Join the Indie Librarians #1lib1ref event!
On May 15th – June 5th it’s time for the international #1lib1ref (one librarian, one reference) campaign again. This year, 2022, I thought I’d host a couple of virtual coffee hours for the international library community so that every wiki interested librarian who want to participate in the #1lib1ref campaign (but may lack local events and co-conspirators to make this happen in their own institutions) can do so.
It’s a couple of friendly coffee hours taking place on Zoom (n.b. no link available yet – it will be available closer to the campaign) during the campaign to add references to a wiki of your choice, to ask questions about how it works (we’ll utilise peer to peer learning and problem solving!), and to meet like-minded librarians who are passionate about sharing accurate information with the world through Wikipedia! :)
The organiser is me, Karolina, a librarian and doctoral student based in Finland, so event hours will be based on the EET time zone (but do feel free to suggest other hours as well!). I will provide a Zoom link for the meet ups as well as guidance in how to edit and add references to Wikipedia for those who need it.
Everyone is welcome to attend!
Here’s the event on the Wikimedia outreach dashboard (and here’s a link to enroll in the programme).
PS. The ”institution” listed on the programme, Karolina Rediviva, is merely a clever combo based on 1. my name and 2. the main library of Uppsala University, Carolina Rediviva. I only represent myself.
Scheduled meet-ups
Here’s a list of the scheduled meetups – welcome! Here’s a Zoom link. Questions or problems joining? E-mail me or send me a tweet!
All times are in EEST (Turku, Finland) – for time conversion use e.g. this webpage
- Mon 16 May 10-11.30
- Thu 19 May 20-21.30
- Tue 24 May 20-21.30
- Fri 27 May 10-11.30
- Mon 30 May 10-11.30
- Wed 1 June 20-21.30
Me, the organiser! (in case you wanted a face)
My experience with #1lib1ref and why I’m doing this
I have followed and participated in the Wikipedia #1lib1ref campaign for several years. I’ve organised local #1lib1ref events at my previous workplace, I’ve blogged about it on Swedish Wikimedia, I’ve made a short instruction film for Bibliotek i samhälle, I’ve written a column about information trust, power structures and Wikipedia in Biblioteksbladet, and I’ve hosted Wikipedia edit-a-thons as part of research projects to promote scientific communication and citizen science.
One of the conclusions I’ve made is that it’s really hard to find and maintain engagement for Wikipedia, even though the library community generally has a very positive view of Wikipedia. For instance, as soon as I stopped organising the #1lib1ref events at my library, they seem to have disappeared. When I’ve tried to facilitate collaborations with academic departments (e.g. as part of Wiki for Human Rights) it has fizzled out, mainly because it became this huge administrative thing to find a time, a place, and invite people to attend.
I have never been able to understand why organising an event has to be such a difficult endeavour (the idiom making a mountain out of a molehill comes to mind) – time, place and invitation links seems to be intrinsically linked with organisational event policies, graphical templates, extensive communication plans, and at least three in-person meetings beforehand to discuss all of these matters.
So, this year, to lessen the organisational burden and take a detour around administrative hurdles, I have decided to host a simple #1lib1ref event for all librarians in the world who want to participate! Time, place, invitation – it really can be that simple!