Wikipedia, Libraries & Archives What's the Connection?

Merrilee Proffitt, OCLC Research@merrileeiam

• Highly ranked (#6 in global traffic via Alexa)

• Ideologically aligned with library mission

• Access to knowledge – for free

• Shared appreciation of quality sources

Why Wikipedia?

Why Wikipedia?

• Highly ranked (#6 in global traffic via Alexa)

• Ideologically aligned with library mission

• Access to knowledge – for free

• Shared appreciation of quality sources

Why Wikipedia?

http://webempires.org/wikirank/top/

• In order to collaborate, negotiate with… who?

• Community of editors is

• Distributed and virtual

• Pulled in by heterogeneous interests

• Culture of combating “link spam”

Special challenges

GLAM-Wiki to the rescue!

http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM

• An outgrowth of GLAM-Wiki collaboration

• British Museum in 2010

• Smithsonian Archives of American Art, Indianapolis Children's Museum, National Archives (US), National Library of Israel, British Library…

• OCLC joins the ranks in 2012

A Wikipedian in Residence

•Disambiguation is important!

•Wikipedia articles utilize Authority Control

VIAFbot - Purpose

• VIAFbot compares and merges those sources into English Wikipedia

• And now in Wikidata

VIAFbot - Purpose

• Downsides of WIR

• There don’t seem to be enough of them

• It can be sort of a crutch

• So, why not embed ourselves in Wikipedia?

• Community more welcoming than ever

• They need our help

• Our users are there

Wikipedian in Residence vs. Librarian in Residence?

Thank you!

Questions?Read about our work on our blog

HangingTogether.org

The end!