Nathaniel Porter on The Carpentries

Ten Years of Library Carpentry

Thu, 27 Nov 2025 00:00:00 +0000

November 2025 marks the tenth anniversary of the very first Library Carpentry workshop at the Centre for Information Science, City University London. Past and present contributors to the lesson program got together last week to celebrate the milestone, share their memories, and express their gratitude for the many successes of the project over the last decade.

Final Update from Outgoing Maintainer Community Lead, Nathaniel Porter

Wed, 10 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

For the past 2 years, I have had the privilege of serving The Carpentries as Maintainer Community Lead, a role that has continued to develop and become central to the Carpentries community over the last six years as Angela, Daniel, Vini, and now me have explored what it can be. At the end of September, I am leaving the role to focus on other goals (like fully launching Open Qualitative Research with Taguette and QualCoder Library Carpentry lessons), and so, in keeping with tradition, I get to share one final blog post about my experience.

Welcome to our Newest Lesson Maintainers!

Mon, 16 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

We are pleased to announce that our most recent cohort of Lesson Maintainers have completed onboarding and are ready to support lessons across The Carpentries curricula. Thirty new Maintainers participated in the three hour onboarding, with the following goals:

Orientation to The Carpentries goals and vision for lesson maintenance.
Getting connected with other Maintainers and the overall Maintainer community.
Developing skills for creating a positive environment for all contributors.
Becoming familiar with the key components of the lesson template.
Practicing core technical skills for lesson maintenance.
Learning how and when to elevate issues to the Curriculum Advisory Committee.

We are excited to welcome these new members to the Maintainer community and look forward to working with them, along with our many committed continuing Maintainers, over the coming months.

Join the 2025 Maintainer Onboarding Cohort!

Tue, 01 Apr 2025 00:00:00 +0000

The Carpentries is preparing to onboard the next cohort of Maintainers. We are delighted that 83 of 111 current Maintainers have chosen to continue in their role for another year, meaning that our need to onboard new Maintainers is not as urgent as it has been in previous years. Nevertheless, to keep the community healthy and ensure that all lessons are well supported, we are calling for volunteers to step into the role.

Welcome to our Newest Lesson Maintainers!

Wed, 19 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

We are pleased to announce that our most recent cohort of Lesson Maintainers have completed onboarding and are ready to support lessons across The Carpentries curricula. 26 new Maintainers participated in the two hour onboarding, with the following goals:

Orientation to The Carpentries goals and vision for lesson maintanence
Getting connected with other Maintainers and the overall Maintainer community
Developing skills for creating a positive environment for all contributors
Becoming familiar with the key components of the lesson template
Learning how and when to elevate issues to the Curriculum Advisory Committee

New and existing Maintainers were also invited to join a two hour GitHub Skill-up, aiming to teach them how to:

Introducing the new Instructor Trainers Leadership Committee for 2024

Thu, 16 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

In February, the Instructor Trainer community held its fourth annual election for the Instructor Trainers Leadership Committee, a Committee that provides governance and development support to our growing subcommunity of Instructor Trainers, and makes decisions on behalf of that community that affect our Instructor Training program and related policies. Previously called the Trainers Leadership Committee during its first 3 years of existence (2021, 2022, and 2023) this Committee will now be referred to as the Instructor Trainers Leadership Committee to emphasise its service specifically to the Instructor Trainer community. In their third year as an elected body, the Instructor Trainers Leadership Committee oversaw two important changes:

Apply for 2024 Carpentries Maintainer Onboarding!

Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

The Carpentries is preparing to onboard the next round of Maintainers. Currently we have 92 Maintainers serving across 48 core lessons. To keep the community healthy, we need to plan for people wanting to step down from their current positions and finding new people to step into the role.

You do not need to be a Git expert to be a Maintainer. If you are familiar with the current Carpentries Git materials, you will have the foundation and support to learn the skills you will need as a Maintainer. Training on lesson maintenance workflows and GitHub skill up sessions will be offered in multiple time zones during onboarding to ensure you have the skills you need to succeed.

Join us in welcoming Nathaniel Porter as our new Maintainer Community Lead!

Wed, 08 Nov 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Hi Carpentries community!

My name is Nathaniel and I’m excited to be taking on a new role with The Carpentries as Maintainer Community Lead. I’d say it’s a new hat for me, but if you’ve seen me on a call or workshop around the Carpentries, you’ll probably recognize me more by my flat cap (which I don’t intend to replace) than my face.