Wikipedia:GLAM/SLIC/6 month report

Information is presented below in line with the notes detailed here, provided by WMUK with the template report in October 2017.

Overview
This period has included the development of phase 1, movement into phase 2 and reaching out to potential partners, with both Aberdeenshire & South Ayrshire providing leads.


 * I've also been looking for opportunities for wider advocacy - discussion with CILIPS, for example.
 * Student placement Jenny King has come on board from the University of Strathclyde, and will be working with me until the end of March.
 * There's been some interest from HE & FE institutions - including Glasgow Caledonian University and City of Glasgow College.

Progress narrative
During November 2017, training for librarians was carried out for each of the first phase library service partners - Inverclyde, North Lanarkshire and North Ayrshire - with a total of 24 individuals trained. Trained individuals were then added to a private Basecamp project board (one of a suite coordinated by SLIC) which includes links to or copies of training materials, a schedule and a messageboard which the resident updates. Informal feedback from workshop participants indicates that attitudes towards & understanding of Wikipedia (particularly with regard to accuracy & usefulness as a resource) were improved by workshop participation. The next step for each of these services is to run their first editathon, and to begin to look at their archives/collections to assess what material might be suitable for an upload to Wikimedia Commons. Two of the services (Inverclyde & North Lanarkshire) have staff steering groups in place to guide the project, and the other (North Ayrshire) are now considering it.

Follow up after initial training sessions was slowed by both budget deadlines for public library services, and the Christmas break. The Inverclyde follow up session was held on 9 January, having been scheduled before the holidays, and was very productive. Potential subject areas for an initial editathon - and perhaps subsequent events - have been identified and a timeline set for implementation. North Lanarkshire have set a date for their next meeting, & North Ayrshire will hold a follow up sessions as soon as diaries allow. North Lanarkshire confirmed at the beginning of February that they have secured the involvement of a local history group.

Following on from a contact made at the Community Heritage Conference in November, a representative from South Ayrshire Libraries & Museums has been in contact and we are pursuing involvement with a project to run between now & October. A representative from Aberdeenshire libraries has indicated that they would like me to present to a staff group in the near future.

On reflection, it may be that the one-day training session for this project could be rendered more effective through the use of a blended learning approach. The use of the Basecamp board was intended to offer spurs to self-study for interested parties, but this may be able to be improved upon. Comparison with Code Club training (a successful project rolled out in various public library services in Scotland, which also featured a one-day training) may be useful.

I assisted with training for the LitLong editathon at the University of Edinburgh, helping to create and improve articles about "lost" literary figures (mostly women) connected to Edinburgh.

Take up for #1Lib1Ref was low, but to be expected given the timing within the project. Activity organised by the resident was intentionally low-level, with events initially scheduled during the period having been rescheduled. The resident circulated information about participation to partner institutions (with one service showing particular interest), and SLIC publicising through their social/digital channels. The SLIC office ran an in-house event on Friday 2 February, with 6 editors making 39 edits across 10 articles. The resident updated one library / librarian / author-related article per day & tweeted about it using the official hashtag (link to complete Twitter activity below). A session was run in 5 February with staff from Glasgow Caledonian University Library staff, with 15 editors 71 edits across 6 articles, including 4 new articles being created. It is planned to extend all activity for the 2019 campaign. Our new student placement Jenny also created a new article for The Suffragette Oak.

Data and/or description of Other Projects under SG1

 * The resident volunteered to assist with the planning of an editathon with the Social and Public Health Sciences Unit at the University of Glasgow. The event page for that editathon can be found here, however, it is not officially part of the residency (resident acting in a voluntary capacity), although the contact may prove beneficial to the project.


 * Following an enquiry from senior management at the Scottish Poetry Library about running an event to coincide with Burns' Night, an editathon focussing on forgotten female poets of Scotland has been scheduled for Friday 23 February. This has now sold out.  The resident at the University of Edinburgh has been invited, and asked to invite those WMUK reps who are visiting him that week.


