Hi, all--
Since there's been a lot of discussion about and work on open datasets in the library world, too, I thought fellow library folks would be interested in this Request for Comments on how Wikimedia could/should deal with open datasets:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Requests_for_comment/How_to_deal_with_open_…
Best,
Amanda / User:AmandaRR123
Certainly of interest to librarians ... a novel and groundbreaking project
from Australia!
-- phoebe
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Liam Wyatt <liamwyatt(a)gmail.com>
Date: Tue, May 6, 2014 at 7:29 PM
Subject: [cultural-partners] Ask a Librarian links from Wikiproject
Australia articles
To: Wikimedia-au <wikimediaau-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>, Wikimedia Chapters
cultural partners coordination <cultural-partners(a)wikimedia.ch>
Cc: Ocaasi <wikiocaasi(a)yahoo.com>, Ed Erhart <the.ed17(a)gmail.com>,
rwilson(a)nla.gov.au
Dear Australian Wikimedians, cultural partners list,
(also cc'ing Ed, in case the Signpost might like to mention this).
*TL;DR - The National Library is actively requesting Wikipedians ask
reference questions and links to the service are now on all Wikiproject
Australia templates on WP article talkpages. Blogpost:
http://www.nla.gov.au/blogs/behind-the-scenes/2014/05/07/ask-a-librarian-no…
<http://www.nla.gov.au/blogs/behind-the-scenes/2014/05/07/ask-a-librarian-no…>
Direct link to the free service: http://www.nla.gov.au/askalibrarian
<http://www.nla.gov.au/askalibrarian> *
Over the last year working here at the National Library of Australia, I've
been trying and find ways to bring the National Library's reference team
closer to the Wikimedia community - for mutual benefit. They provide a free
service to help the public (not necessarily only Australians or people with
[free] library cards) to find and learn how to access reference materials.
It is particularly useful when they can point people to the unique
resources of the NLA collection but that's not a limiting factor!
So, having got the team to talk to Jake Ocassi (from 'the wikipedia
library') a while ago, and the debating how to do this in a
mutually-acceptable way (both WP and NLA have strict privacy policies for
example) we came up with this:
To link directly to the Ask a Librarian service from the Wikiproject
Australia template on talkpages and, when applicable to the article, to the
equivalent service in the relevant State Library. Managing the actual
coding and design was spearheaded by user:99of9.
We investigated having even greater integration (e.g. having the librarians
be able to receive and respond to questions on-wiki or for the 'email this
user' function to be used to create a ticket in the Ask a Librarian system
[called ref-tracker, similar to OTRS]), but this would have required too
great a change to workflows - at least for never-before-tried concept.
So, having sought and received consensus both among the Library staff, as
well as on the Australian Wikipedians Noticeboard, the system was enabled!
See, for example the last line of the wikiproject Australia template for
[[Darwin, Northern Territory]]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Darwin,_Northern_Territory As you can
see this is directed at Wikipedia *editors *not readers. Ultimately we're
just talking about a series of external links, but the significance in my
opinion is that Wikipedia has accepted the usefulness (and philosophical
compatibility) of this service enough to allow thousands of external links
to be auto-created - something that would normally be forbidden. Equally,
it is a great precedent for the library community here (and
internationally?) to see Wikipedians as a potential usergroup of their
services that they *really *want to engage with. After all - answering a
reference enquiry from one person helps that person, but answering a
wikipedian helps thousands!
The service has been in place for a few weeks now and has been used several
times successfully by Wikipedians. We can't say who, or what article they
improved because the Library privacy policy forbids publishing identifiable
information about customers. However, today I pressed publish on the
Library's blogpost on the topic, written by the biggest champion of the
idea within the reference team - Renee Wilson (also cc'd):
http://www.nla.gov.au/blogs/behind-the-scenes/2014/05/07/ask-a-librarian-no…
It talks about other forms of getting in contact via social media but the
real meat from WP's perspective is near the end:
Wikipedia editors know the importance of using reliable sources to improve
> articles, and that the most authoritative sources aren't always available
> online. Our Ask a Librarian team can help you uncover verifiable
> information, so you can have confidence in the references that underpin
> your article. Trying to track down some particularly elusive source
> material? We can help you add dimension and detail to your article by
> shining a light on Australia's cultural record in our unique collection
> items.
