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This page is dedicated to the annual reports and meeting minutes of all meetings of the Steering Committee members as well as member meetups.

Meeting Minutes: November 26, 2025

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Date: 2025-11-26

Participants: Clifford_Anderson, Alequihdez, Gayobah13, Orlysi, Meritkosy

Excused: Lilian_Viana

Absent: Cmwaura, Mehman, Tsaorin

1. Diff Post

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  • Alequihdez discussed the draft Diff post available in the shared drive.
  • She reviewed the history of Diff posts and introduced the draft for the new steering committee.
  • Feedback and Revisions:
    • Orlysi recommended connecting the post to the candidate page so users can follow up on Meta.
    • Clifford_Anderson recommended adding a photograph.
    • Orlysi suggested including a “Call for Action” at the end of the post.
  • The group agreed to include links to the members' Meta pages but will exclude other identifying information.
  • Alequihdez plans to publish the post tomorrow.

2. AI Notetaking

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  • The group discussed the use of AI tools for transcribing conversations.
  • Gayobah13 noted that some AI note-takers join automatically and recommended disabling them upon entry.
  • Decision: The user group agreed to allow one AI note-taker per meeting, which the host will configure.

3. Metapage Revisions

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  • Lilian_Viana is authorized to update the Meta pages whenever she is ready.
  • Logo Discussion: Questions were raised regarding the need for a new group logo.
  • The group unanimously agreed to delegate the new logo issue to the communication subgroup.

4. Communication Group Plans

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  • The group agreed to table the conversation regarding the communication subgroup recommendations until the next meeting.

5. Information about SC Members

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  • The committee asked Gayobah13 to report on his work regarding member information at the December meeting.

6. Meeting Schedule

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  • Next Meeting: The final meeting of the year will be on December 10.
  • Break: The group will not meet on December 24.
  • Resumption: Meetings will resume on January 7, 2026.
  • Clifford_Anderson will manage the calendar cancellation for the December 10 meeting.

7. Action Items

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Task Responsible Deadline
Finalize and publish Diff Post Alequihdez Tomorrow (Nov 27)
Update Meta pages Lilian_Viana When ready
Report on SC member info project Gayobah13 December 10 Meeting
Cancel specific calendar appointment Clifford_Anderson As soon as possible

8. Next Meeting

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Date: 2025-12-10

Time: 13:30 UTC

Agenda: TBD

Summaries in Other Languages

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Português: Alequihdez discutiu a postagem no Diff, que será publicada amanhã com links para as páginas Meta dos membros. O grupo concordou em permitir apenas um anotador de IA por reunião, configurado pelo anfitrião. Lilian atualizará as páginas do Meta quando estiver pronta, e a questão do logotipo foi delegada ao grupo de comunicação. A última reunião do ano será em 10 de dezembro, retornando em 7 de janeiro de 2026.

Español: Alequihdez discutió la publicación en Diff, que se publicará mañana con enlaces a las páginas Meta de los miembros. El grupo acordó permitir solo un tomador de notas de IA por reunión, configurado por el anfitrión. Lilian actualizará las páginas de Meta cuando esté lista, y el tema del logotipo fue delegado al grupo de comunicación. La última reunión del año será el 10 de diciembre y se reanudará el 7 de enero de 2026.

עברית: אלקיהדז (Alequihdez) הציגה את הפוסט המתוכנן ל-Diff, שיפורסם מחר ויכלול קישורים לדפי המטא של החברים. הקבוצה הסכימה לאפשר רושם פרוטוקול מבוסס בינה מלאכותית אחד בלבד לפגישה, שיוגדר על ידי המארח. ליליאן תעדכן את דפי המטא כשתהיה מוכנה, ונושא הלוגו הועבר לטיפול קבוצת התקשורת. הפגישה האחרונה לשנה זו תתקיים ב-10 בדצמבר, והפגישות יתחדשו ב-7 בינואר 2026.

Meeting Minutes: November 12, 2025

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Date: 2025-11-12

Participants: Clifford_Anderson, Alequihdez, Cmwaura, Gayobah13, Meritkosy, Orlysi, Lilian_Viana

Excused:

Absent: Mehman, Tsaorin

1. Meeting Time

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  • The group agreed to stick with the previously agreed-upon meeting time.
  • Clifford_Anderson apologized that the Google calendar automatically changed the time due to the end of daylight saving time in the United States.
  • The calendar time has been corrected back to 1:30 PM UTC.

