Building a partnership takes time. You will probably need more than one meeting. The good thing is that they have approached you. This probably means that they have heard something about engaging with Wikipedia and it must have sounded interesting enough to make contact with you. So the starting point is to find out what that was and see if it leads to some obvious activity. Or to a pathway of activities (sometimes what they might be interested might not be at the skill level of total newbies).

The thing to be aware of is that most people (even in universities, even in libraries) don’t really understand how Wikipedia at all. They read it but they almost always have questions lurking in their heads like “Can *anyone* change it? Is anyone checking those changes? What if I see something wrong, how do I get Wikipedia to fix it? Many people assume that their donations go Wikipedia go to paying people to write the bulk of the content which is of course not true; they do not realise there is an army of volunteers who are writing the content. So I have a presentation which addresses a lot of these typical questions and misunderstandings. I outline some of our policies (the more external facing ones like Verification, Neutral Point of View, that impact on the reader experience). I also have slides that cover “getting more out of Wikipedia as a reader”. Many people never look outside the main body of text. I take them on a tour of the anatomy of a Wikipedia article and was the purpose of those sections are. What blue links and red links mean (yeah, many people don’t understand the simple difference). I look at some of the useful things on the left-hand tool bar that most readers have never noticed (other languages, get a citation to this Wikipedia page, etc). I show them the history. You can introduce them to the sister projects. Everyone knows about Wikipedia but almost nobody knows about Commons, Wikisource, etc. I usually start by wowing them with our statistics (obviously it may vary from country to country but usually Wikipedia is up there in the 10 websites (today on a worldwide basis, we are #5 (and #1 not-for-profit / powered-by-volunteers / surviving-on-many-small-donations)

and #19 for Egypt (I am not familiar with some of the other top sites but I guess you will know what they are)

https://www.alexa.com/topsites/countries/EG

I find that having this kind of overview talk is always a great way to educate people about Wikipedia without actually asking them to do anything (apart from donating, I always drop that hint!). From such a talk you can explain how people can contribute to Wikipedia, writing content, correcting spelling and other small errors, taking photos and uploading photos, etc. This then opens up the conservation about “what would you like to hear about next”, “would you like me to teach you how to make simple changes?”, “are you concerned about a lack of content in some topic area?”, “are there enough photos about the topics that interest you?”. Note sometimes I give this kind of talk and it doesn’t go anywhere in terms of subsequent activities but people always go away feeling they better understand how Wikipedia works, and feel a bit more confident about using it. If all you do is better educate librarians about Wikipedia, it’s a great thing as they are the people who advise the patrons of the library (in this case the students), so they are key influencers about “knowledge and where to get it” and we want them to have a realistic understanding of Wikipedia’s role in the knowledge ecology.

My slidepack for such a talk is in English but happy to share it to give you some ideas for a similar talk of your own.

So this is my advice on how to take first steps. After you get to know the university librarians better, finding activities of mutual interest will become much easier. You don’t need to go into the meeting pretending you have all the answers. Come back here and ask for more help when you know a little more about their needs and interests. You might be the public face in this new relationship but you do have a huge team behind you here.

Kerry

From: Libraries [mailto:libraries-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Reem Al-Kashif
Sent: Monday, 17 September 2018 9:22 PM
To: libraries@lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: [libraries] Meeting Librarians Soon. Help!

Hello,

Hope this finds you well. I didn't plan on meeting librarians at a university here in Cairo, Egypt, but they expressed interest in Wikipedia, so we are meeting :). The problem is, I really don't know what activities to offer them. I have zero experience in Wiki+libraries collaborations. It would be more than great if anybody could help me out. What I need is:
1. Understanding the nature of librarians work (I know it is a big topic, but some general remarks would do).
2. Having examples of activities they can be part of to contribute to Wiki (be it Wikipedia or Wikimedia).

3. Understanding how rewarding those activities are (so that I explain to them)
4. Having examples of similar activities, if any, around the world.
Bonus point 5. Having a clear plan of action to give them (i.e. what do we do after the meeting and so on)

Thank you so so much in advance for helping me navigate this uncharted territory.

Best,
Reem

Kind regards,
Reem Al-Kashif