Fostering a Departmental Culture of Peer Mentorship in Software Development
In the Digital Library Initiatives department at NCSU Libraries', we often have new professionals, student workers, as well as full-time staff who are interested in advancing their software development skills. Through colleague-led opportunities like an informal discussion series related to software development, reading groups (both code and literature), code reviews, and a low barrier department-wide scrum-like process, we have been seeking to foster a greater culture of peer mentorship, team building and sharing/learning opportunities. We’ve also extended this beyond our department, offering technical mentorship opportunities to NCSU Libraries’ Fellows, new librarians who have assignments in a broad range of departments. This includes group discussion, peer to peer consultation, and compiling lists of technical resources to assist them in learning skills that will help them in their future professional careers. This talk will describe what we’ve done, what we’ve learned, how it has affected the general culture of our department and what we are thinking of for the future to sustain these types of programs.