>
> By making the Ask a Librarian service more accessible to Wikipedia
> editors, we are helping to make authoritative information about Australia
> available to the world. You can read more information about the project on
> the WikiProject Australia/Ask a Librarian documentation page<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:WikiProject_Australia/AAL/What>.
> We've already received some great questions from Wikipedians - the kind
> that really let us apply our trademark librarian rigor. We look forward to
> receiving many more, and seeing your articles flourish!
>
So, I'd really appreciate if, the next time you're looking for a reference
or stuck trying to improve an article - go here and submit an enquiry
http://www.nla.gov.au/askalibrarian Tell them you're a wikipedian and which
article you're trying to improve. (equally, feel free to tell others e.g.
retweet this https://twitter.com/nlagovau/status/463845761176711169 )
-Liam
wittylama.com
Peace, love & metadata
_______________________________________________
Cultural-Partners mailing list
Cultural-Partners(a)wikimedia.ch
https://intern.wikimedia.ch/lists/listinfo/cultural-partners
Please treat emails sent to this list as confidential.Ask senders for
permission before forwarding emails off-list.
--
* I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers <at>
gmail.com *
I'm CCing the public GLAM lists as well, since you've already made this
announcement publicly.
This is awesome. Providing reference services is one of the areas where
libraries can provide unique value to Wikipedia and the people its content
serves. We've in the past been more often concerned with the unique
collections of institutions, especially museums and archives, so this kind
of service is really exciting. I hope is becomes a model.
(I can't help but wonder if your departure from the NLA will affect the
longevity of the project; curious if the reference team is carrying the
relationship without your continued involvement.)
Dominic
On 6 May 2014 22:29, Liam Wyatt <liamwyatt(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Australian Wikimedians, cultural partners list,
> (also cc'ing Ed, in case the Signpost might like to mention this).
>
> *TL;DR - The National Library is actively requesting Wikipedians ask
> reference questions and links to the service are now on all Wikiproject
> Australia templates on WP article talkpages. Blogpost:
> http://www.nla.gov.au/blogs/behind-the-scenes/2014/05/07/ask-a-librarian-no…
> <http://www.nla.gov.au/blogs/behind-the-scenes/2014/05/07/ask-a-librarian-no…>
> Direct link to the free service: http://www.nla.gov.au/askalibrarian
> <http://www.nla.gov.au/askalibrarian> *
>
> Over the last year working here at the National Library of Australia, I've
> been trying and find ways to bring the National Library's reference team
> closer to the Wikimedia community - for mutual benefit. They provide a free
> service to help the public (not necessarily only Australians or people with
> [free] library cards) to find and learn how to access reference materials.
> It is particularly useful when they can point people to the unique
> resources of the NLA collection but that's not a limiting factor!
>
> So, having got the team to talk to Jake Ocassi (from 'the wikipedia
> library') a while ago, and the debating how to do this in a
> mutually-acceptable way (both WP and NLA have strict privacy policies for
> example) we came up with this:
>
> To link directly to the Ask a Librarian service from the Wikiproject
> Australia template on talkpages and, when applicable to the article, to the
> equivalent service in the relevant State Library. Managing the actual
> coding and design was spearheaded by user:99of9.
>
> We investigated having even greater integration (e.g. having the
> librarians be able to receive and respond to questions on-wiki or for the
> 'email this user' function to be used to create a ticket in the Ask a
> Librarian system [called ref-tracker, similar to OTRS]), but this would
> have required too great a change to workflows - at least for
> never-before-tried concept.
>
> So, having sought and received consensus both among the Library staff, as
> well as on the Australian Wikipedians Noticeboard, the system was enabled!
> See, for example the last line of the wikiproject Australia template for
> [[Darwin, Northern Territory]]
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Darwin,_Northern_Territory As you can
> see this is directed at Wikipedia *editors *not readers. Ultimately we're
> just talking about a series of external links, but the significance in my
> opinion is that Wikipedia has accepted the usefulness (and philosophical
> compatibility) of this service enough to allow thousands of external links
> to be auto-created - something that would normally be forbidden. Equally,
> it is a great precedent for the library community here (and
> internationally?) to see Wikipedians as a potential usergroup of their
> services that they *really *want to engage with. After all - answering a
> reference enquiry from one person helps that person, but answering a
> wikipedian helps thousands!
