Adding non standard Python library to Beaker Lab notebook
Question: I would like to use fiona (and a few other third party libraries from Github)
in my Beaker Lab notebook and it's not included in the default installation.

Is there a way to install new Python packages?


Answer: To use python packages in a Python 2 Notebook you should first use the My
Cloud Resources to create a directory ‘p2packages’ in your scratch space.

Then you can append the path to your sys.path variable. This should be done in
every notebook that requires your custom packages.

    
    
    sys.path.append('/mnt/scratch/p2packages/')
    

Next step is to use the embedded pip to install the required package and its
dependencies.

Usually it is enough to specify a –target option, but in other cases you might
want to check [Installing python module within
code](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12332975/installing-python-module-
within-code) for other options that might be required by other packages.

    
    
    import pip
    pip.main(['install', '--target=/mnt/scratch/p2packages/', 'pattern' ])
    

Now you can use this new package in your notebook

Example in Beaker Lab:
<https://lab.beakernotebook.com/publications/2ff702e6-3ebf-11e6-b0e2-5f05deb51e12?fullscreen=true>

Here's an example for python 3

<https://lab.beakernotebook.com/approval/view/3c73a144-3ec1-11e6-935b-8ff81ae480a3>

