This is a blog in two parts – the first is some session recommendations for the CILIPS conference, and the second is a list of cool stuff about library engagement with Wikimedia….
On 3-4 June, in the fair city of Dundee, it’s the CILIPS Annual Conference 2019, where the great and good of the Library and Information Professionals world in Scotland will come to gather.
We are particularly excited to say that our CEO, Lucy Crompton-Reid, will be keynoting on day 1, and there’ll also be a chance to hear from two other members of the Wikimedia community earlier that day. If you have even a passing interest in how libraries can – and should – engage with open knowledge in general and Wikimedia in particular, then don’t miss these.
So here’s our Wiki-and-friends top sessions to attend:
- Monday, 12:25, City Suite – Leveraging libraries: Community, open access and Wikimedia – Jason Evans, National Library of Wales Wikimedian in Residence and Dr Sara Thomas, Scotland Programme Coordination, Wikimedia UK
- Monday, 15:55, City Suite – Keynote 3 – Creating a more tolerant, informed and democratic society through open knowledge – Lucy Crompton-Reid, Chief Executive of Wikimedia UK
- Tuesday, 11:40, City Suite – Open Access, Plan S and new models for academic publishing – Dominic Tate, University of Edinburgh
- Tuesday, 14:15, City Suite – The joy of digital – Exploring digital making and scholarship to enable innovation in research libraries – Kirsty Lingstadt, Head of Digital Library and Deputy Director of Library & University Collections at the University of Edinburgh.
Scotland has hosted three Wikimedians in Residence within the library sector – two at the National Library of Scotland, and one at the Scottish Library and Information Council – and so we’re very happy to be able to continue our relationship with the sector through a presence at the conference.
Here are a few of our favourite things…
Want to know more about how libraries can engage with Wikimedia? Here’s some of our favourite library things…. We’d recommend that you bookmark these for later reading….
- The fact that Wales has a National Wikimedian, based at the National Library of Wales.
- That the National Library of Scotland hosted Scotland’s first ever Wikimedian in Residence, helping to release openly-licensed images from the collection onto Wikimedia Commons- and then went on to host the first ever Gaelic Wikimedian in Residence.
- Dr Martin Poulter, Wikimedian in Residence at the Bodleian Library, has written extensively on some of the excellent things that libraries can do with Wikidata, in particular, to open up collections.
- Our Wikimedian in Residence project at the Scottish Library and Information Council created a cohort of Wiki-enabled libraries up and down the country, who can now run their own editathons, and engage local people in creating open knowledge using their local library.
- For more general info, here’s an old blog of ours about how libraries can improve Wikipedia.
- That our partnerships with organisations like the Wellcome Library help to bring collections to a wider audience.
- Get involved with the twice-annual #1lib1ref campaign – an easy way into Wikipedia for librarians…
And finally…
We’re also excited to see the release of the Association of Research Libraries’ White Paper on Wikidata, which makes some excellent – and very practical – suggestions as to how libraries can contribute to Wikidata, and indeed, why Wikidata / Linked Open Data in general, is good for libraries in the first place. Even if you’re unfamiliar with the ins and outs of linked open data, it’s valuable reading, and well explained. https://www.arl.org/resources/arl-whitepaper-on-wikidata/
If you’re at the CILIPS conference, then we hope you have a great couple of days, please do come and say hi! If you’re not, but would like to follow along on Twitter, you can do so on #CILIPS19