those people with disabilities centered around community resources such as 3D printers in libraries and maker spaces.

ElasticSearch API: Using Aggregation Queries to Do Cool Stuff, Schuyler Lindberg, UBC

Getting Things Done: Understanding and Analyzing Workflow, Cynthia Ng

• How does work move through your organization? Does the order make sense? How many times is it passed on? How many people is it handled by? Do all the steps still need to done in the current work environment? This presentation provides some suggestions on methods to understand and analyze workflow using technical services as an example, but which can be applied in other areas.

MediaConch: A Video Format Validation Tool for Archivematica, Sarah Romkey, Artefactual

• MediaConch is a new tool for validating preservation video files. In this presentation, Sarah will talk about how we're integrating this tool into Archivematica, an open-source digital preservation system, and how Artefactual Systems approached this development project.

Web Analytics with Piwik, Jonathan Schatz, BC Libraries Cooperative

A Coal Miner’s History: Mapping Digitized Audio Interviews, Daniel Sifton, VIU

• Leveraging skills we developed in an earlier mapping project, we're using a rich set data from our Dspace instance to map the spoken word in the form of conversations [both audio and transcripts] about coal mines from the years 1900 – 1945 in and around the city of Nanaimo.

Provincial Digital Library Update, Daniel Sifton and Caroline Daniels

• A brief overview of strategies, efforts, and technologies regarding the BC Provincial Digital Library.

Breakout Sessions

Intro to git/github for libraries, Sara Allain and Mark Jordan

• A hands-on introduction to git, GitHub, and their potential uses in the library environment.

Digital Collections, Terry Brady, Georgetown University

• A group discussion.

reSearcher (CUFTS/GODOT) and project sustainability, Jeff Davis

• SFU has discontinued support for CUFTS/ERM, GODOT, and the CUFTS knowledgebase. This breakout will be a group discussion about what happens next.

Needling The Haystack: An Introduction to SQL and Query Languages, Alex Garnett, SFU

• Have you ever thought to yourself, "western nations seem powerless to defend against the creeping tide of fascism, but at least I know how to search within a database real well, as if that makes anything OK?"
• Good news -- now you can! This workshop will provide an introduction to SQL and related query languages for people who have little to no experience using modern database backends. We'll discuss the differences in difference SQL implementations, how to efficiently retrieve data from already-existing databases that you might encounter in your job, and hopefully demystify some general concepts of querying. If you've ever had a graphical database design course, so much the better; we'll be trying to supplement but not rehash those concepts. Please bring your own laptop.

Using Islandora for Publishing XML, Michael Joyce, SFU

• Islandora is well known in the library community as a digital repository. At Simon Fraser University we have been experimenting with it as a publishing platform for XML. Instead of simply presenting an XML file in the browser, we transform it to HTML for display. In this breakout session, we will examine the code for two projects: the TechBC Memory Project, a collection of oral histories, and a text transcription of Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge.

FOLIO, Andrew Nagy, EBSCO

• An introduction to FOLIO, a project to develop an open source Library Services Platform.

Provincial Digital Library Technologies Up Close, Daniel Sifton, VIU

• An in depth demo of the harvesting/mapping/ingestion process in both the DPLA technology stack and in SuppleJack (from DigitalNZ) for consideration in a BC-PDL environment. Note, attendees will have an opportunity to explore the interfaces where they exist and where possible, but will not be interacting with these platforms at the command level. If you want to do this, however, this session might be a good place to get an understanding of the hidden pieces. To paraphrase Tom Vu, "Come to [this] seminar!"

Awesome Excel Tips, Trevor Smith

• Want to wrangle your data into submission either for collection management or budgeting? Learn how to use Pivot Tables, VLOOKUPs, advanced queries, or even a dashboard all inside Excel.

Organizers

• Sara Allain
• Jeff Davis
• James Fournie
• Tamarack Hockin
• Mark Jordan
• Paul Joseph
• Cynthia Ng

Comments or questions? Get in touch with us at c4lbc-organizers@googlegroups.com.

Past Events

See our past events page.