Project grants/Perth Women on Wikipedia

Basic information

Project Title (If applicable)

Perth Women on Wikipedia

Proposed by

Gill Ryan (@Gillaween)

Are you currently a member of Wikimedia UK?

Project description

Culture PK libraries are generously hosting a Perth Women on Wikipedia workshop on International Women's Day (8 March 2025). They are not charging for room hire but we would like to be able to contribute to the costs of providing refreshments for workshop participants.

Describe project activities. What will you use the funding to do?

We will use the funding to provide tea/coffee and pastries for participants of a 3 hour editathon on International Women's Day in AK Bell Library, Perth.

Amount requested

£175.27

Describe your plan for evaluating this project. How will you measure success? What types of things will you measure (e.g. content, participants)?

We will have a dashboard recording the number of editors, and how many words, images, sources and articles are added on the day and for a week afterwards (to allow editors to complete what they're working on). As trainer, I will also seek verbal feedback based on the expected outcomes of the participants recorded at the outset of the workshop. Culture PK libraries will do follow up evaluation questionnaire.

Identify key people involved in this project. How will or could the wider Wikimedian community be involved?

Gill Ryan, Wikimedia trainer Kirsty Brown, Learning and Engagement Manager, Culture PK libraries Dr Sara Thomas - all-knowing provider of guidance on issues relating to running a workshop, and access to training slides We can also put out a call for any Scottish editors who may be available to assist - in person or virtually

If applicable, identify partnering organisations for this project (not essential)

Culture Perth & Kinross libraries

Who will be recording/measuring the project metrics, and writing up a project report?

Gill Ryan

What meeting or other space is needed?

N/A

Are other resources needed (such as computers, books, camera equipment, food, contacts, infrastructure)? How will they be sourced?

No

If any partner organisations have been identified, have they been contacted and are they committed?

Yes

Does this project require more extensive funding? What would any WMUK funds be used for?

No

Are external funds needed that we can apply for? If so where will they be sought?

No

Are there any resources that you can contribute? Such as equipment.

No

Final report

On International Women’s Day 2025, Perth Women on Wikipedia celebrated by researching and sharing the stories of remarkable women from Perth’s history. The project started as a six-week course run in partnership between Culture Perth and Kinross Libraries and Wikimedia UK in 2023. Since then we have run themed editing workshops and given talks about Perth’s women and for IWD25, we did both!

We gave a talk on Perth Women on Wikipedia at an event in Perth Civic Hall, then headed to AK Bell Library for a PWOW workshop. Running the workshop in partnership with the library’s local history team meant participants could learn about the many physical and digital resources they can access in the library as well as Wikipedia editing skills. We had the amazingly knowledgeable staff on hand to tell us about the resources and help point us in the right direction.

We were able to research and improve Wikipedia biographies of notable women using reliable sources from the library. A reliable source must have a named author and a publisher. If no reliable sources can be found on a topic, Wikipedia should not have an article on it. Luckily, the local newspaper catalogue was a trove of articles and obituaries of notable Perth women. Last year, we added nearly 10,000 words to Wikipedia, including 144 new references from sources we found in the library. On IWD we added another 43 references and a fantastic 6000 words!

One of the articles we improved was that of Jess Smith, a writer and storyteller from a Perthshire Traveller background. Her article was a stub with no photograph, but as it happened Jess was doing a book event in a local bookshop the day before, so I popped in and asked if I could take a photo for her Wikipedia article. She was happy to and it gave me the opportunity to demo uploading images to Wikimedia Commons during the workshop. With this and some additional sources the editors turned up, the article was very much improved.

The workshop was open to seasoned editors as well as newbies and we had a lovely mix of experience and ages. Everyone had an interest in women’s history and were keen to get stuck into our worklist, which has grown from an initial 37 women to more than 160. Some of them have biographies that need to be improved while others are still waiting for one to be created, despite their many accomplishments. We’re working on it. And we’re happy to share the list, for example with Perth Civic Trust which is aiming to install new heritage plaques in Perth, with at least a third of them being for women.

We’re very grateful to WMUK for providing project funding for the workshop, which enabled us to contribute to venue overheads and provide refreshments for our busy editors as they worked to make Wikipedia less sexist on International Women’s Day. Projects like PWOW have contributed in small and important ways to the growth of women’s biographies on Wikipedia, from 15.5% in 2015 to just over 20% in December 2024.

We have plans this year to provide more regular support for new editors, with a monthly club starting in June. We would also like to engage more with LGBTQ+ and other minoritised communities in Perth and are planning themed workshops later this year.