Hi Brian,

Thanks for the useful feedback. 

The libraries proposal is one that I think will be a useful barometer of just how everyday folk use Wikipedia. Should the pilot go well we'll have a body of evidence that we can present to other local authorities / regional authorities when making the case for engagement. If it is useful, I can work on a similar proposal for Edinburgh with you, or you can take the notes that I've made and build on them for use there. Let me know if there's anything I can do to help out.

The non-English languages angle is going to become more prominent over the next few months I hope. Again, Leicester could be a really useful experiment for us to find ways to do this kind of outreach. I'm keen for people that are interested in getting involved in the project there to let me know and to chip in to the planning. I know that Harry Mitchell (hi Harry!) has good experience with Wiki Takes events. I'd love to know what he thinks about it.

Thanks and regards,

Stevie



On 30 October 2013 07:16, Brian McNeil <brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org> wrote:
On Tue, 2013-10-29 at 12:08 +0000, Stevie Benton wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> I had a couple of really interesting conversations last week that have led
> to some good ideas. I wonder if you might like to take a look and share any
> thoughts.
>
> Firstly, I'm in touch with a fairly senior manager of a local authority
> library service. We've talked about how Wikipedia is widely used in public
> libraries and I wondered how we might engage with those people. I've put
> together a draft proposal at
> https://wiki.wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Draft_proposal:_Thurrock_Libraries and
> would love to get your views.

I've been dropping off Wikipedia brochures and cheat-sheets in quite a
few of Edinburgh's public libraries. There is an interest from staff,
but a lack of time.

A bit more work on the city's politicians, and they'd probably okay
staff attending training/workshops during their regular hours. The only
library staff likely to attend otherwise are the small 'army' of
volunteers that help keep Edinburgh's libraries running (a million times
better than stacking supermarket shelves through Workfare).

As I suspect is the case in many of the UK's libraries nowadays, quite a
few of the staff in Edinburgh are multilingual. I'd hope that
UK-targeted literature, in languages other than English, might be one
thing to come out of Wiki Takes Leicester.


Brian McNeil.
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