Hi everyone, (and hi Bob!),
I work for OCLC, which is a non profit that has a mission to make
libraries collections and services more accessible, and to lower costs
for libraries. OCLC Research will be hosting a Wikipedian in Residence
this summer. One of the things I hope we can accomplish through our
residency is outreach to libraries - as Bob knows, we have a pretty good
reputation with academic and research libraries through our Research
Library Partnership.
While libraries are undergoing considerable disruption, they are not
alone, (you could make that argument for higher education as well!) and
this is a great opportunity, I think for libraries to rethink how they
expose access to services and collections on the internet. Wikipedia
could be one part of that puzzle. To speak in general terms, public
libraries are quite concerned about ebooks, but academic and research
libraries have, like museums, many unique assets and deep collection
strengths that would benefit from broad exposure. Libraries and
Wikipedia have a shared mission, but (from what I've observed)
librarians and Wikipedians have a slightly different way of looking at
the world, which can lead to some misunderstandings (one of these is
different views on the importance of primary sources versus secondary
sources). With some decoding for parties on both sides, I firmly believe
that we can have some not only beneficial but truly awesome
partnerships, and I look forward to that!
Best,
Merrilee
Merrilee Proffitt, Senior Program Officer
OCLC Research
From: libraries-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:libraries-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Bob Kosovsky
Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2012 8:14 AM
To: Wikimedia & Libraries
Cc: Wikimedia Chapters cultural partners coordination
Subject: Re: [libraries] [cultural-partners] IFLA
My employer (New York Public Library) and I are definitely interested in
enhancing the relationship between Wikipedia and libraries: We've
already had 2 editathons and soon a Wikipedian-in-residence position
will be announced.
I've tried to drum up support through ALA - the American Library
Association, but after a while my emails went unanswered - maybe their
bureaucracy tied their hands, or they just didn't know how to deal with
the request. It's a pity, because (as I tell people too often), Sue
Gardner (CEO of Wikimedia) gave a fabulous speech there last year that
was well received - but has not resulted in much change.
So I'm thinking of other ways to gather support. I intend to contact
METRO - a Greater-New-York (i.e. includes eastern NJ and southern CT)
cooperative organization whose head (Jason Kucsma) is very
forward-looking.
Beyond that, it might be more useful for local libraries to organize
with each other. "Sibling projects" - joint editathons or other
activities shared by multiple libraries in disparate locations.
I'm not a member of IFLA, but I supervised an intern (from Germany) who
is active with them (we're Facebook friends). I'd be interested in
having more dialogue with IFLA members.
And I'd be happy to use this Wikimedia & Libraries list to talk more
about possibilities.
Bob
Bob Kosovsky, Ph.D. -- Curator, Rare Books and Manuscripts,
Music Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
blog:
http://www.nypl.org/blog/author/44 Twitter: @kos2
Listowner: OPERA-L ; SMT-TALK ; SMT-ANNOUNCE ; SoundForge-users
- My opinions do not necessarily represent those of my institutions -
On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 10:21 AM, Andrea Zanni
<zanni.andrea84(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I agree with Nemo and Dominic.
[sorry, this is long and just my 2 cents]
Few years ago, we started working with museums because of some proactive
Wikipedians and chapters
saw a void which needed to be filled: Liam, Lori, Sarah, Kippelboy and
many others had competences and interest in bridging the
gap between Wikimedia projects and museums. They did (and are doing)
good, interest is spreading, and now there are success cases, history,
experience: we're building an infrastructure.
I think that the world of libraries is gonna be next, but I see a lot of
issues too:
libraries are in the middle of a disruption, the Internet has been
really "though" on them.
Librarians need to shift and adapt to survive (as a profession) an so do
libraries themselves. (if you want to read something (I didn't) -->
David Lankes "Atlas of New Librarianship")
Moreover, there is the ebook issue, and all the changes and consequence
it will cause.
In this sense, as many other profession, I think that (statistically)
librarians see Wikipedia more as a threat than an opportunity
(I see a pattern here :-), and in my personal experience they are really
interested in understanding it better,
but often they do lack the skills.
I'm not a librarian and I'm not sure which kind of partnership could be
organized with libraries:
I can imagine workshops and lessons for librarians (we did it with
Wikimedia Italia few years ago), or for patrons,
and digitization patnerships for uploading books on Wikisource (as
Wikimedia France did with Gallica).
A more complex relationship is yet to be build (and thought),
but we can ask our librarian Phoebe for some insights :-)
For IFLA, we have contact (I personally do),
but we should think very well waht to say and propose them.
Right now, I don't know.
Aubrey
2012/5/15 Federico Leva (Nemo) <nemowiki(a)gmail.com>
I think IFLA loves us, we have many friends there. Not many wikimedians
attend it becaus it's very expensive, but some wikimedians volunteered
in it (Aubrey for instance, when it's been in Milan; I think he's not
been able to speak although he tried?). If you can get access you're
lucky and you shouldn't miss the opportunity.
On the other hand, at least in Italy we regularly attend free librarians
and publishers events (it's particularly easy in Milan, where most of
the publishing world and of Italian wikimedians are).
Nemo
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