I'll have to reserch Hansard for that one...
Brian McNeil -- Wikinews, Accredited Reporter. Personal: brian.mcneil@o2.co.uk "Facts don't cease to be facts, but news ceases to be news."
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Lum Hats in Paradise From: Jon Davies jon.davies@wikimedia.org.uk Date: Tue, May 22, 2012 2:25 pm To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org Cc: Ashley van Haeften Fae@wikimedia.org.uk
I remember Tam Dayell (I think it was him) had a little comic speech during the Thatcher years asking people to imagine Libraries had not been invented.
He then pretended he was pitching to the Minister for culture.
It went: " I want to build some big new buildings Really? Yes , and allow anyone to visit them. Really? What sort of people? Everyone. Why? Well, I am going to fill them with books. Ah - a sort of bookshop! No - we will let people take the books without paying for them..."
It went on and on but you get the idea.
Well done the people of Edinburgh and I will cc this to Fae in case he has not seen this string as he is so keen to get work in Scotland going.
Jon
On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 1:38 PM, brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org wrote:
Jon,
The point is be nice, and respectful, to the library staff. I was having to stop laughing when Fiona was telling me that "they know a good Wikipedia article by the number of cited references". Without any input from us they've figured out how to judge article quality - they are people we want to recruit.
I've done 'stubs' on Leith Library[1], Stockbridge Library[2], and McDonald Road Library[3].
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leith_Library [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockbridge_library [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonald_Road_Library
The 7th of July is the 125th anniversary of Andrew Carnegie laying the foundation stone for Edinburgh's Central Library. If there's anything we can do to get them main page mentions (DYK?) then we'll have an entire city's ibrary staff onside.
Unlike most of the UK, Edinburgh City Council left libraries in the hands of the public. The response to surveys was that £300,000 was put _back_ into the library budget. I think the city deserves recognised for that, and it should be a priority to document their libraries. Once we've done so there is a basis to do outreach to the non-natives (Hindi, Arabic, etc speakers) and get translations. Considering how many kids do homework in libraries we can also 'stomp on' plagiarism and educate a really wide swathe of the public.
Brian McNeil
Wikinews, Accredited Reporter. Personal: brian.mcneil@o2.co.uk "Facts don't cease to be facts, but news ceases to be news."
-------- Original Message -------- Subject: Re: [Wikimediauk-l] Lum Hats in Paradise From: Jon Davies jon.davies@wikimedia.org.uk Date: Tue, May 22, 2012 1:15 pm To: wikimediauk-l@lists.wikimedia.org
I hope we will be jumping at your offer! Brilliant work,
On Tue, May 22, 2012 at 1:03 PM, brian.mcneil@wikinewsie.org wrote:
Hola! From a non-Wikipedian Wikimedian - in Edinburgh - who is
delighted
with the response from some tentative outreach work.
I spend around an hour this morning touring Edingburgh's Central
Library
with Fiona Myles, took around 150 photos of the interior of the building, and _hope_ I've laid the groundwork for us to work far more closely in future.
I have, dependent on copyright, a verbal agreement to get high-res
scans
of the plans of the building (A Carnegie Library), a keen interest to have librarians briefed on Wikipedia - if not outright encouraged to contribute, and the possibility of running recruitment/induction sessions in Edinburgh. Which, for the unwashed masses, is a UNESCO City of Literature.
Given the piss-poor representation up here in Scotland, I think that's
a
major win. My next job, as interim 'cowboy liasion' between Wikimedia
UK
and Museums Galleries Scotland is to get a few councillors calling for all publicly funded publications to be under a CC-BY license.
Any, and all, encouragement welcome. Any Englandshire Wikimedians wh plan to visit Edingburgh in the next 6-12 months, please feel free to drop me a mail. If I can get you meetings with people, or privileged access for photography, I will.
Fun and frivolity aside, with limited Internet access I've come to the conclusion that public libraries are the way to recruit. Brief the
staff
of what makes a good Wikipedia article - half of them know already - then a simple static display may encourage locals to try their hand. Here in Edinburgh I suspect I can, without too many problems, get articles put into about a half-dozen languages with keen help from library staff.
And this message's title? Purloined from a book on the city's
libraries.
Brian McNeil
Wikinews, Accredited Reporter. Personal: brian.mcneil@o2.co.uk "Facts don't cease to be facts, but news ceases to be news."
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Wikimedia UK is a Company Limited by Guarantee registered in England and Wales, Registered No. 6741827. Registered Charity No.1144513 Registered Office 4th Floor, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. United Kingdom. Telephone (0044) 207 065 0990. Wikimedia UK is the UK chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation (who operate Wikipedia, amongst other projects). It is an independent non-profit organization with no legal control over Wikipedia nor responsibility for its contents.
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