Grants:Programs/Wikimedia Community Fund/Conference Fund/Wikimedia and Libraries Conference 2024 (WIkiLibCon24) - Understanding our roles as collaborators and knowledge service providers; Disinformation as a threat/Final Report
Report Status: Under review
Due date: 21 April 2025
Funding program: Conference Fund
Report type: Final
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[edit]- Title of proposal: Wikimedia and Libraries Conference 2024 (WIkiLibCon24) - Understanding our roles as collaborators and knowledge service providers; Disinformation as a threat
- Username of applicant: Windblown29
- Name of organization: N/A
- Amount awarded: 115000
- Amount spent: 40299.6 USD, 794958.04 MXN
Part 1: Understanding your work
[edit]1. Did your event have any impact that you did not expect, positive or negative?
Yes, we had much more positive impact than expected because of the diversity and range of participants and their knowledge, both on their Wikimedia expertise and subject matter and also as related to the theme of combatting disinformation. We did expect the conference to be successful, but the extent to which participants relayed to us their learning, experiences and takeaways was better than we anticipated. In addition, we gained ground interacting with our colleagues in Latin America, especially learning about the strength and dedication of local Mexican librarians, students and staff. Our conference was bi-lingual, Spanish and English.
2. What do you think will be the long term impact of this conference?
Our constant goal, throughout our meetings as a steering committee and when applying for the conference grant has always been to build a vivid global community for librarians who use the Wikiverse to share and retain knowledge gained through individual and group projects. This being the second convening of Wikibrarians from around the world, we were able to continue a new tradition for global librarians and information professionals, where gathering for concrete skills-building and informal socializing are catalytic and inspirational. Libraries are in the unique position, especially where Wikidata is used, to create and illustrate Wikimedia’s concurrent value to their source materials and audience/users. Over the three days of the conference we also served our secondary theme: Understanding our roles as collaborators and knowledge service providers allowing participants access to more than 30 presentations including on AI, COVID, GLAM and others, many en Espanol. We had a large contingent of participants who had attended the Wikimedia & Libraries International Conference in Dublin 2022, and they were a proud and vocal group. We hope to continue gaining repeat participants should there be a third international convening.
3. Would you say that your work improved participants’ ability to apply new skills and knowledge?
Yes
3a. If yes, please describe how and why you think this was successful. Please describe why you think this is the case.
Alan Ang presented on Wiki Data, with an especial call for librarians to investigate its value (see Alan’s pitch). We had a luncheon with COLMEX library staff in which multinational cataloguers shared enthusiasm and agreed to continue cross-cultural access to each other's methods. We also started a telegram group which (in addition to the telegram groups for travelers) included all participants as well as all scholarship and program applicants, whether they were chosen for the conference or not. This telegram group continues to reach Wikibrarians worldwide with updates, projects and sharing and has grown through invitation. New participants, such as Andrew Lih and further recruiting of new participants in the GLAM community and beyond those who participated in the conference has helped coalesce our worldwide community. Having our conference in Mexico City allowed exposure to the active Wiki community in the Spanish speaking regions. We had a videographer onsite and were also on the Latin news.Alan Ang presented on Wiki Data, with an especial call for librarians to investigate its value (see Alan’s pitch). We had a luncheon with Colmex library staff in which multinational cataloguers shared enthusiasm and agreed to continue cross-cultural access to each other methods. Our contingent from --- excited to apply xyz to school libraries local when returning home. across We met with follow-up and wo proceed with Wiki base, and school librarians. The activities that arose collaborations and continues. We also started a telegram group which (in addition to the telegram groups for traveleers0 included all participant as well as all scholarship and program applicants, whether they were chosen for the conference or not. This telegram group continues to reach Wikibrarians worldwide with updates, projects and sharing and has grown through invitation. New participants, such as Andrew Li and further recruiting of new participants in the GLAM community and beyond those who participated in the conference has helped coalesce our worldwide community. Having our conference in Mexico City allowed exposure to the active Wiki community in the Spanish speaking regions. We had a videographer onsite and were also on the Latin news.
4. Please use this space to upload media and other files that help tell your story and impact. You can also provide links to them.
