Wikimedia Conference 2012/Documentation/wmcon12-day3-WLL Libraries

Wiki Loves Libraries

Q&A to NYC Chapter

1. Based on NYC experience October-November seem to be the most promising months for cooperations.
2. Love to see other cooperations, go international.

Do people know about Open Access weeks?

• A: Sure. About Open Access: ties in to free Licences, it's a scholarly term.

What kind of events did you do?

• A: Editathons, workshops, things like Obama's life in Chicago, lots of different stuff

Some of the programmes were teaching librarians themselves, some were teaching the public?

• Yes, both. Mutual teaching is important, too.
• Libraries are promising for outreach. There are many possible ways of getting people involved.

How to reach people?

• Local site notices promise to be more successful than watch list notes.
• National library organisations are decentralised in certain countries.
• organisational bonus: Libraries are used to organising events.
• Many libraries have public reservation rooms. You can reserve them and use them for your own purpose.

Half the reason for doing this is doing outreach to librarians themselves!

• more international thought exchange for those interested
  • State Library of Victoria experience, an academy just for librarians. When you're doing things like that you need one common mail adress.

• Readings at libraries?
  • No experience so far. Good idea, though.

• What about the scale of such events?
  • It's not exclusively about public libraries. Libraries with Universities tend to have the best collections, but even schools haven libraries. So there are different perspectives and different interests. Schools might want to use better sources.

• Is there a ready (generic) presentation kit?
  • Needs to be worked out.

• Pick the fitting themes.
  • Think broadly. Even musicals are valuable themes.

• In order to get as much participation from librarians as possible you need to teach them how to teach others.

• There are many places/Sites you can direct people to. i.e. User:DGG

• global activity 2012: best timeframe would be around October.
• Great interest in having a Wiki Library Day.
• Let's not conflict with Wiki Loves Monuments in September.

• WMAU
  • A number of outreach events, 8 workshops in 2012.
  • As a direct result of the events there now are about 10 Wikipedians from Libraries.
  • Contact to public institutions through the library events channel.
  • Librarians are rather enthusiastic about cooperating, but the problem at times lies with the management people.
  • libary programme is working out really well right now. Join the mailing list.

• Outreach WMDE
  • WMDE has a community budget. Part of the sponsoring is a book scanner (20.000 Euros).
  • There's an ambitious project, aiming at 200.000 scanned pages per year. No evaluation yet.

• Bring the books to the scanner and not the other way around.
• Really old historical books, of course, require to be scanned where they are.

To do

• promote the libraries list. Join it. GLAM has been focusing very much on museums lately. It'd be great to keep in touch specifically regarding libraries.
• Move evaluation and documentation to Meta.
• work out a date (via list) for global action
• work out solutions for different geographical set-ups (English Wikipedia situation regarding edit-a-thons, diff from others)
• brainstorming on awards for library article writing?

etherpad notes

Library associations are regional but also subject based, and they all put on events, so it's easy to get in.

information exchange between countries would be useful

Good events were listed in Signpost, but would be good to move that info to the outreach wiki or meta as well. Library associations journal article

Events are organised by wikimedians and/or librarians

Reagan Library: was organised by wikipedian in residence who reached out to a number of presidential libraries. Tips for training: mailing list exists for libraries issues at wikimedia: libraries@lists.wikimedia - good place for libraries info. There is overlap with GLAM, but GLAM is very museum focused. Still needs to get off the ground. Would be better for librarians, who wouldn't be so excited about museums etc.

Aus GLAM is quite library-focused. They have done an academy for librarians. Some really took to it well. Also an overlap with the Education Program (which will be headquartered in NYC)

Reading sessions? All about Wikipedia book: took it to libraries around the country. Could also read WP articles. Scale: in Hong Kong, libraries are govt or school organised. The different organisations need lots of time to read & consider proposals.

There can be lots of bureaucracy in libraries! Public libraries; school libraries; university libraries; special libraries (institutes, companies, etc)

Question is "how can I teach Wikipedia usage?" (quality of sources, etc)

Presentation kit? Should work on that! There is a general foundation presentation, but not one geared for libraries. Picking a theme (e.g. musicals) is fun, that way you get people who like Wikipedia, and who like libraries, and people who like musicals!

Open access programmes: For WP meets Antiquity, had people from universities and museums; had 50% Wikipedia talking and also 50% from others. Important to get as much participation from librarians as possible.

Sources: Bookshelf, foundation, wiki page that explains

en:User:DGG/Wikipedia_Loves_Libraries:_Leveraging_Library_Expertise_and_Collections_in_the_Wikipedia_Environment has it on his user page. - strengths and weaknesses of Wikipedia.