2. Draft of New User Page

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  • Draft Link: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Lilian_Viana/Sandbox/Main_Page
  • Lilian_Viana walked through the draft revision of the User Group page in her sandbox.
  • Updates include:
    • New tabs for Main Page, Governance & Strategy, Activities, Members & Get Involved, Resources, and Reports.
    • Edits to the header and footer.
    • Organization of past and current meeting minutes.
  • The user group unanimously congratulated Lilian on her excellent work and agreed to move the page from the sandbox to Meta.

3. Organization Listings

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  • The group discussed how to handle the list of organizations (individual users vs. organizations).
  • It was noted that organizations generally cannot join Wikipedia projects; only individuals can.
  • Several members argued that there should be a list of participating (“adherent”) organizations.
  • Lilian_Viana will adjust the members section to add a space for people representing organizations to sign.

4. Annual Reports and Review

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  • The group discussed the need to bring annual reports into the Meta page and list them for prior years.
  • Lilian_Viana suggested reviewing the Meta page annually.
  • It was noted that Gemini can assist with editing Wiki markup.
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  • SC members are invited to upload a personal picture to Wikimedia Commons so Alequihdez can use them in a future post and we can publicize them on our user page.
  • Orlysi will check on the logo for the WLUG. The launch of the Meta page will wait for the logo.

6. Launch Timeline

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  • December: Target to launch the new Meta page and the Diff post.

7. Action Items

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Task Responsible Deadline
Locate links for past Annual Reports Clifford_Anderson & Lilian_Viana Before Launch
Upload personal picture to Wikimedia Commons All SC Members As soon as possible
Request picture links from members Alequihdez As soon as possible
Adjust members section for organization signatures Lilian_Viana Done
Check for WLUG Logo Orlysi Before Launch
Launch Meta page and Diff post All December 2025

8. Next Meeting

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Date: 2025-11-26

Time: 14:30 UTC

Agenda: TBD

Summaries in Other Languages

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Português: O grupo confirmou que o horário da reunião permanece 13:30 UTC. Lilian apresentou o rascunho da nova página do Grupo de Usuários, que foi aprovada por unanimidade para ser movida para o Meta. O grupo discutiu como listar as organizações participantes e concordou em adicionar links para relatórios anuais anteriores. Os membros do SC estão convidados a enviar fotos pessoais para o Commons. O lançamento da nova página Meta e a postagem no Diff estão planejados para dezembro.

Español: El grupo confirmó que la hora de la reunión sigue siendo las 13:30 UTC. Lilian presentó el borrador de la nueva página del Grupo de Usuarios, que fue aprobado por unanimidad para ser trasladado a Meta. El grupo discutió cómo enumerar las organizaciones participantes y acordó agregar enlaces a los informes anuales anteriores. Se invita a los miembros del SC a subir fotos personales a Commons. El lanzamiento de la nueva página Meta y la publicación en Diff están previstos para diciembre.

עברית: הקבוצה אישרה שמועד הפגישה נשאר 13:30 UTC. ליליאן הציגה את טיוטת דף קבוצת המשתמשים החדש, שאושר פה אחד להעברה ל-Meta. הקבוצה דנה כיצד לרשום ארגונים משתתפים והסכימה להוסיף קישורים לדוחות שנתיים קודמים. חברי ועדת ההיגוי (SC) מוזמנים להעלות תמונות אישיות ל-Commons. השקת דף ה-Meta החדש והפוסט ב-Diff מתוכננים לדצמבר.

Meeting Minutes: October 29, 2025

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Date: 2025-10-29

Participants: Clifford_Anderson, Alequihdez, Meritkosy, Lilian_Viana

Excused: Orlysi

Absent: Mehman, Cmwaura, Tsaorin, Gayobah13

1. Attendance Tracking

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  • The group agreed to record attendance at each meeting to clarify active participation within the Steering Committee (SC).
  • Orlysi had informed the group in advance that she could not attend.

2. Governance and Strategy Document

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  • The group decided to continue working on the document created by Lilian_Viana concerning Governance and Strategy.
  • Lilian_Viana presented proposed actions for Governance and Strategy. The first priority is to conduct a diagnosis based on inputs from the community at WikiLibCon Mexico.

