Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library/Newsletter/November-December2016
In this issue we announce a partnership expansion, highlight the #1Lib1Ref campaign, and, as always, present a roundup of news and community items related to libraries and digital knowledge.
New research accounts!
[edit]We're excited about expanded research partnerships:
- Adam Matthew is now offering access to all 53 of their online collections.
- Gale has added access to Biography In Context, a database of biographical entries on more than 400,000 people from over 170 sources.
Sign up for this and many others!
Wikipedia Library A–Z
[edit]Using the new A-Z search tool, you can search all periodicals indexed by Wikipedia Library partners. Enter a title in quotation marks to find exact matches, or use a likely keyword to find titles that contain it. This often-requested feature should help editors determine which databases are likely to be helpful to them.
#1lib1ref
[edit]The 1lib1ref campaign is running again this year for Wikipedia's 16th birthday, from January 15 to February 3. This campaign calls upon librarians to "give a birthday present to Wikipedia by adding a reference to a reliable source".
Last year's effort was a success, with many library professionals from around the world participating in many languages. Some edited for the first time, others dusted off old accounts to engage with Wikipedia again. Some of the stories generated by the campaign are captured in this compilation. If you haven't yet, take a look at the lessons from last year's campaign.
This year's campaign offers a platform for engaging librarians in your region and context. There's even a pre-planned 1-hour "Coffee Kit" that you can use to host events. Check out the Meta page to learn more.
Spotlight: Wikidata Visiting Scholar
[edit]This post is excerpted from the Wikimedia Blog. It was written by Jason Evans and Simon Cobb from the National Library of Wales.
The National Library of Wales has been sharing images openly on Wikimedia Commons for about two years. Along the way, the library realised they had a large amount of cataloguing data for some of the collections they were sharing. This metadata was not easily accessible and couldn’t be explored or visualised in any meaningful way. They decided to port all the information they had about their collection of Welsh Landscape prints into Wikidata—free, open, linked data which anyone can access, interpret and visualise.
In order to achieve this goal, the National Library of Wales handed their data over to Simon Cobb, the first Wikidata Visiting Scholar, who began the task of converting it into items, properties and qualifiers. Cobb needed to create Wikidata items for each of the 4,650 images in the collection, match up each of the collection's 586 artists and engravers with existing data, and create new entries for artists who were not yet recorded in Wikidata. He would also need to convert 1480 different descriptive tags into Wikidata items.
This work had several important outcomes. First, the artwork and metadata that comes with it are available to all, and it is hoped that this will encourage innovative reuse, visualisation, and interpretation, as has been demonstrated by the work of other ‘open’ cultural institutions like the Rijksmuseum and by the British Libraries BL Labs initiative.
Second, it is now possible to easily analyse the data in ways that was not possible before. As each item is comprised of statements that describe the entity’s properties, we can run queries that would not have previously been possible. This opens up answers to questions ranging from birthplaces of the artists and images created by members of the clergy, to tracing the development of the print trade in Wales and beyond.
New tools are being developed for visualising data, which are increasingly sophisticated and more user-friendly. Many of these tools are free to use and can be used to discover cultural data in new ways.
Bytes in brief
[edit]Community roundup
[edit]- Librarians offer the gift of a footnote to celebrate Wikipedia’s birthday: Join #1lib1ref 2017
- Histropedia: “The power of data visualisation combined with free knowledge”
- How the world’s first Wikidata Visiting Scholar created linked open data for five thousand works of art
Newsworthy
[edit]- Libraries promise to destroy user data to avoid threat of government surveillance
- Open peer review finds more takers
- Internet Archive Successfully Fends Off Secret FBI Order
- More of New Zealand’s Digital Content to Become Freely Available
- Big biology projects warm up to preprints
Worth reading (or watching)
[edit]- Who owns scientific knowledge?
- Kids explain how banned and challenged books helped them and even saved their lives
- My Journey to Open Science and the Shared Self by Jake Orlowitz
- Wikipedia: #FactsMatter
- Wikipedia is significantly amplifying the impact of Open Access publications.
Excitement about #1lib1ref
[edit]- #1Lib1Ref, una invitación de Wikipedia a los bibliotecarios (in Spanish) (Translation: # 1Lib1Ref, a Wikipedia invitation to librarians)
- すべての図書館員がウィキペディアにひとつずつ参照文献を加える#1Lib1Refキャンペーン、2017年は1月15日から2月3日まで実施 (in Japanese) (Translation: All librarians add reference documents one by one to Wikipedia # 1 Lib 1 Ref Campaign, 2017 from January 15 to February 3)
- Looking for an easy way to contribute to Wikipedia? Check out #1Lib1Ref
- Take a Coffee Break with #1lib1ref Wikipedia Campaign
- #1lib1ref Wikipedia Training
- James Bennett - #1lib1ref
- Wikipedia’s #1lib1ref campaign January 15 – February 3, 2017
- Die Wikipedia Bibliotheks-Kampagne #1Lib1Ref (in German) (Translation: The Wikipedia Library Campaign # 1Lib1Ref)
- Bibliotekāri tiek aicināti iesaistīties Vikipēdijas kampaņas gatavošanā #1lib1ref (in Latvian) (Translation:Librarians are invited to participate in the preparation of the Wikipedia campaign # 1lib1ref)
- #1lib1ref: a Citation as a Gateway into Librarianship on Wikipedia
- Wikipedia <3 kirjastot (in Finnish) (Translation: Wikipedia <3 libraries)
- Librarians urged to improve Wikipedia
- För deltagare i #1lib1ref – Wikipediasatsningen för bibliotek i hela världen (in Swedish) (Translation: For participants in the # 1lib1ref - Wikipedia initiative for libraries worldwide)
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