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
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:The_Wikipedia_Library/Research_libraries>
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 (if they would like) 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
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