Midwest
Code4Lib Midwest 2014 Meeting
Please join us July 23-24 in Grand Rapids, Michigan for the Code4Lib Midwest 2014 conference.
This informal conference will feature short lightning talks, longer presentations, workshops, a technology-infused hackfest, and site visits to local technology companies. We'll spend 2 days learning about technology and code in libraries, archives and museums from colleagues throughout the Midwest.
We are working out the details: keep an eye on this space!
Location
Code4Lib MidWest meeting will be hosted by Grand Valley State University Libraries.
- When - Wednesday, July 23rd - Thursday July 24th, 2014
- Where - Mary Idema Pew Library at GVSU
- Registration Cost - Free!
- Planning Committee - Kyle Felker (felkerk@gvsu.edu), Erin Fisher {fisherin@gvsu.edu), Eric Kunnen (kunnene@gvsu.edu), Kristin Meyer (meyerk@gvsu.edu), and Matthew Reidsma (reidsmam@gvsu.edu)
Logistics
We hope you consider staying overnight to enjoy both days of the conference.
Suggested Hotels
- Holiday Inn Grand Rapids Downtown (310 Pearl Street NW, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 49504 :: +1 (616) 235-7611)
-The Holiday Inn Grand Rapids Downtown is within walking distance to restaurants, breweries, museums, shops and Grand Valley's downtown campus. Access to free public transit to the Allendale campus is just a five minute walk (.2 miles).
- Sleep Inn & Suites (4869 Becker Dr., Allendale, MI, 49401 :: +1 (616) 892-8000)
-For those interested in staying near the Allendale campus, Sleep Inn is 1.2 miles away.
Directions, restaurants, and more
-A map with additional details coming soon!
Schedule
Wednesday, July 23rd
Meeting at the Mary Idema Pew Library, Allendale.
9am - 12pm : Presentations and Lightning Talks
12 - 1pm : Lunch
1 - 4:30pm : Hackfest with Toys from the Technology Showcase (3D scanner and printer, Makey Makey, etc.)
6:00pm : Evening Social in downtown Grand Rapids. Last year, Grand Rapids was named Beer City USA. Let's keep the conversation going while visiting some local breweries and pubs. More details coming soon!
Thursday, July 24th
Meeting at the GVSU Bicycle Factory, Downtown Grand Rapids.
9am - 12pm : Presentations and Lightning Talks
12 - 1pm : Lunch
1 - 4:30pm : Site Visit to the offices of Yeti CGI and GR Makers to talk about partnerships between software developers and libraries and the future of makerspaces. (We'll be carpooling to these locations if you can make it!) More details to follow.
Social Media Goodness
Twitter hash tag: #c4lmw
Code of Conduct
Code4Lib Midwest is dedicated to a harassment-free conference experience for everyone. Our anti-harassment policy can be found at: C4LMW14 Code of Conduct
Programming Sign-up
Code4Lib Midwest programming depends on the folks attending the conference. Please consider giving a presentation or lightning talk, or submitting your ideas for the hackfest.
Share what you are working on! Add your name and a description below.
Presentations or Workshops
Have something cool to share? Tell us about it. If you want someone to teach something to you, put that here as well.
- Eric Echeverri and Steve Lonn on the digital open badges initiative that is taken place at the University of Michigan, specifically Digital Badges for libraries. Steve Lonn will be joining us via Gtalk for an in depth understanding of this technology. Eric will go over the technical details of exporting badges into the Mozilla backpack for learners. This application is done in ruby and is up and running at https://mblem.umich.edu
- Development tips from the front-lines: Tips and techniques useful for software development in Libraries. Jon Gorman, University of Illinois (at Urbana-Champaign). Last year's Code4Lib Midwest there was a great amount of interest in improving development skills. Jon doesn't claim to be the best developer, but he's will to share what intimidated him unnecessarily and useful tips & tricks for both improving skills and overview of techniques that make life easier. (Bootstrap, jQuery, Rule engines, templates, Good books to read, etc). (Note: I'm willing to bump this down to a very quick lightning talk if people aren't interested, I just thought the schedule looked like it needed some fleshing out).
- Can you do FOSS at your library if you're a small, one-person shop? How do you figure it out? Megan Kudzia, Albion College Library. I've made plenty of mistakes along the way, and I thought maybe others might find what I've figured out useful. As a community that values free/open source, it can be really difficult to assess if you're starting out in your career and you're pretty much "the technology person" at your library (I suspect there are a lot of us in this boat). In addition to mistakes, I've had some successes too, which I'll also share about - it's not all bad news! (Note: like Joh, I'm willing to bump this down to a lightning talk if folks aren't really interested).
- Deploy Code with Confidence (with lots of tests and application monitoring).