3. Reporting and Publication

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  • Meeting reports should be published on the Meta page, as stated in the Governance and Strategy document.
  • Clifford_Anderson will serve as secretary and is responsible for posting the minutes in English on Meta.
  • Lilian_Viana will provide a Portuguese summary.
  • Alequihdez will provide a Spanish summary.
  • Orlysi will be asked about preparing a Hebrew summary; other members will be consulted about additional languages.
  • Minutes will be published in English first, with a note stating that translations will be added by the end of the month.

4. Meta Page Edits

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  • The “Governance” tav will be updated to include short profiles of each SC member.
  • Each member will introduce themselves on the Meta page (Governance section).
  • Clifford_Anderson will contact members via WhatsApp to request their short bios.
  • Clifford_Anderson will begin editing the Governance section to make space for SC introductions.
  • Lilian_Viana added a note to the home page marking it as “Under construction.”

5. Elections

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  • The annual period for Steering Committee service runs from September to September.
  • Elections will take place in July each year.

6. DIFF Post

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  • Alequihdez will prepare a DIFF post summarizing key activities and information drawn from meeting notes and the SC presentation. She will send the draft for review and editing to the entire SC.
  • Target publication date: December 2025.

7. Working Group Progress

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  • Meritkosy emphasized the importance of each subgroup beginning active work.
  • Members should bring concrete plans to upcoming meetings.
  • The SC agreed to start with small, achievable tasks.

8. Action Items

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Task Responsible Deadline
Publish English minutes on Meta Clifford_Anderson Immediate
Confirm Portuguese summary Lilian_Viana End of October 2025
Confirm Spanish summary Alequihdez End of October 2025
Confirm Hebrew summary Orlysi End of October 2025
Collect short SC member bios (Governance section) Clifford_Anderson Before next meeting
Prepare DIFF post summarizing SC work Alequihdez December 2025
Each working group to submit activity plan All members Before next meeting

9. Next Meeting

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Date: 2025-11-12

Time: 14:30 UTC

Agenda: Updates from working groups; progress on editing Meta pages; reports on upcoming outreach and engagement opportunities.

Summaries in Other Languages

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Português: O grupo decidiu continuar o trabalho no documento de Governança e Estratégia, publicar as atas na página Meta e incluir traduções em português, espanhol e hebraico. Cada membro do Comitê Diretivo (SC) apresentará um breve perfil na seção de Governança. As eleições ocorrerão em julho. Um post no DIFF será publicado em dezembro de 2025.

Español: El grupo acordó seguir trabajando en el documento de Gobernanza y Estrategia, publicar las actas en Meta y agregar traducciones al portugués, español y hebreo. Cada miembro del Comité Directivo presentará un breve perfil en la sección de Gobernanza. Las elecciones se realizarán en julio. Se publicará una entrada en DIFF en diciembre de 2025.

עברית: הקבוצה החליטה להמשיך בעבודה על מסמך הממשל והאסטרטגיה, לפרסם את פרוטוקולי הישיבות בדף Meta ולהוסיף תרגומים לפורטוגזית, לספרדית ולעברית. כל חבר בוועדת ההיגוי יציג פרופיל קצר בחלק הממשל. הבחירות יתקיימו ביולי. פוסט ב-DIFF יפורסם בדצמבר 2025.


Annual report, 2022-2023

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This report provides an annual summary of the activities and achievements of the Wikimedia and Libraries User Group for the year 2022-2023. The goal of the user group is to connect librarians with Wikimedians and also to pursue cooperation between libraries and Wikimedia. This report gives insights into the efforts of the steering committee to foster the engagement of librarians in Wikimedia projects.

Steering Committee Members

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Windblown29 serves as the chair of the steering committee. The members of the steering committee are AfricanLibrarian, Clifford Anderson, and Orlysi. We are planning the next election for the steering committee of the user group in spring 2025.

Steering Committee Meetings

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Regular monthly meetings are convened by the Steering Committee. The objective is to plan practical activities to engage the members of the user group and to decide on strategic direction. Prominent topics of discussion have revolved around invigorating engagement with the user group members and incorporating more librarians globally into our initiatives.

Wikimedia Summit 2022

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Clifford Anderson, Windblown29, and Orlysi represented the user group (and the interests of librarians, broadly speaking) at the Wikimedia Summit 2022.