Field to type in URLs.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Khj5jIOeKHE&pp=0gcJCdgAo7VqN5tD
https://t.me/+qUfaEANJqNY3NGVk
5. To what extent do you agree with the following statements regarding the work carried out with the support of this Fund? You can choose “not applicable” if your work does not relate to these goals.
| A. Bring in participants from underrepresented groups | |
| B. Create a more inclusive and connected culture in our community | Strongly agree |
| C. Develop content about underrepresented topics/groups | |
| D. Develop content from underrepresented perspectives | Agree |
| E. Encourage the retention of editors | Agree |
| F. Encourage the retention of organizers | Agree |
6. Please share resources that would be useful to share with other Wikimedia organizations so that they can learn from, adapt or build upon your work. For instance, guides, training material, presentations, work processes, or any other material the team has created to document and transfer knowledge about your work and can be useful for others. Please share any specific resources that you are creating, adapting/contextualizing in ways that are unique to your context (i.e. training material).
- Upload Documents and Files
- Here is an additional field to type in URLs.
- WikiLibCon25, Some Lessons Learned
7. Is there anything else you would like to share about how your efforts helped to bring in participants and/or build out content, particularly for underrepresented groups?
To piggyback on the success of the conference reaching a diverse audience, we are currently updating our meta page and preparing for a next WLUG Steering Committee. election.
Part 2: Your main learning
[edit]8. Were there any major challenges or things you found difficult that you would like to share? What would you do differently next time?
One of our major challenges as we prepared for catering, booking our cultural events, and providing tchotchkes was the length of time required for paperwork for many vendors in Mexico City. This required switching vendors and/or very specific payment deadlines which we did not anticipate. We had many Spanish speakers on our team who were instrumental in meeting these roadblocks. Silvia Gutiérrez, Christian Cariño of Wikimedia Mexico and María Juana Espinosa Menéndez from COLMEX were especially helpful in these situations. Also assisting with VISA applications was quite intensive and we were unable to provide/help all the scholarship recipients that were chosen. Although VISA paperwork was prepared on our end, we lost five scholarship recipients due to inability to complete their Visa applications from their home countries. We also ran into snafus with three scholarship travelers who needed ATVs to transfer at airports and had to re-route. The scholarship results provided by Limesurvey were given to us in an immense spreadsheet which made reformatting the spreadsheet a first step, before we could begin our evaluations... We also used Limesurvey for the program applications. We do not recommend Limesurvey for these activities. If childcare is to be provided via the grant, recommendation is to fully define the options (onsite, payments towards nanny, babysitting, etc.)
9. Was there any non-financial support that the Wikimedia Foundation could have provided that would have better supported you in achieving your goals?
An ongoing list of best practices for international conference organizers would be helpful.
10. What would you recommend on a local and/or regional level as the best next step to leverage your success and momentum?
Ours was a thematic conference, but we are continuing our partnerships with both COLMEX and Wikimedia Mexico and have plans to recruit newcomers to the WLUG Steering Committee via upcoming election. We will continue to build the collaborations between National Libraries. The importance of Wiki Data for libraries was a key takeaway. The WLUG presented a Plenary and Interactive session: Engagement & WLUG Business meeting during which workgroups discussed future issues. Five areas were identified, including: 1. Go more local and more specific to any library/working group; more engagement 2. Continue themes, such as how do you encourage upper management or governance of the library to support Wikimedia projects 3. Continue developing more relevant ways to use Wikidata e 4. More about AI 5. initiate training certificates and frameworks for them
11. Please add any 3 operational recommendations for future events organizers.
1. Consider carefully platforms and apps used to evaluate scholarships and presentations 2. Have a champion, and project manager, build a great team, stay on schedule 3. Find a way to present what’s going on at the moment, such as a digital screen that shows the program. Consider a small leaflet to see the program at a glance.
Part 3: Metrics
[edit]12. Open Metrics reporting
In your application, you defined some open metrics and targets (goals). You will see a table like the one below with your metric in the title and the target you set in your proposal automatically filled in.
| Open Metrics | Description | Target | Results | Comments | Methodology |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| New Wikimedians | Recruit and train new librarians | 10 | 10 | Scholarship applicants chosen included 3-4 new Wikimedians. In addtion we provided scholarships for 20 COLMEX library students to attend. | Scholarship responses by exposure to Wikimedia.
