The Wikipedia Library has new, free research account signups available:
New
* British Newspaper Archive <http://enwp.org/WP:BNA> (50 accounts)
* Keesing's World News Archive <http://enwp.org/WP:Keesings> (25 accounts)
Expanded
* Credo Reference <http://enwp.org/WP:CREDO> (200 new accounts)
* JSTOR!! <http://enwp.org/WP:JSTOR> (400 new accounts).
Medical
* BMJ <http://enwp.org/WP:BMJ> (25 accounts)
* Cochrane Library <http://enwp.org/WP:Cochrane> (100 accounts)
Other
*Questia Online Library <http://enwp.org/WP:Questia (500 accounts)
*HighBeam Research <http://enwp.org/WP:HighBeam (500 accounts)
Sign up!
Accounts are available to ALL global editors with a 1 year old account and
1000 edits. Please notify your local community about the signups. You can
signup today on English Wikipedia. But! If you have started a local
Wikipedia Library branch you can host signups on your local Wiki (Arabic,
Chinese...). To set up a Wikipedia Library branch email Ocaasi at
jorlowitz(a)gmail.com.
Thanks!
Jake Orlowitz (Ocaasi)
The Wikipedia Library
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Wikipedia_Library>
Hey All,
As part of The Wikipedia Library (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:The_Wikipedia_Library), we have
recently been developing another sets of documentation for Library-related
outreach:
We are calling the project Wikipedia Library Interns. In the U.S. there has
been a significant number of published case studies describing student
hires or student interns editing Wikipedia for the library that employs
them. We created a page that combines the motivation for that kind of
editing, increased website traffic and visibility, with the experience of
the Education Program and GLAM-Wiki movement. We also created a course page
with the Education plugin to monitor those interns. I am currently in the
process of trying to find some libraries interested in working with student
interns. For more information see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:TWL/I
Feedback or ideas about who would be interested in these program would be
great!
Alex Stinson
User:Sadads
Project Manager
The Wikipedia Library
All,
I am pleased to announce that Wikimedia District of Columbia has selected Leo Zimmermann to lead our Wikipedia Summer of Monuments project. Leo's experience running Wikipedia workshops and reaching out to rural libraries have prepared him for what is our largest outreach project yet. The object of Summer of Monuments is to improve photographic coverage of nationally recognized historic sites in the Southern United States, a region that is underrepresented on Wikipedia. In particular, we have identified ten states where photographic coverage lags behind: Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Our plan is to build on the success we had with Wiki Loves Monuments with a campaign of direct outreach to those historical and cultural institutions who share our mission to improve access to the world's knowledge. To learn more, read our latest blog post: <http://blog.wikimediadc.org/2014/06/introducing-wikipedia-summer-of-monumen…>.
We invite Wikimedians and our allies to join us in this effort to share history on Wikipedia!
—
James Hare
President, Wikimedia District of Columbia
http://wikimediadc.org
@wikimediadc
Hi all, I have more NARA news to share. The U.S. National Archives'
updated Open
Government Plan <http://www.archives.gov/open/open-government-plan-3.0.pdf>[1]
was just published on Wednesday with this announcement
<http://blogs.archives.gov/online-public-access/?p=9253>. It places a lot
of emphasis on how the National Archives plans to work with the Wikimedia
community in order to help fulfill its mission, especially the flagship
"Make Access Happen" goal. This is a follow up to the 2012 version
<http://blogs.archives.gov/online-public-access/?p=8115> of the Open
Government Plan, which also mentioned Wikipedia in a less developed way.
>From the executive summary, the document notes: "*Over the next two years
we will work to increase the number of National Archives records available
on Wikimedia Commons, continue our work to engage local communities of
volunteer Wikipedians with on-site events, and collaborate on the
development of the GLAM-Wiki U.S. Consortium
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/US/Consortium>.*" On pages
19-20, there is a fleshed out section about the agency's strategic approach
to Wikipedia, which I am copying below:
*Expand Wikipedia Efforts*
NARA has been engaging the Wikipedia community since 2011, when we welcomed
a Wikipedian in Residence and began holding events to build awareness of
the records of the National Archives. In 2013, we welcomed a full-time
employee devoted to engaging the Wikipedia community along with NARA staff
members to promote greater access, reuse, and context for our records on
Wikipedia.
Our work strengthening digitization and description fuels our ability to
make records available on external platforms like Wikipedia. In 2012, we
shared 100,000 digital images from our holdings to Wikimedia Commons. This
work enabled digital copies of our records to be incorporated into
Wikimedia projects and Wikipedia articles. The 4,000 Wikipedia articles
featuring our records received more than one billion page views in Fiscal
Year 2013. Over the next two years we will work to increase the number of
National Archives records available on Wikimedia Commons, which furthers
our strategic goal to “Make Access Happen” and expands re-use of our
records by the public.
We are continuing our work to engage local communities of volunteer
Wikipedians with on-site events, including skills-building workshops and
“edit-a-thons” for improving Wikipedia content related to our holdings. In
addition, we are establishing a model for “scan-a-thons” to enable citizen
archivist stakeholder groups to digitize our records for access.
We have worked to develop policies and best practices for NARA staff and
other professionals to contribute to Wikipedia articles and NARA staff
members regularly engage in sharing our experiences and insights about
Wikipedia with other cultural institutions. We are also collaborating on
the development of the GLAM-Wiki U.S. Consortium, which brings together
archivists, librarians, museum professionals, and Wikipedians to work on
building skills and shared understandings.
The rest of the document touches on other open government, crowdsourcing,
and "citizen archivist" initiatives that may also be of general interest to
you all. It even cites Simple English Wikipedia's definition for "API". As
far as I know, this is likely the most prominent policy document from a
cultural or government agency to enshrine collaboration with Wikipedia in
institutional strategy (though the previous NARA Open Government Plan from
2012 comes close), and I think we succeed in talking about Wikipedia
engagement in a way that Wikipedians will find ethical.
Dominic
[1] For those interested, in the United States each executive federal
agency is required
<http://www.whitehouse.gov/open/documents/open-government-directive> by law
to publish an "Open Government Plan", described as a public roadmap that
details how the agency will incorporate the principles of transparency and
open government into the core mission objectives of the agency. The link
has more information. There is no Wikipedia article on this. :(