Draft proposal: Thurrock Libraries

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Recently I had a conversation with a friend who is a librarian and the conversation turned to Wikipedia. I floated the idea of providing Wikipedia booklets and information in public libraries as it's obviously one of the websites that's used most frequently across public libraries. This led to a very fruitful conversation with the Operations and Data Manager for Thurrock Libraries (Thurrock is a unitary authority in Essex).

Based on this conversation here is a draft proposal for a working relationship with the library service.

The relationship would see Wikimedia UK delivering one or two training sessions to library staff (mostly librarians) about how to edit and use Wikipedia effectively. Those people trained would be in a public facing role within the libraries. Once trained they would be able to pass their skills on to local residents and service users. We would also provide how to edit booklets, membership leaflets and other useful materials such as cheat sheets.

After a few months we would assess the scheme on a formal (or informal basis) – metrics yet to be determined – to assess whether there is a case to be made for extending the scheme, perhaps offering similar initiatives to other local authorities, whether on a borough by borough or county-wide basis.

If the scheme is successful on a pilot basis Wikimedia UK could extend the scheme although any extended scheme would incur costs in terms of volunteer travel for training and production of printed materials. It may be that local authorities could provide contributions to this (or in the case of larger authorities meet the costs of all printed materials used in the scheme).

Obviously there are a few details to be ironed out but in my view there is great potential for this scheme to add great value as a way of encouraging participation in Wikimedia projects, increase engagement with the chapter. In areas where there are large communities of speakers of non-English languages there is also great potential for “linguistic” outreach.

I welcome discussion of this short paper, which has been shared with Thurrock Library Service. Once some details have been ironed out then a more solid and detailed proposal will emerge. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 11:51, 29 October 2013 (UTC)