i would like to see outreach (outcome 4) follow-up to training library professionals like the OCLC webinar effort. it provides basic skills and confidence building. you could incorporate learning patterns and collaborate more with OCLC.
Topic on Talk:Wikimedia Technology/Annual Plans/FY2019/CDP3: Knowledge Integrity
Hey Slowking, conversations about how to adapt/adopt/expand the amazing OCLC program are happening among TWL, WMF grants, and separately in the Wikimedia and Libraries Usergroup. I am not sure that it fits within this CDP but it is definitely on a bunch of people's radar. TWL continues to collaborate with OCLC and their Wikipedia + Libraries course gives us all the more reason to continue doing so. It was phenomenally well done. They are releasing their videos and course materials and we will be taking a close look at them while looking at opportunities for OCLC to continue leading in this critical area.
thanks for your conversations. i would like to see outreach formalized, so the multiple approaches / methods are documented. to the extent WMF can partner knowledge production with others, and build in knowledge quality as a community value is important. not sure how to make metrics, but documenting effort (contacts made; partners engaged) would be good.
I appreciate that desire. The partnership has been multi-pronged over nearly 7 years now, and parts of it are at least roughly documented at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:OCLC. Their Wikipedia + Libraries course was itself a partnership in that their WIR was funded by a WMF grant. There are good learnings documented on the WMF blog (https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/12/13/monika-sengul-jones-interview/) and in the grant report. I'll also ping the grant officer for W+L @Mjohnson (WMF) to see if she has ideas about how we can document our relationship more publicly and consistently. Cheers, Jake
As a member of the Wikipedia and Libraries User Group and as a member of the WIkimedia Australia chapter, I can confirm that there is a lot of interest in trying to roll out the OCLC webinar program more widely. Certainly I would like to run it in Australia, but, while the materials will shortly become available from OCLC under a re-usable license, there are some significant issues that I would have to address to make it work.
The biggest hurdle is that it's a huge piece of work to roll out. OCLC had paid staff involved in their program. If I run it in Australia, we have no staff in Wikimedia Australia so running a 9 week program with just volunteers will be challenging. Wikipedians can contribute on-wiki when they wish according to their own timetables of free time (when I am not at work, when I am not doing family things, etc). It is very difficult to get volunteers to support individual outreach activities, let alone commit to a 9 week program which would be most likely delivered during the working day.
A second hurdle is get the engagement of librarians into the program. The best way to make that happen is to get the program into their professional development regime so doing the program would tick a box for them professionally and be useful to them for applying for jobs and for promotion. So we have to persuade those who run that PD regime that it is something suitable for their program and we may have to repackage it in some way to fit their framework.
A third problem, and I know it was a concern in the OCLC program (where I was one of the mentor/guides), is not to falsely raise expectations in librarians that there is a large local volunteer community of Wikipedians that they can rely on for advice, events and so on. We don't know where Wikipedians live (unless they choose to disclose it); we are not generally able to introduce librarians to "local Wikipedians" which comes as some surprise to librarians. If the rollout of the OCLC program in Australia was successful, it might lead to more Wikipedia events held by libraries which, if not supported by experienced Wikipedians, may lead to problematic outcomes. There is already hostility within the Wikipedia community about edit-a-thons and other events which bring a lot of newbie Wikipedians on to Wikipedia with inadequate supervision resulting in a lot of edits that are reverted. But finding volunteers for events is like pulling teeth.
As you can see, my first and third points are about Wikipedians volunteers willing to do outreach. This is a major stumbling block for us in rolling out these large programs. We have too few people willing to do outreach and we are spread too thinly across too many activities as is.
A final issue is the internationalisation of the program in terms of language (it's only in English) and in terms of examples (which are drawn from English Wikipedia and predominantly about USA topics). Being an English-speaking country with a culture not that dissimilar to the USA, I would probably run the program as is, although it would probably be more effective in Australia if we had more Australian examples, including more interviews with Australian librarians and Australian Wikipedians (but there's a time and effort cost to doing this). But more generally, where the language spoken is different, the Wikipedia is not English Wikipedia (meaning all the examples and policy content has to be rewritten, interviews translated or new ones made) and the cultural gap is greater (what's realistic in terms of library programming is different in a more affulent country to a poorer country), there is a LOT of work to roll it out.
To roll out the OCLC program in other places is likely to need funding both to make necessary redevelopment of the material suitable for a local audience (e.g. translating and local examples) and to support participants during delivery.