Librarians and library lovers,
We hope that you and your loved ones are taking care during this
challenging time for the world. The COVID-19 pandemic has affected
countless aspects of our personal and professional lives, and the Wikimedia
Foundation is sending our very best wishes to all of you.
Equitable access to reliable, unbiased information has never been more
important. From *May 15th to June 5th*, we will be running the global
#1Lib1Ref campaign (virtually), with a focus on improving and increasing
the quality of content for the billions of people staying at home during
the public health crisis. As you may know, Wikipedia and other Wikimedia
projects have seen record-breaking pageviews in the last few weeks,
reflecting that people around the world are turning to us for trustworthy
information.[1]
With that in mind, this is a critical time to bring librarians and
Wikimedia together: more people are reading and learning from the web, and
we need to strengthen trust in our content through citations. Join us as we
do that, by helping us organize to encourage library communities to add one
more citation to Wikipedia.
What can you do?
We are advising everyone to follow WHO health guidelines
<https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019> and not
conduct in-person events. Instead, we will organize virtually, and we have
created recommendations for online meetings! Please share your digital
events so #1Lib1Ref contributors can join you
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Wikipedia_Library/1Lib1Ref/Virtual_Coffee_Kit>
!
You can visit our resource page
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Wikipedia_Library/1Lib1Ref/Resources>
for guides on how to virtually participate in the campaign. Ensure your
contribution is recorded by using the #1Lib1Ref hashtag in your edit summary.
This is very important for us to monitor the reach and success of the
initiative.
Let us know if you need new kinds of support
We know that with the COVID-19 pandemic, it's not as easy to participate in
volunteer activities or organizing online activities. Many of us are
focusing on our families, figuring our homeschooling and working remotely,
and responding to the demands of the crisis in other ways. We also know
that certain parts of the library sector are facing difficult challenges,
such as layoffs, increased work, or extreme changes in work.
We want to know how the pandemic may affect your ability to participate in
#1Lib1Ref, as well as how we can support you better in this unprecedented
situation. Please fill out this short survey
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:The_Wikipedia_Library/1Lib1Ref/Virtual_Coffee_Kit>
to help us better understand how to support you during this round!
Join our communications!
You can join the 1Lib1Ref community via the Libraries (
libraries(a)lists.wikimedia.org), and 1Lib1Ref (1lib1ref(a)lists.wikimedia.org)
mailing lists, or by joining the Wikimedia + Libraries User Group:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_and_Libraries_User_Group
As we get closer to the launch of the campaign next month, we will update
our social media toolkit, which you can use to spread the word about
#1Lib1Ref. Stay tuned for updates on this page
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Wikipedia_Library/1Lib1Ref/Share>.
Looking forward to #1Lib1Ref!
You can learn about last year's campaign and what we learned in our
recently-released blog post at Medium
<https://medium.com/@wikipedialibrary/recap-1lib1ref-january-2020-campaign-key-results-and-takeaways-92e35cba8553>
Lastly, to learn more about the Wikimedia Foundation’s response to
COVID-19, please visit
wikimediafoundation.org/covid19.
Sincerely,
[1] -
https://tools.wmflabs.org/siteviews/?platform=all-access&source=pagevie…
--
*Felix Nartey*
*Library Outreach Coordinator*
*Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home>*
*fnartey(a)wikimedia.org <fnartey(a)wikimedia.org>*
*+233242844987 <+233%2024%20284%204987> | **+447452508504*
*Skype:Flixtey*