>
> The service has been in place for a few weeks now and has been used
> several times successfully by Wikipedians. We can't say who, or what
> article they improved because the Library privacy policy forbids publishing
> identifiable information about customers. However, today I pressed publish
> on the Library's blogpost on the topic, written by the biggest champion of
> the idea within the reference team - Renee Wilson (also cc'd):
>
>
> http://www.nla.gov.au/blogs/behind-the-scenes/2014/05/07/ask-a-librarian-no…
>
> It talks about other forms of getting in contact via social media but the
> real meat from WP's perspective is near the end:
>
> Wikipedia editors know the importance of using reliable sources to improve
>> articles, and that the most authoritative sources aren't always available
>> online. Our Ask a Librarian team can help you uncover verifiable
>> information, so you can have confidence in the references that underpin
>> your article. Trying to track down some particularly elusive source
>> material? We can help you add dimension and detail to your article by
>> shining a light on Australia's cultural record in our unique collection
>> items.
>>
>> By making the Ask a Librarian service more accessible to Wikipedia
>> editors, we are helping to make authoritative information about Australia
>> available to the world. You can read more information about the project on
>> the WikiProject Australia/Ask a Librarian documentation page<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:WikiProject_Australia/AAL/What>.
>> We've already received some great questions from Wikipedians - the kind
>> that really let us apply our trademark librarian rigor. We look forward to
>> receiving many more, and seeing your articles flourish!
>>
>
> So, I'd really appreciate if, the next time you're looking for a reference
> or stuck trying to improve an article - go here and submit an enquiry
> http://www.nla.gov.au/askalibrarian Tell them you're a wikipedian and
> which article you're trying to improve. (equally, feel free to tell others
> e.g. retweet this https://twitter.com/nlagovau/status/463845761176711169 )
>
> -Liam
>
> wittylama.com
> Peace, love & metadata
>
> _______________________________________________
> Cultural-Partners mailing list
> Cultural-Partners(a)wikimedia.ch
> https://intern.wikimedia.ch/lists/listinfo/cultural-partners
> Please treat emails sent to this list as confidential.Ask senders for
> permission before forwarding emails off-list.
>
I am very pleased to announce that WikiConference USA is less than 30 days
away! Over the last few months, Wikimedia NYC and Wikimedia DC have been
collecting curated submissions on a diversity of wiki and free/open
knowledge-related topics (with tracks on Community, Tech, Outreach, GLAM,
Education), and recruited some excellent keynote speakers who can speak to
their personal activism and leadership in these domains.
But this is a "Wiki" conference, and what it thrives on most is your
participation, your differing areas of experience and expertise, to enliven
and enrich all of the sessions we have planned together. And, exciting
too, there still will be numerous opportunities for "unconference" sessions
led by participants on the fly, and we encourage you to bring the ideas
from your domain for these sessions as well.
Here are the details for the conference:
Dates: Friday, May 30, 2014 - Sunday, June 1, 2014
Location: New York Law School (185 West Broadway, New York, NY 10013)
Website: http://wikiconferenceusa.org
Email: wikicon(a)wikimedianyc.org
Registration: http://wikiconusa.eventbrite.org/
And our distinguished and dynamic roster of keynote speakers:
*Phoebe Ayers - Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees
*Sumana Harihareswara - Wikimedia Foundation Engineering Community Team;
Advisor, Ada Initiative
*Christie Koehler - Community Building Education Lead, Mozilla Corporation
*DC Vito, Executive Director - The LAMP/MediaBreaker
For more information, please review our official press release below! We
hope you will join us and help us spread the word!
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:WikiCon_USA_2014_Press_Release_v1.p…
Thanks,
Richard Knipel (User:Pharos)
Wikimedia NYC
Hi all,
Some of you have known about this project which has been in the works for some time - works IDs. For those of you who did know about it, they have been released. Huzzah!
http://www.oclc.org/developer/develop/linked-data/worldcat-entities.en.html
For those of you who are scratching your heads and wondering why this is important or how it might be useful, I offer you a great example:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zen_and_the_Art_of_Motorcycle_Maintenance
Right now, the convention in InfoBox Book, etc. is to note the ISBN and other IDs associated with the first edition of a work. Although this is useful, in an information retrieval context it is not as useful as it might be - adding one or more work IDs to the mix would be useful because the work ID can bring back more information about editions published in different locations, on different dates, etc.
http://experiment.worldcat.org/entity/work/data/12477503.html
I'm curious to hear what you think. Are these identifiers useful in the Wikimedia world? Right now OCLC numbers are used, as are VIAF ids, and Dewey numbers.
Best,
Merrilee