User:Megalibrarygirl/Wikipedia and public libraries

Wikipedia and libraries work well together in many different ways. As librarians, we work to provide access to information and make information more available to people who need or want it. Wikipedia provides a platform that allows information to be shared and updated as new information takes its place. Librarians can help make Wikipedia more accurate, improve citations and references. In turn, adding items to Wikipedia can provide additional discovery points to library collections. Librarians are in a unique place to make rare and "hidden" information more visible and accessible through Wikipedia to more users online.

Verify
All articles on Wikipedia must contain information that is verifiable. Wikipedia editors work to ensure that information in the online encyclopedia is sourced by reliable and independent sources. After the famous study in Nature comparing Wikipedia to the Encyclopedia Britannica and finding similar amounts of accuracy, Wikipedia editors worked for four months to correct any errors that were found during the study. Other studies have similarly found low amounts of error on Wikipedia. This is largely due to the use of reliable information that makes up the sourcing for articles.

Articles that are not properly sourced are likely to be deleted.

Sources at YOUR library
As librarians, we are surrounded by information. Some of it is unique to our own collections. We're in a position to add information that may otherwise go unnoticed to Wikipedia. We can use our special collections to provide information on topics on Wikipedia. Sometimes, our libraries may have the only copy of a book that can help provide citations for articles. While working on an article for the Woman's Club of El Paso, I was able to reference a book, The Woman's Club of El Paso: It's First Thirty Years (1978), in my library's collection that is not digitized and not available at most libraries. All of us have similar books that can help improve articles on Wikipedia.

Archivists often have specialized knowledge of their collections that can be useful in improving articles relating to objects in the collections.

In addition, as librarians, many of us have access to databases. Let's put that to good use!

Sources from TWL
The Wikipedia Library (TWL) provides Wikipedia editors access to database accounts with 51 publishers in several different languages. These publishers include JSTOR, Oxford University Press, Project MUSE, Gale and Elsevier.

Make accessible
Information that is made available online is 4.5 times more likely to be cited than information that is only available in print form. Researchers using Wikipedia are able to trace additional information from the citations added to Wikipedia by following the reference links at the bottom of articles. Wikipedia is the eighth-largest referrer of digital object identifiers (DOI), according to Crossref in 2015. Crossref developed a Wikimedia Ambassador program to help integrate more scholarly publications in Wikipedia articles.

It is important to meet those who are searching for information where they are already looking for it. Users looking for information are already using Google and Wikipedia for their searches. According to a 2018 Library Journal survey, 83% of students start their research using Google, while 57% use library databases and 28% use Wikipedia alone. Wikipedia itself receives over 500 million visits per month. Results from searches on Google turn up Wikipedia sites most often on the first page. Wikipedia, through The Wikipedia Library (TWL), also works with the Internet Archive and OCLC to ensure that links to information cited on Wikipedia is easy to find and remains accessible.

Information uploaded to Wikimedia Commons helps to make collections more accessible by providing content with open licensing that allows the content to be reused, remixed and repurposed.

Information visibility
For Information to be made visible online, it has to be made available online first. After that, the information can be made discoverable in different ways. In this essay, I'm naturally focusing on discoverability involving Wikipedia.

Information that is cited on Wikipedia from databases becomes visible in Google searches: even if it's behind a paywall. Some sources, like Newspapers.com, allow users to "clip" out information. These clippings can be viewed by anyone, making information that was once hidden, now fully accessible. Oxford has experimented with opening up access to information behind paywalls. They gave free access to the Dictionary of Islam and worked with editors to include references on Wikipedia. The department that provided the access, the Oxford Islamic Studies Center found a significant increase to their own site referred by Wikipedia after adding the information from the Dictionary of Islam to relevant pages on Wikipedia. Similarly, Loyola University Chicago sees Wikipedia as one of their top drivers of external traffic to their digital collections.

Collection visibility
"Special collections are for use."

