I'm a Harvard undergrad and Wikipedian who decided about a week ago that I wanted to do something at Harvard for "Wikipedia Loves Libraries". I didn't know of this list at the time, and I reached out to the Harvard library community over internal lists. My proposal was a two-part "Intro to Wikipedia" event to be held at one of Harvard's libraries. There would be a brief presentation on the internal workings of Wikipedia followed by an editing workshop. There's enormous interest in Wikipedia among the Harvard community (students, professors, library staff, etc.) but very little understanding of how it works behind-the-scenes and how an individual or group can contribute to the project. I wanted to tap into this interest.
The Harvard library community has responded very positively to my proposal. Since broadcasting the idea, I've received excited emails from 16 different librarians, many of whom view this event as a stepping stone towards future collaborations with Wikipedia. I'm very excited by this interest. I want to make the event go ahead as planned, and I want to help every interested librarian find a way to contribute to the project.
I would love to get local Wikipedians on-board with this. The first order of business is running the event. The date is up in the air, but it will be happening either late afternoon on a weekday (4:30pm +, pizza will be served) or in the afternoon on a Saturday (the former is better for library staff, the latter is probably better for undergrads). In my mind, it will be happening sometime in early November. The more boots on the ground, the better. Any Wikipedian who wants to be involved can get guest access to the host library. The event is being planned on a public mailing list that I have created for the purpose of furthering collaboration between the Wikipedia and Harvard communities:
https://lists.hcs.harvard.edu/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia
On the topic of this mailing list: I created this list yesterday and there are now ~30 Harvard librarians subscribed to it. Subscription is open to the public. Please subscribe! This list will be an ideal place for Wikipedians to reach out to the Harvard community and vice-versa. I think the first step, for Wikipedia, is to host this intro event and talk face-to-face with the Harvard community. But the list is there for anyone who wants to use it.
christian