COlMEX list of students for scholarships. |
| Wikimedia + Library User Group | Establish a new Global South subgroup | 1 | 1 | 13 of the 25 countries chosen for scholarships are from the Global South; fully one-half of our overall participants represented the Global South, particularly Latin America, but also South America, Africa and Asia. We have yet to follow up to understand the need for a new subgroup. | Participants list on meta https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia%2BLibraries_International_Convention_2025/Attend/Participants
Scholarships by region. |
| Capacity Building Workshops/Presentations Dedicated to the Theme | Workshops, presentations and lightning talks rippling on the theme: Disinformation as a threat/Understanding and being devoted to the reliability of information | 10 | 10 | Our program tracks included Disinfo track, as well as plenary presentations regarding the theme. Program link https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia%2BLibraries_International_Convention_2025/Programme | Attendance sign-in at workshops and plenaries was not officially collected. All programs available in person were attended. |
| Mingle time | Topic friendly games, relaxation techniques, puzzles and open opportunities to share and reinforce learning goals | 6 | 6 | We had three cultural events for participants as well as a open dashboard for self-contributions, two library tours (English and Spanish), group photo and a final event
Trajinaris Tour Heritage Tour, Cuidad Universitaria UNAM (100 people) Farewell coctail at COLMEX After party |
Attendance at our three cultural events was handled by Google forms. |
| Engaging with the Movement | Activity session or kiosk where librarians learn about the Movement and how to engage and become champions of the Movement. | 1 | 1 | Any discussion of the Movement was informal given the status of the Movment Charter not being ratified. | Informal discussions |
13. Were there any metrics in your proposal that you could not collect or that you had to change?
Yes
13a. If you have any difficulties collecting data to measure your results, please describe and add any recommendations on how to address them in the future. Also mention why you felt you had to change some metrics.
Just the specific plans to incorporate the Movement Strategy into the conference. Given the status of the Charter, and the variety of programs presentations, only infrequent informal discussions occurred.
14. Please indicate if you applied any of the following survey and registration tools. Please select all that apply.
2. Post-event participant survey, 5. I used other survey or registration tools
14a. Please share the result(s) with us, provide the link(s) or summarize the main result(s) and insight(s) from them.
We received 110 registrants and a further 12 late registrants. The COLMEX students used a different method to register.
14b. If you used other forms, please share them with us, as these forms might be useful for others to use.
Post-event survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScfsywhTK6ah3Rx0KYWx3hqZe2miCQ0r-5oTfTgWENEh21mbQ/viewform?usp=sharing Registration forms are closed: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf3GRm616qeJ3Ga971mWB6NOM57cYArUdhov1LIPZwkyl9HbQ/closedform, and https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1VkGLz0aUvJ1AnS5cOmOsPlgV0Hfv09JOLZMFoZnF_UM/edit?ts=677d2c30
Part 4: Financial reporting and compliance
[edit]15. & 16. Please state the total amount spent in your local currency.
794958.04 MXN
17. Please state the total amount spent in USD.
40299.6 USD
18. Please report the funds received and spending in the currency of your fund.
Upload a financial report file.
Please provide a link to your financial reporting document.
N/A
As required in the fund agreement, please report any deviations from your fund proposal here. Note that, among other things, any changes must be consistent with our WMF mission, must be for charitable purposes as defined in the grant agreement, and must otherwise comply with the grant agreement.
19. If you have not already done so in your budget report, please provide information on changes in the budget in relation to your original proposal.
We have an underspend in the amount of 36,503.26 Mexican pesos. We attribute this to the complexity of dealing with vendor paperwork in Mexico.
20. Do you have any unspent funds from the Fund?
Yes
20a. Please list the amount and currency you did not use and explain why.
We have an underspend in the amount of 36,503.26 Mexican pesos. We attribute this to the complexity of dealing with vendor paperwork in Mexico.
20b. What are you planning to do with the underspent funds?
A. Propose to use the underspent funds within this Fund period with PO approval
20c. Please provide details of hope to spend these funds.
We would like our fiscal sponsor to keep the unused funds for their continued projects.
21. Are you in compliance with the terms outlined in the fund agreement?
Yes
22. Are you in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations as outlined in the grant agreement?
Yes
23. Are you in compliance with provisions of the United States Internal Revenue Code (“Code”), and with relevant tax laws and regulations restricting the use of the Funds as outlined in the grant agreement? In summary, this is to confirm that the funds were used in alignment with the WMF mission and for charitable/nonprofit/educational purposes.
Yes
24. If you have additional recommendations or reflections that don’t fit into the above sections, please write them here.
Our fiscal sponsor was most helpful and essential to the success of the conference.