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GLAM/Newsletter/July 2015/Contents/Wikipedia Library report

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Wikipedia Library report

Books & Bytes

By Ocaasi

We're happy to announce some new partnerships, branches, coordinators, Visiting Scholar institutions, and news from the American Library Association Annual meeting in San Francisco. The Wikipedia Library is expanding into new languages and projects, and looks forward to helping more Wikimedians gain access to the resources they need to do their work.

New accounts

Publisher donations continue apace, with a new theme: non-English resources. Out of the last 8 partners, over a third of them were French. Expect to see much more of that as global branches take off.

English resources
  • Taylor & Francis — academic publisher of journals. The pilot includes two subject collections: Arts & Humanities and Biological, Environment & Earth Sciences. (30 accounts each)
  • World Bank eLibrary — digital platform containing all books, working papers, and journal articles published by the World Bank from the 1990s to the present. (100 accounts)
  • AAAS — general interest science publisher of the journal Science among other sources (50 accounts)

French resources

  • Érudit (en Français) — Érudit is a French-Canadian scholarly aggregator, primarily in the humanities and social sciences, and contains sources in both English and French. Signups on both English and French Wikipedia (50 accounts).
  • Cairn.info (en Français) — Cairn.info is a Switzerland-based online web portal of scholarly materials in the humanities and social sciences. Most sources are in French, but some also in English. Signups on both English and French Wikipedia (100 accounts).
  • L'Harmattan — French-language publisher across a wide range of non-fiction and fiction, with a strong selection of francophone African materials (1000 accounts).

New global branches

We are very excited to announce four more global Wikipedia Library branches:

New volunteer coordinators

TWL is pleased to welcome two new coordinators:

  • NegMawon is a librarian and new account coordinator. She wants "to help other librarians realize that Wikipedia is an ally - not an enemy".
  • Rberchie is a Wikimedian from Ghana with an interest in GLAMs. He will be working on developing new partnerships.

We always need volunteers to help coordinate account distribution or help with other tasks. This role takes only 1–2 hours of work a week, and brings with it the satisfaction of connecting writers and researchers with the resources they need (and the occasional barnstar from happy recipients!). If you have benefited from a TWL account or are interested in helping out, sign up here.

New Wikipedia Library Bookshelf

Having curated useful outreach documents over the past four years, we thought it was finally time to upload them to commons and make a proper bookshelf. You can find it at Meta:The Wikipedia Library/Bookshelf; it includes:

  • 8 Reasons Librarians Should Get Involved with Wikipedia: Librarian Onesheet for outreach with librarians, including a description of best practices. For localizing, see [1]
    8 Reasons Librarians Should Get Involved with Wikipedia: Librarian Onesheet for outreach with librarians, including a description of best practices. For localizing, see [1]
  • Donation Partnership Case Studies: Case studies from partnerships with Newspapers.com and HighBeam for development of outreach with partners. For localizing, see [2]
    Donation Partnership Case Studies: Case studies from partnerships with Newspapers.com and HighBeam for development of outreach with partners. For localizing, see [2]
  • 8 Reasons to Start a Wikipedia Library Branch in Your Language: Onesheet for developing a Wikipedia Library branch for your Wikipedia language community. Localization of content can be made from copies of: [3]
    8 Reasons to Start a Wikipedia Library Branch in Your Language: Onesheet for developing a Wikipedia Library branch for your Wikipedia language community. Localization of content can be made from copies of: [3]
  • Cultural Professionals Interns Course and Training: Wikipedia Interns Onesheet for recruiting information. For localizing, see [4]
    Cultural Professionals Interns Course and Training: Wikipedia Interns Onesheet for recruiting information. For localizing, see [4]
  • Wikipedia Visiting Scholars Overview: Persuasive information about the program where editors gain full library access at a university and improve articles on its collections or areas of research. For localizing, see [5]
    Wikipedia Visiting Scholars Overview: Persuasive information about the program where editors gain full library access at a university and improve articles on its collections or areas of research. For localizing, see [5]

Spotlight: 5 New Visiting Scholars Now Open (and a new WVS partner!)

