You, Your Library, and Git (discussion notes)
April 20, 2015 in
LACUNY Emerging Technologies Committee
Roundtable Discussion: You, Your Library, and Git
April 20, 2015 @ 10 AM
555 W 57th St (Rm. 1604)
Attendees: Allie Verbovetskaya (OLS, co-chair), Stephen Zweibel (HC, co-chair), Robin Davis (JJ, co-chair), Mark Eaton (KB), Dave Williams (QC), Nanette Johnson (QB), Junior Tidal (NY), Joan Kolarik (OLS), Julia Pollack (BX)
What is Git?
- Software for creating incremental backups of code to allow you to go back to a different time, before a change broke the code, so you can start over again
- Saves changes between files, not entire files == small file size
- Collaborative: members of team can work together on same program, merge changes seamlessly (unless changes conflict directly, then Git offers options for saving specific changes)
- Security: don’t store passwords in files culled by Git! Once they’re in there, they’re in there forever (…sorta) — store them in another file, then use .gitignore file to ignore that file
- Git != GitHub (though usually used interchangeably)
Uses at CUNY Libraries
- Code
- Tracking issues
- One-shot instruction (general master file, branches for individual classes/professors/topics)
- Site code changes (Drupal) stored in Git, content saved directly in Drupal
- Presentation collaboration (work individually toward a single goal)
- OER (Open Educational Resource) platform
- GitHub pages (personal sites/CVs, projects)
Other (Potential) Uses
- Archiving (research history)
- Poetry
- Writing
- Laws (local govs)
Followup
- Create space in CUNY Academic Commons committee group to share GitHub usernames, projects, etc. to encourage collaboration
- Create CUNY libraries organization in GitHub to store projects that can be forked by other libraries
- Contact CUNY Web Services (owners of “CUNY” organization in GitHub) for information about policies, licenses, best practices — if nonexistent, work with them to create them
