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Tech Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself – Vol. 2

Ada Lovelace
Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852)

Happy Belated Ada Lovelace Day, LITA Blog Readers! In honor of Ada Lovelace, the forward-thinking mother of scientific computing, I’m highlighting opportunities to really get to know your data (and users) in this Tech Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself installment.

Once again, Tech Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself (TYBYWY) is a curated selection of upcoming free webinars, classes, and other opportunities designed to help you learn and master new technologies and stay ahead of tech trends.

Your Monthly MOOC  –

This edition of TYBYWY, I am recommending a Coursera MOOC helmed by faculty from UC San Diego. Human-Computer Interaction Design may sound like a dry topic- but I know that you know that we all need to get better at designing online experiences that please and engage our patrons, constituents or students. The course promises to,  help “you build human-centered design skills, so that you have the principles and methods to create excellent interfaces with any technology.” This five week course sounds like an excellent and immersive opportunity for next gen librarians to get their sea legs in designing for better user experiences.

Worthwhile Webinars –

ProQuest and Library Journal are teaming up for a three-part webcast series on Data-Driven Academic Libraries, developed in partnership with ER&L. Excited yet? What if I mentioned that speakers include librarians from Yale, Harvard, and University of Southern California? Now you’re in.

This series includes the following sessions:

A Little Something Different –

Classes and webinars are helpful learning opportunities, and I encourage you to take them, but you can also learn a lot through involvement and discourse. And there’s no better place for that kind of interaction than on Twitter. To commemorate Ada Lovelace, and to get you immersed in the Technology TwitterCom, here some excellent twitter accounts to help TYBYWY.

The Ada Initative – Named in honor of the Countess herself, The Ada Initiative is a nonprofit organization that seeks to increase women’s participation in the free culture movement, open source technology and open culture.

Digital Public Library of America – The Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) brings together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to all. They post pretty pictures and useful information.

The Open Source Initiative – The OSI, a non-profit corporation with global scope, supports education in & advocacy for the benefits of open source software & communities.

LITA – Shameless self-promotion, I realize, but are you following us yet?

Tech On, TYBYWYers-

TYBYWY will return 11/14. Let me know if you have any specific requests!