 * An editathon has been organised by Gweduni about the local history of Portobello, Edinburgh, is set to take place in Portobello library on Saturday 3 March 2018. As the editathon is taking place at a public library, and will be the second to take place in an Edinburgh Libraries venue during the course of this residency, I will attend and assist if needed.

Progress narrative
Both presentations made during this period were well received, and effective in terms of lead generation. The opportunity to present at the Archaeology Scotland / Historic Environment Scotland Community Heritage Conference 2017 came about through contacts made in my other role as Project Officer for Dig It! 2017. I was invited to chair an afternoon panel session and pitched a session which was very squarely advocacy-focussed, with the aim of recruiting those involved in Community Heritage projects and research to engage with Wikimedia projects specifically, and open knowledge more generally. I asked Ewan McAndrew, resident at the University of Edinburgh to join me, and with assistance from Lorna Campbell, WMUK Board Member, we put together a 90 minute session which incorporated Wiki Races, a case study (my work on the Hart Village article), and a basic guide to Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, and WikiData. After the session I had the opportunity to make a summation to all conference attendees. Feedback from this event was positive and a staff member at Archaeology Scotland asked to use some of our slides for a presentation he was making the following week.

The presentation made at The Scottish Government & SLIC's annual #ScotInfoLit event was also well received, from feedback given after the event by participants to SLIC, and has led to at least one potential event link later in the year. The event is focussed upon Information Literacy, with attendees coming from a range of libraries across Scotland.

Ewan McAndrew and Gavin Willshaw have been invited to present at the SCURL/SLIC Libraries, Literacies and Learning event on 23 March. I will also support this event with a lunchtime Q&A session.

Media
[https://www.slideshare.net/SaraThomas10/dont-cite-wikipedia-write-wikipedia Don't Write Wikipedia, Cite Wikipedia! Edited presentation for GCU]

Social media

 * 1) 1Lib1Ref social media highlights (tweeting each citation made during this period):
 * 3555 impressions for 26/01 tweet on Adele Patrick
 * 1178 impressions for 18/01 tweet on Mitchell Library
 * 1126 impressions for 23/01 tweet on Scottish Poetry Library
 * Tweet series can be found as a collection here.

Progress narrative
Contact with educational institutions has been a - somewhat surprisingly - fruitful avenue thus far. During the period covered by this report, I've had contact with Glasgow Caledonian University, City of Glasgow College, the University of Glasgow (the latter in a volunteer capacity) and one additional University. The first two have expressed interest in developing interaction with Wikimedia projects at an institutional level and have requested collaboration and assistance. GCU had first gotten in contact through SLIC's website regarding an event for 1Lib1Ref, however this was pushed back to Monday 5 February in order to reach a higher number of teaching & library staff. I met a senior member of staff of CoGC at the CILIPS Autumn Gathering and this meeting was partially in response to that meeting. The other University got in contact through Twitter to ask about assistance with a series of editathons. Their name has been redacted as this project is still at the funding proposal stage.

This period also sees the beginning of our student placement from the University of Strathclyde, Jenny King, who will be working on the project one day per week between January - March 2018. She will be shadowing the work of the resident, learning to edit Wikipedia, attending events and helping to run an event toward the end of her placement.

Other projects under education
n/a

Projects/events in development (relating to any goal), if any

 * Training event for Glasgow Caledonian University Librarians organised for Monday 5 February 2018
 * Scottish Poetry Library editathon organised for Friday 23 February 2018
 * Advocacy session for Aberdeenshire Libraries Professional Team date TBC February 2018
 * Editathon event with Govan's Hidden Histories group 22 March 2018
 * Possible editathon events with a University partner in Autumn 2018
 * Linkup with Archaeology Scotland / Dig It! around castle project - probs Summer 2018

Press/Media about the residency

 * 22 November 2017 - Wikimedian update: Hidden Gems and Community Heritage SLIC blog