Information from your collection can become more visible if becomes part of Wikipedia. A study that followed an effort to increase visibility of digital archival assets at the Ball State University Archives found that when links to a particular collection were added to relevant articles, that there was a significant increase in pageviews of their digital assets. Linda Quirk, a librarian at a rare book library at the University of Alberta, has also noticed that after increased visibility of digital copies of collections has led to a "renewed interest in studying the original print documents not just in the humanities but in the sciences as well."

For archivists, partnering with Wikipedia can help promote their collections and also to make them more available to more people.

Fight bias
Despite all attempts to maintain neutrality, Wikipedia, like the humans that build it has a bias. More Wikipedia editors are men (91%) and most editors live in the Global North. Coverage on topics that are typically associated with women or feminine traits are not covered as well as other topics on Wikipedia. Wikipedia, like many institutions, is reflecting the dominant part of culture's point of view. Libraries and librarians can help address bias on Wikipedia by contributing information from their collections that centers minority experiences and viewpoints.

Visibility is important in fighting bias. In my own experience in working with women's biographies, I find that many notable women are "hidden" in databases. They are not covered by mainstream media, but they were covered by reliable sources that are difficult to access. Google searches won't turn up much information on them. However, using databases and archives, you can find a lot of information on notable women from the past. Once that information is written into Wikipedia, a Google search will turn up that woman's biography. A person hidden from history becomes visible once more.

Get involved
Librarians are in a unique position to help students, patrons and researchers to identify reliable, independent sources that Wikipedia needs.

GLAM
GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) is a program that partners these institutions with Wikipedia. The GLAM page on Wikipedia has a ton of resources and examples of successful collaborations between Wikipedia and institutions.

Visiting Scholar program
Visiting Scholars partner with The Wikipedia Library (TWL) to work with research libraries and university libraries. This program allows the visiting scholar access to the library's collections and materials to help improve articles which link back to the library.

Wikipedian in Residence
Your library or institution could host a Wikipedian in Residence. A Wikipedian in Residence partners a Wikipedia editor with a library or museum collection to improve Wikipedia articles on topics relating to the institution. The Wikipedian in Residence helps to share information from the institution and make it easily accessible to more people. Other Wikipedians in Residence help librarians and others at the institution become comfortable with editing Wikipedia.

#1Lib1Ref
The campaign, #1Lib1Ref, takes place every year for a few weeks around the anniversary of the founding of Wikipedia. The project encourages librarians to replace "citation needed" tags with valid references.

Use "Citation Hunt" to find sections of Wikipedia pages that need citations.

Host an edit-a-thon
Edit-a-thons allow experienced editors to teach new users how to edit Wikipedia. Edit-a-thons can be broad in scope or focused on a particular topic.

A librarian in Kansas City, Missouri, Kim Gile, noticed that there was a lack of coverage of the city's notable jazz scene on Wikipedia. In order to fix the problem, she invited a Wikipedian in Residence, Monika Sengul-Jones, to help host an edit-a-thon to tackle the issue. The library provided information to participants with Gile finding resources that would be considered reliable sources on Wikipedia. Participants learned about resources the library had that they didn't know about and also learned how to evaluate information.

Get involved with Art+Feminism.

Join Wikimedia Library and Library Users Group
Librarians from around the world are members of the Wikimedia Library and Library Users Group. Members are involved in many different areas of librarianship.

Wikipedia literacy
Librarians should understand how to evaluate Wikipedia articles as sources in and of themselves. Merrilee Proffitt, who is a Senior Program Manager at OCLC, describes some basic literacies for evaluating Wikipedia articles. These include the time and date of last update, article quality, and completeness of an article.

Wikipedia passes most of the criteria of the CRAAP test: it is current, relevant and accurate. It's purpose is to spread information freely and is run by a non-profit, so it does well there, too. The only issue with Wikipedia as a source in and of itself is that it is not authoritative. However, Wikipedia does link to authoritative, reliable information through its many citations.

For students
It is also important for librarians to teach students that anyone with or without credentials or authority can edit Wikipedia. This places an emphasis on teaching students how to access the references that are included in Wikipedia. Librarians working with younger students should be aware that Wikipedia entries may be written at a higher reading level than the students who are trying to use the encyclopedia are able to process.