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USA report

Artworks Challenge, Women/Media Edit-a-thon, D.C. Protests caught on .jpg, and lots in Wikipedia + Libraries

By Slowking4 & Monikasj

Library of Congress, Wikipedia and Civic Engagement

On May 12, Wikimedia DC members Kelly Doyle, Rosie Stephenson-Goodknight and Andrew Lih gave a presentation at the Library of Congress for the Association of Centers for the Study of Congress regarding Wikipedia and Civic Engagement. They described major Wikimedia community initiatives to the gathering of academics and archivists from across the US - Wikimedians in Residence, content improvement and Wikidata. Doyle talked about her experience at West Virginia University, while User:Rosiestep talked about how missing articles in Wikipedia could benefit from the help of those in the audience. Lih introduced Wikidata and how it could be used for research, and how researchers could help document the location of archives of Congressmen past and present. The presentation slides can be found here.

Met Open Access Artworks Challenge

Met Open Access Artworks Challenge has begun. It lasts from 15 May to 30 June, 2017. There is a nifty draft article generator, and there are prizes.

DC LaborFest 2017

University of Maryland, had a meetup at the AFL-CIO Archives, w:Wikipedia:Meetup/DC/UMDLabor2017.

Women in Media and Politics Edit-a-thon

Women's Media Center, National Democratic Institute, and Wikimedia DC had a meetup, Women in Media and Politics Edit-a-thon. KellyDoyle and Rosiestep did training.

May Day Protests

Protests about FBI director dismissal


Wikipedia + Libraries continues interview series

Wikipedia + Libraries: Better Together, an OCLC project building bridges between public libraries and Wikipedia, continues the "Librarians Who Wikipedia" series:

  • OCLC WIR Monika Sengul-Jones interviewed Tiffany Bailey, of Dallas Public Library, who joined up with Consuelo Gutierrez of The Cedars Union, an incubator for the arts, and Kate Aoki of The Dallas Architecture Forum. Together they ran an all-day Art+Feminism event at the Dallas Public Library, with childcare. About 20 participants attended and five children. The organizers taught themselves to edit Wikipedia from the toolkit provided by Art+Feminism. They reported that no other Wikipedians attended. Their successes are a tribute to the usefulness and portability of the toolkit. Hat tip to the A+F team (tagging Failed Projects Sian Evans The Red Project) for the toolkit.

One insight for GLAM and outreach folks from these interviews: these librarians either didn't know about (Davis and Moretta), or didn't find useful and thus didn't update (Bailey, Gutierrez and Aoki), the outreach dashboard. This is an opportunity to probe what might be missing from the dashboard's functionality that might lead to a more effective harmonization of the dashboard with the interests of public library staff, who are seeking to build community and keep barriers to entry low. Food for thought. In the meantime, a hat tip to Ragesoss for continuing to make the dashboard awesome for outreach.

  • Know a librarian who Wikipedias? Sengul-Jones continues to recruit librarians who Wikipedia to be interviewees.

Wikipedia + Libraries at ALA in Chicago, June 22-27

Stories from public librarians, research libraries, and special collections who have engaged Wikipedia will be featured during

at the annual American Libraries Association (ALA) conference in Chicago (June 22-27, 2017). Bonus! available at the OCLC booth will be a [Citation needed] sticker. Oo! Any Wikipedians going to ALA and want to connect?? Drop by the OCLC table or one of these events.

ISBN Cite Tool's relevance for the L in GLAM

May ushered in the inclusion of ISBNs in Wikipedia's Cite Tool. Excellent collaborative work from Wikipedian Merrilee Proffitt and the Wikipedia Library's Jake Orlowitz who were instrumental in making this happen. Hooray! Less than a month after the addition, the news is getting library staff excited about Wikipedia. Why? While Wikipedians might find news of the addition spells relief from the tedium of creating a citation, this tool increases the visibility of library collections online! More visibility of library collections leads to more Wikipedia readers and editors accessing free authoritative, verifiable reference materials — which can be offline. The tool thus provides more ways that people can discover how to freely access knowledge and information online and offline. Win-win!


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