The Wikipedia Library is pleased to announce five new Wikipedia Visiting Scholars positions as part of an expansion of the program with U.S. and Canadian universities and research organizations. Visiting Scholars are remote, unpaid Wikipedia editors, affiliated with top research libraries, who receive full access to the partner's library e-resources to expand topics of interest to the institution that also need development on Wikipedia. This marks the second successful round of schools participating in the program.

These new positions are going to be coordinated and managed by the Wikipedia Library's movement partner, the Wiki Education Foundation. Wiki Ed will process applications, connect to schools, and drive the growth of the program in North America. The Wiki Education Foundation is in an excellent position to help expand the program because of their extensive existing connections to universities and desire to support Wikipedia's best content creators.

We invite Wikipedia editors who specialize in content creation and would like access to a full research library, to apply for these new unpaid, remote affiliate positions at the following research libraries:

McMaster
  • McMaster University is a public university in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The library is looking for Wikipedians whose interests connect with the holdings of their Division of Research Collections and Archives. This division holds many valuable and unique resources, with emphases in areas such as peace and war (with a particular emphasis on the Holocaust and resistance), Bertrand Russell, Canadian literature and popular culture.
DePaul
  • DePaul University is a private university in Chicago, Illinois. The library is looking for Wikipedians who can focus on Chicago history, Catholic social justice studies, and Vincentian Studies (including French history during the Napoleonic Era).
National Museum of African Art
  • The Smithsonian Institution, established in 1846 "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge," is a group of museums and research centers administered by the Government of the United States. The Warren M. Robbins Library of the National Museum of African Art is looking for a Wikipedian in Residence that can focus on modern African art and artists.
PITT
  • The University of Pittsburgh (aka PITT) is a research university in western Pennsylvania. This Visiting Scholar will work with PITT's Archives Service Center, Special Collections and Center for American Music to focus on: Pittsburgh and Pennsylvania history including Urban renewal in Pittsburgh; Childhood in Industrial Era of Pittsburgh; Music composers of Pittsburgh; Pittsburgh theater or Significant literary figures from Pittsburgh; Colonial American history; historic American songs; or Philosophy of Science.
UW
  • The University of Washington (UW), commonly referred to as Washington or informally UDub, is a public research university in Seattle, Washington, United States. This Visiting Scholar Position will work with UW's Special Collections and focus on Labor and Working Classes in the Pacific Northwest, all aspects of Pacific Northwest History and Literature, and Pacific Northwest Architecture.

Full application information is available at the Wiki Ed signup page.

The Wiki Education Foundation also invites editors to apply for a Visiting Scholar placement pool: the pool will help grow the Visiting Scholar program by creating a list of willing and interested candidates to offer new partner libraries. With a set of pre-qualified Wikipedians in hand, the Wiki Education Foundation can work to find libraries that match your interests.

Access to a research library as part of one of these visiting scholar positions creates considerable opportunities for Wikipedia editors, giving them access to services and tools including multiple paywalled databases, integrated search and discovery tools, research collections and recommendations from specialist librarians, and expert consultation. In return editors get to begin a conversation with the library that creates opportunities for greater understanding and communication between universities and the Wikipedia community.

Alex Stinson, The Wikipedia Library

American Library Association Annual Conference

Presentation by The Wikipedia Library at ALA Annual Conference 2015

The Wikipedia Library team attended the American Library Association Annual Conference in the Moscone Center in San Francisco in late June. The weekend kicked off with a well-attended editathon held at the Wikimedia Foundation office. Several librarians got their start with editing, and new articles on topics related to librarianship were added.

This was the first year that TWL had a booth at the conference, and with approximately 25,000 people in attendance it provided extensive opportunities for networking with both librarians and publishers. We spoke to many great people in the library and information trade, gained valuable insights from librarians on how they advise their patrons about Wikipedia, and offered advice on how library staff can work with Wikipedia to both improve its content, and engage their users. One recurring theme that came up while talking to librarians was that there is a slow but steady acceptance and building respect for Wikipedia in the library world as the project matures. While a minority told us they discourage their patrons from using Wikipedia for research, far more told us, some in conspiratorial stage whispers, that they "love Wikipedia", and use it themselves in their work. They were happy to learn more about the internal processes and policies, and some even admitted to being editors themselves!

