Anybody but Burns editathon
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About the event
On Burns Night it's all about The Bard, but Scotland has so many more wonderful poets to be proud of. Participants joined us to celebrate those literary greats who live forever in Burns' shadow and share their legacy with the world through Wikipedia before tucking in to their haggis wi' neeps and tatties. The aim was to create or improve an article about any notable Scottish poet except Robbie Burns.
Supported by the Scottish Poetry Library, SPL librarians were there to offer their insight, and we encouraged established or budding poets to bring along their work to read should they feel so inspired.
Lunch was provided, and participants had access to the internet and the very best of the National Library of Scotland's print and digital resources. Two spare laptops were available for those who did not have their own, and if necessary participants also had access to one of several networked desktops in the Reading Room.
Programme
Wikipedia training: 12:00 - 13:30
Lunch: 13:30 - 14:00
Edit-a-thon and Open mic: 14:00 - 17:00
Resources
Participants had access to the extensive reference collection housed in the National Library of Scotland's reading room, as well as a selection of texts from the Library's stacks that were ordered ahead of time. Participants also had access to digital gallery resources such as:
- Scottish Post Office directories
- The Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen
- Northern Lights: The Scottish Enlightenment
- The Word on the Street: Scottish Broadsides
And access was available to the Library's licensed digital collections, which included
- 19th Century UK Periodicals
- British & Irish Women's Letters & Diaries
- British Literary Manuscripts Online c.1660-1900
- Credo Reference
- E-book Collection via EBSCOHost
- Eighteenth Century Collections Online
- Europeana, a digital portal to over 4.6 million digitised books, manuscripts, newspapers, film clips, maps, photos and sound from cultural institutions across Europe
- Gale Artemis Primary Sources
- JSTOR
- Oxford Journals Online
- Scottish Women Poets of the Romantic Period
Attendees
If participants wanted to stay informed about future Wikipedia events in Scotland, or for anyone who was unable to attend this edit-a-thon who might interested in similar events, please join the ScotWiki mailing list!
- w:User:Journaln
- w:User:Peigim
- w:User:RuthSalter
- w:User:Cyocum
- w:User:Tsrosenberg
- w:User:a poetry librarian
- w:User:Stitchill
- w:User:centralamerica
- w:User:Julie Johnstone
- w:User:triptropic
- w:User:Bookpluscoffee
Results
Out of thirteen participants, four new accounts were created. Of these, 100% were created by women, and women constituted eight of the 13 participants. Three of five newly created articles were for women poets, as were four of twelve improved articles.
Created articles
Improved articles
In progress
Media
- The event has been covered in the Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/10594438/Burns-Night-celebrations-around-the-UK.html on 24 January 2014.
- We have also blogged about the editathon http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2014/01/anybody-but-burns-event-a-success/
- Storify by bookpluscoffee