I didn't spot this when Tim first posted it, but this question jumped out
at me now: "A person who said or modeled the right thing?" Around the time
I was applying to library school, a friend told me "Since you love foreign
languages and are interested in computers, you might enjoy programming."

This was just the right thing to say, because he was connecting it to
something that I consider myself talented at (languages), rather than
something I don't (math). Also, he suggested it as something I'd enjoy or
find satisfying, just on its own. In a library curriculum, you could tie
technology topics to technical services/metadata/cataloging topics, which
is something students are likely to see as necessary and comparatively
unintimidating. That also seems like a realistic model of how a lot of
librarians get into coding in the workplace.

I don't know if any of the links Andromeda suggested address this, but I
see more effort put into getting young women into coding/CS and the high
school/college level, and less effort put into reaching out to women who
are already in careers. (At least in the context of, say, the Grace Hopper
Conference which I've attended a few times--that might be because all the
adults there are sort of by definition already in technical careers.)

I think some good encouragement could help people realize that while there
are some professions you probably can't enter after a certain age, like
"professional football player" or "boy band singer," "coder" is *not *one
of those. There isn't some single Rubicon you cross either; you can hop
from HTML to CSS to PHP to SQL to Java, and a lot of people have already
taken a few of those steps.

On Thu, Feb 14, 2013 at 8:34 AM, Shearer, Timothy J
<[log in to unmask]>wrote:

> Hi Folks,
>
> I'm teaching systems analysis at SILS (UNC CH) this semester.
>
> Though the course is required for the IS degree, it's not required for the
> LS degree.
>
> However, the majority of my students this semester are LS.  And the vast
> majority are women.
>
> Apropos of the part of the thread that dealt with numbers:
>
> For those of you who came into this community and at some point went
> through a MSLS or MSIS program I am wondering if there are things I could
> try to do that might have an impact on better aligning the ratio of men to
> women in code4lib and the technology end of the field in general to that
> in the general population?
>
> Was there a moment of clarity?  A person who said or modeled the right
> thing?  A project that helped uncover a skill you didn't know you had?
>
> And, I am not just interested in what I can do through one class, but also
> what the curriculum and school could do more holistically.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Tim
>