Posting on behalf of the Wikipedia Library Team.
–Joan Lippincott, CNI
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Hello from Jake and Alex at The Wikipedia Library!
Wikipedia is celebrating its 15th birthday this January 15th. We want to invite you to help us make it a big splash with a week-long, global campaign to engage our peers in the research, library, and cultural sectors all over the world.
We’re calling it #1Lib1Ref, and it’s a global “micro-contributions drive” with a simple but awesome goal:
For every librarian in the world to add one reference to any Wikipedia article
Using this viral, collaborative, crowdsourced approach, we hope to spark a conversation that highlights and explores the rich and evolving interactions between Wikipedia and library professionals.
That sea-change is already underway. As you have probably heard from us at The Wikipedia Library, Wikipedia is the largest hand-curated collection of annotated references in the world. Everyone starts their research on Wikipedia, from students to doctors, from casual researchers to research professionals. Professors incorporate editing into their classroom assignments and museums have both given to and borrowed from Wikipedia to remix their digital cultural heritage presence and make their content more discoverable. (See Understanding the Wikipedia-Library Connection for lots of stats, quotes, projects, papers, and case studies)
Wikipedia is also far from finished, and needs the contributions of experts to fill out thousands of articles and tens of thousands of references. Fortunately, library professionals are perfectly situated to do this kind of work and impact millions with their contributions.
For this campaign to take off, we are looking to you as a leader in the community, and there are easy ways for to join in, help support Wikipedia, and spread the initiative among your networks.
Would you like to…?
- Tweet about #1Lib1Ref from your social media accounts and encourage people to participate
- Write a personal or organizational blog post about the campaign and your experience or perspective using Wikipedia
- Hold a webinar or other educational activity during the week to teach people how to contribute
- Add your own completely clever idea, run with it, and tell us how it goes
All of our Partners who participate in these activities will have their organization listed on the main campaign page and get our hugely appreciative call-outs during our social media push leading up to and during the campaign.
We are also very happy to share resources, case studies, and useful language to help you talk about the campaign, while also encouraging you to add your own unique point of view.
Full details about the #1LibRef campaign page are live on MetaWiki: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Wikipedia_Library/1Lib1Ref
We’d love for you to help us celebrate 15 years of Wikipedia, and we can’t think of a better way to do it than telling (and showing) the world how aligned Wikipedia’s mission is with the broader work of library, knowledge, and cultural professionals.
We hope you’re enjoying this holiday season! Please write us and let us know if you can participate 🙂
Best and cheers,
–The Wikipedia Library Team at the Wikimedia Foundation