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2023:Related events/Knowledge Beyond Boundaries

From Wikimania


16–19 August 2023, Singapore and Online
Diversity. Collaboration. Future.

Guided tours of the National Library, National Archives are on a separate day and separate registration. Go to the related events page to know more.
Knowledge Beyond Boundaries: Strengthening Wikimedia and Libraries

Join us for the last event of the Wikimania 2023 season in Singapore! (this event will not be recorded/live streamed)

Registration is NOW CLOSED. We have reached capacity - thank you for your interest (Click here)

About

Wikimania 2023 in collaboration with the National Library Board, Singapore is hosting a side event where different Wikimedia projects and Libraries will converge to discuss advances made in knowledge sharing and accessibility.

This special gathering provides us with an opportunity to learn and hear about the innovative projects, partnerships, and initiatives that highlight the effective leveraging of Wikimedia and Libraries: whether using state-of-the-art OCR for free with Wikisource, connecting our collections with the largest Linked Open Data database (Wikidata) or enriching the biggest online Encyclopedia (Wikipedia). And most importantly, the pivoting role that Wikibrarians play in curating, safeguarding and digitizing knowledge for all.

Event details

Date/Time: Sunday, August 20th, from 09.30 to 16.30 (SGT)

Location: Level 5, The Imagination Room, The National Library of Singapore, Lee Kong Chian Reference Library


Map
Location of the National Library, Singapore

Important information

  • Transportation will not be provided- please self-organize.
  • The organizers will be providing refreshments during the event.
  • Registration does not mean confirmed participation. Please wait for our confirmation emails before finalizing your plans.
  • Maximum Capacity: 60
Session Schedule
Time Duration Topic Speakers Type
0930-1000 Self Organized Arrivals and Registrations
1000-1010 10 mins Welcome and Introductions Pru Mitchell, Wikimedia Australia Welcome Speech
1010-1055 45 mins Keynote Message Ivy Lee, Deputy Director of National Library of Singapore Collections Keynote Speech
1055-1140 45 mins Libraries + Wikimedia: past, present and future (slides) Panellists: Silvia Gutiérrez, Rajene Hardeman, Clifford Anderson, Orly Simon, Dr Nkem Osuigwe Virtual panel presentation
1140-1200 20 mins Tea/Coffee Break Networking
1200-1300 60 mins Wikisource for Libraries Mike Dickison Presentation
1300-1400 60 mins Lunch Networking
1400-1430 30 mins Connecting Library Metadata to Wikidata: A Semantic Web Approach to Information Discovery (video) Omorodion Okuonghae Lecture
1430-1530 60 mins Connecting Library Metadata (slides) Dr Tamsin Braisher and Pru Mitchell Workshop
1530-1545 15 mins Tea/Coffee Break Networking
1545-1605 20 mins When African Librarians met Wikidata Alice Kibombo-Ekanya Presentation
1605-1630 25 mins Closing messages and Thank you (video) Angie Cervellera, Butch Bustria Closing Speech
1630 Onwards Self-Organized Departures
1700 Onwards Optional Librarians and wellwishers meetup at OTC Level 3, National Library Alice Kibombo-Ekanya Socials

Notes on Etherpad: p/Wikimania2023Libraries

Biographies and session descriptions

10:55 Panel: Libraries + Wikimedia: Past, Present and Future

A conversation with Wikimedia and Libraries User Group’s Steering Committee and the Senior Program Officer for Libraries (at the Wikimedia Foundation). This talk will introduce the audience on why Wikimedia Projects can leverage librarians’ work; how you can get started and become a Wikibrarian (a librarian who does Wiki work); what national libraries are doing; how Artificial Intelligence fits in a Wikibrarian’s work, and how these skills can be intertwined with the Wikimedia Foundation’s Movement Strategy.

