From Frenemies to Friends:

Wikipedia and your Library Image by Jenny Kaczorowski

Overview: ●  Scope of Wikipedia and why we should care

●  Ethics of Wikipedia

●  Wikipedia as an opportunity for reference and instruction

●  Promoting the visibility of our digital collections through Wikipedia

●  Linking Online Resources

●  Using Wikipedia to introduce your library to Google

●  Wikipedia Edit-A-Thon! / Wikipedia Loves Libraries events

A Mission that Deserves our Support

Wikipedia’s Scale 30 million articles 288 languages 2 billion edits 8000 views per second 500 million monthly visitors 5th most popular website 2000x larger than Britannica

Wikipedia’s volunteers 20 million registered 80,000 active users 1,400 admins

Alexa’s Top 500 Sites on the Web 1. Google.com 2. Facebook.com 3. Youtube.com 4. Yahoo.com 5. Baidu.com 6. Amazon.com 7. Wikipedia.org

Library Bill of Rights

I. Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.

II. Libraries should provide materials and information presenting all points of view on current and historical issues. Materials should not be proscribed or removed because of partisan or doctrinal disapproval. IV. Libraries should cooperate with all persons and groups concerned with resisting abridgment of free expression and free access to ideas. (http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill)

Wikipedia is free content that anyone can use, edit, and distribute: Since all editors freely license their work to the public, no editor owns an article and any contributions can and will be mercilessly edited and redistributed. Respect copyright laws, and never plagiarize from sources. Borrowing non-free media is sometimes allowed as fair use, but strive to find free alternatives first.

Five pillars of Wikipedia - Pillar #1

Five pillars of Wikipedia - Pillar #2

Wikipedia Changelogs on The Iraq War: 2004-2009

Five pillars of Wikipedia - Pillar #3

Five pillars of Wikipedia - Pillar #4

Five pillars of Wikipedia - Pillar #5

“Wikiquette” 1.  Assume good faith 2.  Use the Golden Rule 3.  Recognize your own biases

and keep them in check 4.  Be focused single-mindedly

on editing an encyclopedia 5.  Do not bite the newcomers 6.  No Wikihounding 7.  Communicate, communicate, communicate

Common Mistakes

1. Creating autobiographical or company articles

2. Using Wikipedia Talk pages as a chat room 3. Getting annoyed when others edit or delete your

work. 4. Deleting without explanation 5. Over Wikifying

Raise your hand if… you create access to information.

you promote information and digital literacy.

you teach people how to evaluate information.

Wikipedia gives you an OPPORTUNITY to do all three!!!

Field Trip!

Why edit? ●  Be a part of the conversation! ●  Contribute to knowledge and constructions

of knowledge ●  Offer different points of view ●  “Digital Outreach”

Alignment-of-interest REGISTER: Create an account, for you individually – not your organization

DISCLOSE: Mention and explain your institutional affiliation

HIGHLIGHT: Expose your most relevant, substantial collections neutrally

INCLUDE: Add relevant collections from other archives that you know of

ENGAGE: Respond thoughtfully and clearly to any community concerns

“Curators, librarians, archivists, and similar are encouraged to help improve Wikipedia, or share their information in the form of links to their resources.” -

wikipedia policy

[[WP:TWL/COI]]

Orlowitz, J., & Stinson, A. (2015). Source Discovery Anyone Can Edit [Google slides]. Available here.

Case Study #1 Ball State University (Indiana)

●  57 separate links to 40 items in their digital library were added over a 3-month period

●  Links mostly added in “External Links” section ●  40 assets viewed 13,000 times - a 600% increase ●  10,000 pageviews were referred via Wikipedia ●  5X greater than pageviews from any other source ●  Pageviews for the entire 149 item collection tripled

“An overwhelming success, remarkable in its efficiency” “Using Wikipedia to Enhance the Visibility of Digitized Archival Assets”. Michael Szajewski. Ball State University. http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march13/szajewski/03szajewski.html

“Archivists organize records by collections. Therefore, archivists and digital librarians may be susceptible to the tendency to think solely at the collection level when promoting resources. However, the results of this study show that an outreach strategy that limits visibility-raising efforts solely to the collection level is limited in its ability to reach numerous potential digital patrons.” “Using Wikipedia to Enhance the Visibility of Digitized Archival Assets”. Michael Szajewski. Ball State University. http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march13/szajewski/03szajewski.html

Linking Online Resources Where to start? The resources to get you on your way!

●  See “Contributing to Wikipedia” ●  Also: “Wikipedia Editing Policies” ●  And for the whole story: “

Editing Wikipedia: A guide to improving content on the online encyclopedia”

Edit According to Your Interests! ●  Wikiprojects are groups of editors that improve articles

on certain topics. ●  Browse topics here to get started! ●  WikiProjects helps you find pages that are new or that

need attention in your subject area ●  Another way to edit? Browse Wikipedia articles; click on

the “Talk” button to see what an article is rated; if an article is rated lower, it needs your help!

●  For article ratings and assessments info, go here!

How to get involved: Host an event!

Panels Train the trainers Edit-a-thons Meetups Trainings for the general public

Using Wikipedia to introduce your library to Google

Does Google know your library?

Google “J Willard Marriott Library”

Case Study - MSU Library - 2012

Where does Google get its information?

●  “Trusted sources” for search engines o  Wikipedia/DBPedia (most important) o  Google Places/ Google My Business o  Google+ o  FreeBase

●  If you don’t have a Wikipedia presence, you don’t exist as a recognized “entity” or “thing”.

From “strings” to “things”

In the past (and now)… ●  Web of documents ●  Google searched text

as strings. ●  Word frequency ●  Meaningful links

Now… ●  Moving into

structured data ●  “Linked Open Data” ●  Defined entities not

just character strings.

Why are we talking about this?

●  Libraries have not done a good job of defining ourselves in Google’s Knowledge Base.

●  If Google does not know you exist as an entity, it is a lot less likely to send people to your website or represent you well in a Google search.

Case study - Montana State Library

Wikipedia - 2012

DBPedia - 2012

MSU Library Wikipedia - 2014

MSU Library DBPedia - 2014

Google Maps - fixed wrong information

MSU Library Google+ entry

MSU Library Google Search - 2014

How can you introduce your library to Google? Create a Wikipedia article (But beware of Wikipedia culture)

What else can you do? ●  Engage with other “trusted sources”.

●  Mark up your metadata with schema.org. o  Library-centric metadata schemas (MARC, Dublin

Core, etc.) are not recognized or supported by search engines.

Wikipedia Training and Edit-a-thon

Training - August 4th Edit-a-thon - September (exact date TBD)