Talk:Draft proposal: Thurrock Libraries

We have run some similar things at the British Library, at Senate House and in Scotland. Yes librarians are exactly the sort of people who we should be showing how to use Wikipedia, but the training for them should be a little tailored to cover some issues such as citation styles, reliability and age appropriateness that are common queries that we can expect from librarians, as well as a reassurance that we are improving their skills at handling wikipedia related queries from their readers, not that we or their employers require them to start editing. We should also plan this for at least two, preferably three training weekday sessions as library staff will expect this to be delivered in working hours and they still need to staff the libraries. To ensure sufficient attendance at three sessions we would hope that Thurrock would act as the lead authority and invite colleagues from neighbouring boroughs. Assuming Thurrock has a reference library and a community of active library users it would also be good to extend the offer to include some training sessions for their reference library users. From past experience these events need to have an assistant or two on hand who can do a one to one session for those people turning up for guidance about contributions they have made that have been deleted or reverted. Jonathan Cardy (WMUK) (talk) 14:07, 29 October 2013 (UTC)

This sounds like a great project. I hope it goes well. I think you're on the right track starting with the staff and developing their confidence and skills. I do, however, think that it would be worthwhile encouraging the staff to become editors and to later hold events for the library users. Local WMUK volunteers could provide support. This would allow the encyclopedia to be enriched, not solely by new content, but by a diversity of editors in the local community.

During EduWiki there was a twitter conversation about how Wikipedia was still seen as something of a closed shop in terms of editorialship. A project like this makes it possible to challenge that myth, and to help turn learners into producers. Encouraging library staff to become editors would also contribute to the discourse about the function of libraries. Making it easier for libraries to become places where knowledge is created, and made available to the world, rather than simply a place where knowledge is found has to be a good thing.--Graeme Arnott (talk) 07:15, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Graeme, we should target getting people editing (even if not everyone then goes on to do so), the local impact could be important and it's what we're all about surely. It's also a concrete outcome in a way that training leading to less tangible outputs wouldn't provide. It was great that there were some librarians at EduWiki! Sjgknight (talk) 18:25, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

metrics

The current water cooler discussion, amongst other things, is I think quite rightly highlighting the need to put careful thought into impact measurement. That might include metrics (no. of booklets taken is one, although not a great one!) it might also include more narrative forms of impact assessment, etc. I'll have a think about this too but perhaps this could be a space to discuss this here Sjgknight (talk) 15:30, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the comment Simon, it's a really useful point. Among the metrics I've been thinking of (and will be discussing with my contact at the library service before the end of the week) are things like number of booklets, number of library staff trained, outcomes of any supplemental sessions delivered for service users. I'm keen on having follow-up surveys / conversations with those people we train from the library staff at intervals of three and six months. Obviously any metrics would need to be agreed with Thurrock too, but one of the reasons they are so important for this project is to enable us to a) demonstrate its success (assuming it is successful) and b) to make a case to other local / county authorities that they should support (and fund) similar projects. If we get the metrics right this would be a very scalable project. If anyone has any thoughts on what metrics we pursue here, please get involved in the conversation! Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 15:46, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Great! So I think those metrics make sense to track (given they're rather easy) however they give us outputs (or actually, inputs in those cases) rather than outcomes. That is, they tell us what we did and some concrete deliverables, but not what impact it really had, which is where the followup comes in (or asking people to report when a relevant event happens - that might just be that they were able to show someone how to look at the talk page, or it might be a bigger training session). Challenge is tying them together, the at the end of this might be useful?. So in this case, our assumption would be something like "providing library training will facilitate librarians, and their clients in contributing to Wikimedia projects", our output is "We trained 3 librarians" and then hopefully follow up outputs "After 3 months 20 booklets were taken, after 6 months a further 30 were taken", "The 3 librarians trained a group of 3 new editors" (whatever). The outcome would be around establishing new contributors (tough one this eh?). These are clearly some very brief thoughts, but I'll keep thinking Sjgknight (talk) 16:12, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

This is why it's so useful to have an expert in analytics within the community! And now on the board, too - congratulations! Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 16:23, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Cheers Stevie. There must be other people in the community with charity backgrounds who've done stuff on impact. So one thing it'd be useful to think about from the library end is how easy it'd be to get people to give examples of concrete SMART goals, ideally we could give specific instructions to add a category/template to contributions which would a) give us that item as impact and b) indicate that editor route in (and we might want to track them further). Although there would be compliance issues we could probably estimate that and it at least gives some indication (if feasible) that isn't dependent on things like "intent to edit" surveys which are problematic for very obvious reasons... Sjgknight (talk) 16:53, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I think we need to be cautious about choosing outputs just because they are easy to measure. So people taking booklets is easy to measure, but really only acts as an indicator of raising awareness of how Wikipedia works/what Wikipedia is about. Having done some analysis of metrics on training sessions previously, in fact they have done very little to engage new editors, however it has undoubtedly raised awareness of how Wikipedia works. When I discussed this with Jon Davies sometime ago, he was disappointed, but I saw it as a matter of developing a more realistic understanding of what we are doing. Kwaku made an intersting point on his blog:

". . . I co-organised with Wikimedia UK an edit-a-thon in July. I was most disappointed that many of those who booked didn’t turn up. I however took heart at the conference when I heard the attendance problems at other edit-a-thons organised by other chapters. I heard that edit-a-thons work better, in getting participants to write/edit pages, as on-going or series of programmes, as opposed to a one-off."

