I would love to see a number of generalist Wikipedians sign up for this event. An experienced contributor could get a lot from 15 minutes sitting with a curator talking through a key Wikipedia article on their laptop screen after seeing the original material. I have suggested to the curators that they think about recommended bibliographies as a couple of good quality references supporting the context that an enthusiastic curator can provide is bound to immediately knock a C-class article up to B and we are likely to see a few blossom to GA status.
Alex, I agree with your point about individual works and I would extend that to popular film articles related to the lives and works of these authors as well as associated artworks and other cultural spin-offs. The impact of Oscar Wilde or H.G. Wells is so vast that there are a huge variety of interrelated types of article than could be improved and the British Library collections represents the ideal reliable and verifiable source (which as well as being the legal deposit includes many objects beyond books such as original draft manuscripts and illustrations, playbills, audio interviews and the personal papers of writers).
The British Library staff have been thinking about their wish list for Wikipedia improvement and we plan to encourage event attendees and others who are interested to continue their collaboration at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/BL where further requests for support from the BL will be welcome.
Cheers, Fae
On 11 May 2011 17:19, Alex Stinson stinsoad@dukes.jmu.edu wrote:
I am really glad to hear about the collaboration, the content on literature on Wikipedia is decidedly poor. Might I suggest that the articles that we work on in the third group, not be author pages, but rather individual works. Some of the most important literary works in the English language are c class or lower, with an emphasis not on their actual implications and meaning but rather on plot summaries and characters summaries, both largely unimportant in the grand scheme of literary criticism and secondary analysis of literature. I am excited to participate! Alex Stinson