Wednesday July 19, 2023
Librarians are celebrated for their ability to retrieve information, an intricate practice that never stops evolving. In the contemporary age, we are overloaded with information and knowing how to search efficiently is an increasingly valuable skill, within and external to the information profession. The Search stream includes a back-to-basics primer on Search Skills, a deep dive into retrieving information with APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) and discussion on respectful referencing.
Workshop 6
Search like a ninja
Trainers
Eddie Pavuna, Fiona Russell, Meg Bullock & Olivia Larobina
Outline
Finding the right information can be like searching for a needle in a haystack. Or many needles in many haystacks. We live in a complex information world – we need agility, flexibility and adaptability – we need to search like ninjas! Whether it’s been years since you’ve searched for more than a movie time or a pair of shoes online, or whether you’d like a brush up of your topic searching skills, come along to:
- identify high impact search terms;
- work with search limiters and advanced search functions;
- use known items to reverse engineer a topic search; and
- consider the future of search.
Software requirements
Optional: an OpenAI account.
Short talk 6
Towards ‘Indigenous Referencing Guidance for Indigenous Knowledges’
Presenters
Jennifer Murphy, Cheryl Claridge and Sara Davidsson
Outline
CAVAL and its members have been leading a project over several years which has reached a milestone to be celebrated and shared. The project involved a review of literature, environmental scans, focus groups, reports, and lots of discussion by the working group. This work led to the engagement of a consultation partner, the Indigenous Archives Collective, a group of Indigenous and non-Indigenous academics and professionals who are committed to advancing priorities for Indigenous people across the GLAM sector. This presentation will share the origin story of this project and introduce you to the ‘Indigenous Referencing Guidance for Indigenous Knowledges’.
Short talk 8
Everybody’s Talkin’ – Starting Data Conversations using APIs
Presenter
Outline
In this session, we’ll talk about how APIs can help you and give some ideas about how you can start making use of them. First off, how to get started, in spite of the documentation being so awful. We’ll look at some uses for APIs that make it worth your while to try them. Then we’ll look at what you get back and how to deal with it. The goal is to get to the idea of a data conversation, where APIs contribute to making your data more accessible and useful. You’ll be a programmer by the end of the talk (or at least you’ll have programmer envy and have some motivation to dig a bit deeper).
Workshop 8
REST for success: getting data with APIs
Trainer
Outline
API stands for Application Programming Interface, but you don’t need to be a programmer or coder to make use of these powerful tools for retrieving or updating data. This workshop will introduce participants to the world of REST APIs, the software and methods used to access them, and concepts such as authentication and rate limiting. The second half will introduce you to Wikidata – a massive open-source knowledge base operated by the Wikimedia Foundation which runs Wikipedia – and demonstrate how you can use Wikidata’s API to query and retrieve complex datasets, and even contribute data to the project yourself.
Software requirements
VS Code (free version) with a Thunder Client extension installed.
VS Code is free to download here. Install this first. https://code.visualstudio.com/download
After you have installed VS Code, then install Thunder Client: https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=rangav.vscode-thunder-client