April 23, 2026
12:30 pm - 4:00 pm
Instructors: E Durham
Helpers: April Friedl, Jamene Brooks-Kieffer, other helpers TBD
This is an in-person workshop on KU's Lawrence campus. The workshop will not be recorded. Registration is free and required; a registration link is forthcoming.
The Carpentries project comprises the Software Carpentry, Data Carpentry, and Library Carpentry communities of Instructors, Trainers, Maintainers, helpers, and supporters who share a mission to teach foundational computational and data science skills to researchers.
Want to learn more and stay engaged with The Carpentries? Carpentries Clippings is The Carpentries' biweekly newsletter, where we share community news, community job postings, and more. Sign up to receive future editions and read our full archive: https://carpentries.org/newsletter/
Library Carpentry introduces you to the fundamentals of computing and provides you with a platform for further self-directed learning. For more information on what we teach and why, please see our paper "Library Carpentry: software skills training for library professionals".
Who: The course is for people who work with information in spreadsheets and want to understand good practices and avoid pitfalls. You don't need to have any previous knowledge of the tools that will be presented at the workshop.
Where: Clark Instruction Center, Watson Library, 1425 Jayhawk Boulevard, Lawrence, KS. Get directions with OpenStreetMap or Google Maps. What3Words location: scenes.indeed.lock.
When: April 23, 2026; 12:30 pm - 4:00 pm Add to your Google Calendar.
Requirements: Participants must bring a laptop with a Mac, Linux, or Windows operating system (not a tablet, Chromebook, etc.) that they have administrative privileges on. They should have a few specific software packages installed (listed below).
Accessibility: We are committed to making this workshop accessible to everybody. The workshop organizers have checked that:
We are dedicated to providing a positive and accessible learning environment for all. We do not require participants to provide documentation of disabilities or disclose any unnecessary personal information. However, we do want to help create an inclusive, accessible experience for all participants. We encourage you to share any information that would be helpful to make your Carpentries experience accessible. To request accessibility support for this workshop, please fill out the accessibility support request form. If you have questions or need assistance with the accessibility support form please email us.
Glosario is a multilingual glossary for computing and data science terms. The glossary helps learners attend workshops and use our lessons to make sense of computational and programming jargon written in English by offering it in their native language. Translating data science terms also provides a teaching tool for Carpentries Instructors to reduce barriers for their learners.
Contact: Please email jamenebk@ku.edu for more information.
Roles: To learn more about the roles at the workshop (who will be doing what), refer to our Workshop FAQ.
Everyone who participates in Carpentries activities is required to conform to the Code of Conduct. This document also outlines how to report an incident if needed.
We will use this collaborative document, called an Etherpad, for chatting, taking notes, and sharing URLs and bits of code.
Please be sure to complete these surveys before and after the workshop.
| Before Starting | Pre-workshop survey |
| Lesson material | Data in Spreadsheets |
| 12:30 pm | Data organization and formatting |
| 2:00 pm | Afternoon break |
| 2:15 pm | Dates, QA/QC, and data export |
| 3:45 pm | Wrap-up |
| 4:00 pm | End |
To participate in a Library Carpentry workshop, you will need access to software as described below. In addition, you will need an up-to-date web browser.
We maintain a list of common issues that occur during installation as a reference for instructors that may be useful on the Configuration Problems and Solutions wiki page.
To interact with spreadsheets, we can use LibreOffice, Microsoft Excel, Gnumeric, OpenOffice.org, or other programs. Commands may differ a bit between programs, but general ideas for thinking about spreadsheets are the same.
For this lesson, if you don't have a spreadsheet program already, you can use Libre Office, a free, open source spreadsheet program.
LibreOffice\_X.X.X\_MacOS\_x86-64 (whichever version of LibreOffice you have selected) should have been downloaded.
Double click on this file, and LibreOffice will be installed.