Grants talk:Project/ColMex/First Wikipedian in (Academic) Residence in Latin America/Timeline

From Meta, a Wikimedia project coordination wiki

Discussion points for WMF Check-in today (3/15/18)[edit]

  • Getting to know each other
    • Marti Johnson, Program Officer, Wikimedia Foundation
    • Aidee Murrieta Vargas, Wikipedian in Residence at the Daniel Cosío Villegas Library at El Colegio de México
      • Background
      • Questions/resources needed?
  • Activities
    • Learn more about classes, meetings, editathon ("Haciendo y deshaciendo el género")
      • Beautiful banner!
  • Outcomes so far
    • Excellent that participation is going up, especially remotely!
  • Looking ahead
    • Planned activities
    • Outreach to other libraries
    • Resources needed

Notes[edit]

  • Aidee's background
    • studied librarianship. She was selected for the role because she could reflect the perspective of someone who knows field and knows how to communicate with peers in libraries.
    • Did not have a background as a Wikipedian, but has undergone two months of training, and they are using here experience as a beginner to document what it takes to start out as a librarian as a newbie to Wikipedia and learn to edit, organize organize editathons, etc. ** Training has been documented so can later on release the handbook of what it takes for librarian to become a WPan, and now also a WPan in Residence - how librarians leverage their knowledge for the Wikimedian communities/projects. She is writing manuals and doing infographics of what you need to know. In the process of her training, she is documenting Latin American experiences; looking into what has been done in Colombia, in Mexico, etc.
    • Aidee was selected because of how ordered she is. Her work is highly organized and easy for others to discover and use. She can plan a class and put point by point which materials to use. The editathons she leads have so many articles created because of the way she organizes everything. She really looked into new biographies that could be done and she collected all her materials in advance. Amazing to see that other libraries participated by distance thanks to library networks that Aidee has and library has. Now she is delegating to librarians for next time so the project doesn't die when she goes.


  • Activities
    • trainings with librarians here and also in other areas (Colombia, here in Mexico City
    • now preparing community of librarians for one lib one ref campaign in May for Spanish community
  • Challenges:
    • Though a lot of things about being a Wikipedian are easier when you are a librarian, there are also things that are more difficult as a librarian. The way knowledge is categorized on WP is very different than in library, and this can be confusing.
      • As a librarian herself, Aidee is drawing on her experience to explain this to other librarians from a librarian's point of view
    • We want to make a model for contributing to Wikipedian in academic contexts, so we need to help academics understand this is not the same as doing research. Writing a Wikipedia article is not the same as writing an academic paper. It's for the general public. It has to bring sources from multiple perspectives.
      • Aidee has been addressing this by developing a manual for academics - focusing on specific things that help academics understand how to adapt to the Wikipedian context. Academics tend to be very focused on the specfic subject they are studying, so she encourages them to take a broader orientation in the context of an encyclopedia article. They often struggles the most with the first paragraph of the article. She uses the metaphor of the abstract for a paper.
  • Needs/requests
    • More contact with Wikimedia community. It would help to know other projects. How they have been doing this. What the challenges have been for them. We have been following other projects' timelines and this interaction is very rich.
      • Earthquakes happened at the beginning of the project and it was very disruptive. Not much communication with others for a while because people of the gravity of the situation.
    • People with these skill sets:
      • Working in academic contexts, not necessarily just libraries.
      • Other WiRs (Introduction to Kelly Doyle and Monika Sengul-Jones (speak Spanish?))
      • GLAM Community members - would be interesting since also work in an environment with cultural richness and are trying to share it
    • There is a Wikidata query to know women in other languages that don't have article in English. We would like to replicate the query in Spanish. If there is a programmer that could create a bot that changes just that line, we would have a list in Spanish. That would make it easier to create a translatathon.
    • Extension for report deadline.
  • Community connections
    • We have been having conversations with the Wikipedian librarian community and Alex Stinson - he has been a very useful person for GLAM connections.
  • Also, with with Women in Red