Wikipedia:GLAM/SLIC/15 month report

Overview
August

There was little reportable activity during the month of August as the WiR was on annual leave from the 17th August until the 2nd September. The first two weeks of the month were spent in planning meetings for Wiki Loves Monuments and other events planned for September and October. The WiR produced a Wiki Loves Monuments resource for Librarians, which was publicized across the SLIC libraries network throughout the month of August. That resource was used as a template and replicated for Museums and for Heritage Organisations as part of the WLM strategy devised and coordinated with Sara Thomas.

September

Wiki Loves Monuments

The WiR promoted Wiki Loves Monuments across the SLIC Librarian sector and a number of libraries were active in promoting it locally to their library users. One of the key successes in getting the message out was running a live demo of the WLM website and tool at the quarterly SLIC Digital Champions Meeting on the 5th of September.

The WiR was also able to facilitate a partnership with the Scottish Civic Trust as part of WLM. First planning meeting with the Scottish Civic Trust, Sara Thomas and the WiR took place in August. This partnership with the Scottish Civic Trust opened up access to the network of Scottish Doors Open Day venues, who helped promote WLM for us as part of their program. As a second part of the partnership, three editathons were planned on the theme of WLM to correspond with Doors Open Day week-ends. The venues (Dumfries and Galloway, Glasgow and Aberdeenshire) were selected based on local authorities whose libraries had shown low engagement in the WiR project. Issues were encountered in the planning of those events however, due to short planning time, and only the Glasgow event wtook place. 6 people attended the Glasgow event (see dashboard) and it was an opportunity to open up new discussions with City of Glasgow College about teaching Wikipedia in the curriculum (the event was attended by Fiona Balloch, Curriculum Head of Essential Skills) as well as new discussions with the Glasgow University Library whose Digital Library Team Manager attended the event and expressed interest in developing more Wikipedia activities. Although the Aberdeenshire editathon did not go ahead, it allowed the WiR to open a new dialogue with Aberdeenshire Libraries who will be receiving their firs Intro to Wikipedia on the 28th November as a result.

Final results for WLM: •	27,333 new Wikidata items created •	Worked with partners SLIC, University of Edinburgh, Museums Gallery Scotland, Archaeology Scotland, Dig it!, Built Environment Forum Scotland, the Dumfries Historic Buildings Trust, the Scottish Civic Trust and Doors Open Day •	4,374 photos contributed for Scotland out of 13,184 total for UK

One Year Review

The one year review of the SLIC residency was held on the 4th September. Follow link for the report.

Librarian Training sessions:

-	The Falkirk Library staff team underwent an Intro to Wikipedia for librarians training session (10 members of staff in total). They are now planning their first editathon which will take place in 2019 at the Grangemouth library to mark the 130th anniversary of the library opening (it is the second ever Carnegie library and does not currently have a Wikipedia page). -	Inverclyde Library took part in a Train the Trainer session (3 members of staff trained) with new training resources developed by the Wikimedian in Residence. They are now preparing for their first solo editathon. Dunfermline and North Lanarkshire Libraries will be undergoing the same training in December and January. The resources will be openly published in the coming month.

October

Wiki Loves Libraries

The WiR in residence organised a Wiki Loves Libraries competition in order to improve the coverage of libraries on Wikipedia. 8 local authorities took part, with 7 previosuly trained Wikipedia editors and 1 new editor. The deadline for the competition had to be extended due to the WiR going on bereavement leave. The final results will be published with the November report.

Women of Skye editathon

The WiR in residence organised the Women of Skye editathon in partnership with Atlas Art, which resulted in a 1 day training session for librarians and archivists on the 9th October and a 2 day editathon on the 19th and 20th October. In total, 14 editors were trained, 13 of which were women. 7 new biographies of women were created and published and a further 6 articles are in draft format and being worked on. The event received coverage on the BBC news and the Highland Free Press. This model of event is a format that could be repeated in other rural areas or islands in Scotland.

Advocacy

-	On the 5th October, the WiR delivered an Intro to Wikipedia presentation at the LocScot annual conference in Dunfermline for librarians and archivists involved in Local History projects. The event was attended by approx. 25 attendees from across Scotland. During the Q&A, questions were raised on how Wikipedia could support local history projects where there is limited information currently available in secondary sources. These are questions currently raised frequently in relation to oral history projects and the WiR has arranged to follow up on this topic with some case studies in the new year.

-	On the 22nd October, the WiR delivered the keynote speech at the SHINE conference for health librarians in Glasgow. The presentation was developed with the support of Jennifer Dawson, board member of WikiProject Medecine, who provided key figures, facts and case studies to illustrate the work Wikipedia has been doing in relation to health. The event was attended by approximately 30 health librarians and raised a lot of enthusiasm. This event was an opportunity for the WiR to increase the reach of the residency across a new specialized area of the library sector in Scotland. As a follow-up, the health librarians network will be invited to take part in 1Lib1Ref in January with some specially designed resources and training sessions.

-	On the 27th October, the WiR co-delivered with Stuart Prior and John Lubbock a presentation on the theme of Under the hood: How understanding Wikipedia’s internal structure and community can teach media literacy. The event was attended by approximately 25 people and recorded by John in a post on Wikimedia UK’s blog. The event was an opportunity for the WiR to develop materials that could be reused in later sessions introducing school librarians to Wikipedia as a tool for information literacy.

Intro to Wikipedia for School Librarians

The WiR in residence ran a 1 day training session Intro to Wikipedia as a tool for teaching Information Literacy with school librarians from Port Glasgow and the Inverclyde area. This is the first time the residency has engaged with school librarians and has been an opportunity to develop new resources for teaching young people about Wikipedia in schools. The school librarians hope to develop projects in the new year teaching higher students how to edit Wikipedia as well as delivering information literacy sessions to younger students on how to use Wikipedia for their studies. The school librarians from Port Glasgow are currently investigating the possibility of applying for some funding from SLIF (School Library Improvement Fund) to run a year long Wikipedia project. The deadline for applications is the 14th December 2018.

Wikidata 6th Anniversary event – WitchyWikidata at the University of Edinburgh

The WiR co-delivered a Wikidata workshop with Ewan MacAndrew and Sara Thomas to students and staff from the university of Edinburgh. The workshop was an opportunity to mark Wikidata’s anniversary, but also for the WiR to test delivering a session on teaching basic SPARQL and how to use the Query service ahead of upcoming workshops at the Glasgow School of Art Library as well as the upcoming Wikidata training session with Wikimedia UK.

Press/Media about the residency

 * 1 August 2018 - | Celtic Knot 2018 – How can Wikidata support minority language Wikipedias WMUK Blog
 * 26 August 2018 - | Wikipedia and Libraries Alexandria: The Journal of National and International Library and Information Issues, by John Lubbock