Wikimania Singapore

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AfricanLibrarian, Clifford Anderson, Orlysi, and Windblown29 joined Silvia E. Gutiérrez De la Torre, Senior Program Officer for Libraries at the Wikimedia Foundation, for a panel discussion titled Libraries + Wikimedia: past, present and future at the Knowledge Beyond Boundaries satellite conference at the National Library of Singapore.

Wikipedia+Libraries International Convention

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AfricanLibrarian, Windblown29, and Orlysi are representing the steering committee for the organization of the 2025 Wikipedia+Libraries International Convention (WIKILIBCON 25).

Artificial Intelligence Salons

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The user group is planning to host a series of three salons on artificial intelligence, libraries, and Wikimedia during September, October, and November of 2023.

Throughout the year 2022-2023, the Wikimedia and Libraries User Group has made significant strides in bridging the world of librarians and Wikimedians. Our participation in movement-wide strategy sessions and Wikimania helped to publicize our work to libraries worldwide. Our planned initiatives like the Artificial Intelligence Salons demonstrate our commitment to assessing changes in the information ecosphere and their potential impact on our movemenet. Our user group looks forward to more such engagements in the year ahead, especially the much-anticipated second Wikipedia+Libraries International Convention in 2025.

Annual report, 2021-2022

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This annual report of the Wikimedia and Libraries User Group covers the year 2021-2022. This report covers the activities of the steering committee of the Wikimedia and Libraries User Group along with related activities to support the engagement of librarians with Wikimedia projects.

2021 Election

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The Wikimedia and Libraries User Group held steering committee elections from October 4, 2022 to October 31, 2021. A smaller number of candidates participated in the process than previous years, but the elections still achieved broad geographic representation with elected members from Africa, the Middle East, and North America. Windblow29 serves as the chair of the steering committee.

Steering Committee Meetings

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The members of the Steering Commitee meet monthly to discuss business related to the user group and to engage in strategic planning. Among the chief topics we have discussed are how to engage with the members of the user group more actively and to enlist more librarians around the world in our activities.

Wikipedia+Libraries International Convention

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The User Group supported the inaugural Wikimedia+Libraries Convention that took place in Maynooth, Ireland. AfricanLibrarian, a member of the Steering Committee, served on the Core Organizing Team of the Convention and also delivered a keynote event. Windblow29 also served on the program committee for the Convention. The User Group also produced a welcome video for the Convention to encourage librarians to become more actively with Wikimedia projects. Three members of the Steering Committee, Windblow29, Orlysi, and AfricanLibrarian, are involved in the planning for the 2023 Wikimedia+Libraries Cohton adjacent to the IFLA meeting in Rotterdam, the Netherlands from August 21-25.

Wikimania Submission

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The members of the Steering Committee submitted a proposal for Wikimania 2022 titled "Libraries: Connecting Librarians to Wikimedia Projects Beyond Wikipedia." The submission was not accepted, but we are looking for other venues to share the contents of the proposal.

Wikimedia Summit 2022

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Three members of the Steering Committee, Clifford Anderson, Orlysi, and Windblown29, represented the User Group as participants at the Wikimedia Summit in Berlin, Germany on September 9-11.

Newcomer of the Year

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AfricanLibrarian, a member of the Steering Committee received the Newcomer of the Year award at Wikimania 2022 for her activites to connect networks of librarians in AfLIA and "to generate over 27,000 edits and counting" for Wikimedia projects. Congratulations, AfricanLibrarian!


In sum, the Wikimedia and Libraries User Group has had an active year despite the lingering challenges of the pandemic for librarians and their institutions. The Steering Committee has developed a draft working plan that it plans to publish in November 2022 for feedback from the User Group. We will be holding new elections in October 2023 and encourage members of the User Group who would like to become more actively involved in the Steering Committee's activities to consider nominating themselves for election.

Minutes of the latest meeting

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April, 21 2021: Fostering Connections: Wikimedia and Libraries Global Meetup

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Thank you to everyone who responded to the open invitation. It was great to hear about so many projects and initiatives. Links to projects, tools and presentation slides are listed below:

Tools and tips

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Project pages

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Presentation: Structured Data on Commons by John Cummings (UNESCO) and Alicia Fagerving (Wikimedia Sverige)

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Future initiatives and opportunities for WLUG to support wikibrarians / librarians / wikimedians in our work:

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Archives of our past meeting minutes

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