Publishers we talked to included Nature, Wiley, Al Manhal, Springer, Emerald Publishing, Jamalon, National Geographic, e-libro, Numerique Premium, LexisNexis, and Open Edition. We are following up to explore partnerships with several of these and plan on announcing some new donations shortly. We also met with organizations like PLoS, the U.S. Government Printing Office, the United Nation, Library of Congress, Humble Bundle, Internet Archive, Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, the Embassy of Spain, the Prison Education Department of California, Library Thing, International Librarians Network, the Association for Library and Information Science Education, eGranary Digital Library and the Library Information Technology Association.

Jake and Alex also gave a well-attended presentation about the potential for Wikipedia and TWL to extend the reach of libraries and offer opportunities to librarians and library students. See their slides here.

Wikimania

In addition to a presence at the Community Engagement Table, TWL participated in several presentations at Wikimania in Mexico:

Engaging Wikipedia's Natural Ally: How to unlock and amplify the access, knowledge, skills and resources of University and Research Libraries

Presentation and discussion hosted by Alex Stinson: The presentation will focus on experimental Wikipedia Library programs and tools growing out of these conversations that are focused on university and other research libraries. The discussion will seek to answer: How effective are our reference materials for our readers? Can readers really leverage higher quality scholarly references to help further their research?

Going Global: Creating and growing a Wikipedia Library Branch in your own language.

Presentation hosted by Patrick Earley and Jake Orlowitz: This presentation will show how the Wikipedia Library works on English Wikipedia and explore the knowledge and tools available for building new branches. It will showcase, among other findings, a discovery survey for existing resources, projects, and relationships related to research and the libraries on your wiki, and a community discussion framework to learn what your community wants and needs most from its branch.

Free as in Free: Strategies for Advancing Open Access on Wikipedia

Panel with Jake Orlowitz: Wikipedia is the greatest open knowledge work ever created, but it's often built upon references that are closed to all but a few. It's a core policy of Wikipedia that content must be verifiable—backed up by a reliable source—but that doesn't mean easily verifiable. Particularly for references citing scientific and scholarly work, Wikipedia users often hit publisher paywalls as they click through to read a source. Wikipedia is the 8th largest referrer of traffic to scholarly research (as measured by DOI clickthroughs), meaning every day Wikipedia points an innumerable number of users to articles they cannot access or verify. Achieving the mission of sharing knowledge means advancing towards broader open access to it. This presentation will cover a variety of projects and initiatives that push us closer to that goal and put the efforts within the Wikimedia community in the context of the larger Open Access movement.

Engaging with Community Engagement

Panel hosted by Luis Villa: Come meet some of the key members of this new team and ask them questions about the new group and where it is headed.

GLAM Learning Circle

Panel hosted by Jaime Anstee and María Cruz: A follow-up to learning circles facilitated at GLAM Wiki Conference in the Hague and next step in the learning journey to capture best practices and lessons learned in GLAM-wiki partnering.

If you are attending Wikimania, and want to talk to the TWL team about a library project, please look for us at the Foundation Community Engagement booth, or give us a ping! Alex, Patrick, and Jake are attending.

WMF updates

Quarterly review

TWL completed its fourth quarter for the 2014–2015 fiscal year and published our quarterly report:

Wikipedia Library QR Slides – Q4 2014–15

Annual retrospective

As the fiscal year closes, it's a good time to look back at what we accomplished:

Over this fiscal year we:

  • Grew from 14 partners to 40 partners
  • Added 4 non-English partners
  • Added major partners including Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, Project Muse, and Newspapers.com
  • Distributed 1593 accounts to users including 634 new TWL recipients
  • Increased links to our partners by 31,755 (avg +20%)
  • Grew from 4 to 8 global branches
  • Created and deployed global setup guide
  • Created and expanded global project menu
  • Presented at 11 conferences
  • Formed 5 new visiting scholars and transitioned to Wiki Ed in US/CAN
  • Started partnerships brunch, drafted WMF partnerships outlines, and scoped GLAM-Wiki role
  • Managed annual planning, budget, quarterly review, and core workflows

This is wholly due to our amazing team of four organizers and over 20 volunteer coordinators.


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