- Deploying code into production can be nerve wracking. Or, it can be a non-issue. I'll talk about our current test environment, which allows us to feel reasonably confident our code does what we intend. I'll also discuss our application monitoring, which informs us when even our huge test suite missed a scenario. We often see bugs in our monitor, write tests to demonstrate the bug, fix the bug, and deploy code before a user ever reports a problem.
- Jeremy Prevost, Northwestern University
Lightning Talks
Have something cool to share but you don't want to be in front of the room for more than 5 minutes? Lightning talks are for you. Sign up now or at the conference:
- Alison Hitchens - java program to create good e-theses MARC records from DSpace (UWSpace)
- Brian Zelip - A Twofer: Migrating a library web app's website to an xml-based CMS & Use cases at an academic research services unit.
- Cole Hudson - Visualizing our book shelves: how we took Harvard's Stack View and made it our own
- Britain Woodman - how we evaluated and eventually made Suma part of our daily operations work
Hackfest
Pitch an idea you can work to solve in 3 hours or so, or join with someone else who has a project. Stuck on something at work? Find a buddy here to help you. Want to make something new and fun? Here's your chance for free labor. We'll have a hackfest idea basket at morning coffee, or you can leave your ideas on the wiki. Of course, you can also just show up with your idea. We're not the boss of you.
Registration
Registration is free. List your name, affiliation, and email address here to register for the meeting. If you signed up and are unable to attend please remove your name or contact us, so that we can make room for others.
Contact Ryan Wick (ryanwick@gmail.com) with your preferred username to set up a Code4Lib wiki account, or ask Matthew Reidsma (reidsmam@gvsu.edu) to add your name to this list if you prefer not to set up an account.:
- Julia Bauder, Grinnell College Libraries. bauderj - at - grinnell - dot - edu
- Eric Lease Morgan, University of Notre Dame, emorgan - at - nd - dot - edu
- Alexa Hagen, University of Michigan MLIS Student, alexa.hagen - at - gmail - dot - com
- John Fink, McMaster University. john.fink - at - gmail - dot - com
- Lisa Rabey, librarian for hire, lisa - at - biblyotheke - dot - net
- Aaron Collie, Michigan State University, collie - at - msu - dot - edu
- Ranti Junus, Michigan State University, junus-at-mail-lib-msu-edu
- David Malone, Wheaton College, david dot malone at wheaton dot edu
- Cole Hudson, Wayne State University, cole - dot - hudson - at - wayne - dot - edu
- Brian Zelip, University of Illinois, bzelip -at- illinois -dot- edu
- Michael Perry, Northwestern University, michael -dot- perry -at- northwestern -dot- edu
- Joshua Neds-Fox, Wayne State University, jnf - at- wayne - dot - edu
- Kelly Germain, Davenport University, kelly -dot- germain -at- davenport -dot- edu
- Jeremy Prevost, Northwestern University, j-prevost at northwestern dot edu
- Jeffrey Mudge, Wheaton College, jeffrey dot mudge at wheaton dot edu
- Thomas Hilliker, Holly Township Library, thomashilliker at gmail dot com
- Jamie Tiemeyer, Cornerstone University, jamie - dot - tiemeyer - at - cornerstone - dot - edu
- Devin Higgins, Michigan State University, higgi135 - at - msu - dot - edu
- Alison Hitchens, University of Waterloo, ahitchen - at - uwaterloo - dot - ca
- Megan Kudzia, Albion College, moneill - at - albion - dot - edu
- Roy Zimmer, Western Michigan University, roy-dot-zimmer-at-wmich-dot-edu
- Thomas Padilla, Michigan State University, tpadilla-at-msu-dot-edu
- Mike Priehs, Wayne State University, mpriehs - at - wayne - dot - edu
- Jonathan Earley, Grand Valley State University, jonathan.a.earley - at - gmail - dot - com
- Jonathan Gorman, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, jtgorman - at - illinois - edu
- Britain Woodman, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, britainw - at - umich - dot - edu
- Andrew McAlorum, University of Waterloo, amcalorum - at - uwaterloo - dot - ca
- Jessica Shuck, Cornerstone University, jessica - dot - shuck - at - cornerstone - dot - edu
- Esther Verreau, UIC, verreau1 - at - uic - dot - edu
- Brendan Quinn, Northwestern University, brendan-quinn - at - northwestern - dot - edu
- Paul Clough, Northwestern University, p-clough - at- northwestern - dot - edu
The capacity of our venue requires us to cap participation at 40. Beyond that, please put your name, affiliation and email address on the wait list and we'll email you if a spot opens up for you.
Waitlist
Previous C4L Midwest Regional Meetings
Mailing list
For better or for worse, Code4Lib "Midwest" has low-traffic mailing list/Google group. Consider subscribing.