OK, so I would suggest we want to aim to develop one (or more) Online learning communities. I think it is important to realise that we are moving into unchartered territory. One of the key points I picked up from David White's presentation at the EduWiki Conference 2013 is that traditional roles are being transformed. Leutha (talk) 20:43, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

I agree with all of that, and I think the broad point is that we should consider how we deliver our activities alongside what outcomes we're looking for (absolutely!). Nonetheless, we need to think about what outcomes and outputs we might see (and might want) and how we measure them within any of the programs we're delivering. So yes, we should think about how to deliver something with lasting impact for this project, but we still need to record that impact somehow (both metrics and narratives are part of that). Sjgknight (talk) 20:49, 19 November 2013 (UTC)

Precisely, but we need to have realistic relationships between each of these elements: if the outputs don't actually reflect the outcomes, we are moving into the area of wishful thinking. I live on a housing estate where the social landlord continually congratulated themselves on a job well done because of spurious key performance indicators, while the estate slid into disrepair and it required an enormous effort by residents to oblige them to repair the pot holes in the estate roads. So, for example, if we measure the number of brochures that get taken, perhaps we are measuring the quality of the cover design - which encourages people to pick the book up. But if we do not know what effect the brochures have after that, I am not convinced we are being effective. I think we could say we had raised awareness as regards the content of the brochure, but not necessarily more than that. I think also we need to ask ourselves why library bureaucracies might see encouraging members of the public to edit Wikipedia as a priority for their organisation? What do they get out of it, and more precisely, what metrics can we offer them - e.g. no. of edits from their IP addresses? The relationship with museums works because we/they can monitor hits on pages related to their collections. The relationship with Education establishments works because people like Humphrey Southall can easily monitor what students have done. As regards libraries, I have found Karen Coyle's Think Different] very interesting:

"What libraries do have, however, that no one else does is that we know where the user can borrow or use materials in her nearby community. It is library holdings that is key to providing service and furthering knowledge creation. It is also key to providing visibility for libraries as users explore resources on the Web." (p. 11)

Anyway, I have been looking at how Wikipedia can have better references so readers can locate the nearest physical copy of a book to their location, but it's too late tonight to take this much further now. Leutha (talk) 00:46, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

This is really useful stuff folks, thank you. I think it's worth pointing out that it isn't about libraries seeing it as key that they teach people how to edit Wikipedia. It's about something they can offer as a part of their package that is an added value. It's supplemental. Importantly, it would be something we can offer them that would cost relatively little (important in a time of squeezed budgets) and they could offer community events around. More of this will emerge when I have my follow up by the end of the week but the idea is that one of the roles of library staff is to help service users find information. If it can't be found in a book, where better to look than online? And where better as a first stop than Wikipedia? "I can'd find a book for you, but there's this great website - in over 200 languages - that might just have what you're looking for. And you can help improve it." This would be appealing to many people in my opinion, especially older people who are time rich and are keen to help share their knowledge and experience. And let's say they just so happen to be interested. By the way, here's some information about how it works. By the way, the librarian can show you some useful tips to get started. It's all about the added value. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 09:43, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Yes...I think the thing is, we need to think about how it adds value for us in our mission to "collect, develop and distribute freely licensed knowledge (and other educational, cultural and historic material)", otherwise there are other people who can deliver library service training (although I agree that's a noble cause). That's not to say the "helping people find stuff" bit isn't part of our narrative, but I'd say we need other outcomes even if from a subset of people, which add value to our mission Sjgknight (talk) 10:05, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Well yes, of course. But it's a gateway. It's a way of reaching lots of people who are likely to be receptive to editing Wikipedia. It's not just about helping people find stuff and there would be more structure there than the looseness of the draft. There's a lot that can be done and that's why were having this conversation.Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 11:14, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

This is why we need to develop outcomes which all stakeholders can see as fitting in with their mission. One area I think may be of interest is working with librarians, whether public, academic and otherwise, in how referencing works particularly when references include an OCLC/World Cat link, which then enables readers to locate the nearest library to have a copy of the book which will give them further information. It would be useful if prior to any meeting we could ask Thurrock libraries whether they have any strategy documents, guidelines, mission statements they could share with us. Then we would have a clearer idea about what sort of mutually beneficial outcomes could be explored. Leutha (talk) 12:18, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

Readers

I've had a couple of chats with librarians of late, I think the best model for library collaborations is for us to provide training for their readers/members. Yes the Librarians would benefit from knowing more about Wikipedia, but offering training to their readers is more likely to recruit active editors. Jonathan Cardy (WMUK) (talk) 11:11, 26 March 2014 (UTC)