  • Silvia Gutiérrez De la Torre is the Senior Program Officer, Libraries at the Wikimedia Foundation (WMF). She is a Wikimedian, digital humanist, and research librarian. Before joining WMF, Silvia was a Digital Humanities Librarian at El Colegio de México, where she led multiple Wikimedia campaigns: the first academic librarian in residence in Latin America, workshops to empower public libraries’ work through Wikimedia projects, and edit-a-thons with a focus on social movements, linguistic diversity, and gender. She is also a Ph.D. Student in the Computational Humanities team of the University of Leipzig (Germany) and the co-founder of RLadiesCDMX in Mexico City, a local chapter of a global community that promotes diversity in the R programming language community.
  • Clifford B. Anderson is Director of Digital Research at the Center of Theological Inquiry in Princeton, NJ. He is also Chief Digital Strategist at the Vanderbilt University Library. He holds a secondary appointment as Professor of Religious Studies in the College of Arts & Science at Vanderbilt University. Among other works, he is co-author of XQuery for Humanists (Texas A&M University Press, 2020) and editor of Digital Humanities and Libraries and Archives in Religious Studies (De Gruyter, 2022). A longtime Wikimedian, Anderson (user:Clifford_Anderson) is a member of the Wikimedia and Libraries User Group Steering Committee.
  • Rajene Hardeman is Chair of the Wikimedia Library Users Group Steering Committee, Strategic Officer for Wikimedia NYC and VP of the Mid-Hudson Library System board of trustees. She has been a member of AfroCrowd and joined with the inaugural session of the teen Afrofuturist Council at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, bringing a new generation of collaborators to Wikipedia. Rajene writes regularly for the New York Library Association and has facilitated online and in-person Wikipedia editathons throughout New York City and the Hudson Valley. Rajene is currently on the planning committee for WikiLibCon24.
  • Orly Simon is a wiki-librarian in soul. She is Director of User Services at The National Library of Israel and a lecturer at The David Yellin College of Education in Jerusalem. Orly teaches a course titled "Digital Libraries: Wikipedia, Libraries & Librarians" within the Library and Information Science Master's degree program. The course encourages librarians to play a proactive role in fostering collaboration between libraries and Wikimedia initiatives. In 2018, she completed the course "Wikipedia & Libraries: Better Together" offered by OCLC & Wikimedia Foundation. Orly Simon is also a global ambassador of #1Lib1ref and led the campaign in Israel in 2018 and 2019. Since 2019, she has been an active Wikipedia & Libraries User Group steering committee member.
  • Dr. Nkem Osuigwe creates powerful connections between the African librarian community and Wikipedia. In 2020, she organized the first African Librarians Week as part of the Wikimedia Foundation’s bi-annual #1Lib1Ref (One Librarian, One Reference) campaign. More than 800 editors participated, making 27,800 updates to improve information on Wikipedia.

Resources:

12:00 Wikisource for Libraries

Mike Dickison

Wikisource is a Wikimedia Foundation platform that allows volunteers to transcribe and proofread out-of-copyright books, which are then freely available as PDFs or EPUBs. A project with the Westland District Library on the West Coast of New Zealand used Wikisource to digitise local literature, history, and travel writing, employing a part-time librarian to find and scan eligible texts. The resulting EPUBs were then manually uploaded to the library’s Overdrive catalogue, making them available to borrowers as ebooks. The books are now more accessible and have been read far more times than when they were only on library shelves. This model could be followed by any library system; this short presentation will demonstrate the workflow.

Mike Dickison was New Zealand Wikipedian at Large 2018–2019. He is now a freelance Wikimedia consultant with GLAM and scientific research organisations, and is currently undertaking Wikipedian in Residence contracts with Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Healthier Lives National Science Challenge, and the University of Otago. He is Vice President of Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand.

14:00 Connecting Library Metadata to Wikidata: A Semantic Web Approach to Information Discovery

Omorodion Okuonghae

As the world becomes more connected through advances in information technology, libraries, as repositories of knowledge, must be at the forefront of developing a global open knowledge ecosystem that will help democratize knowledge for the public good. By leveraging the power of Wikidata, librarians can help connect libraries together to form a 60 global knowledge base that will improve the openness and accessibility of information. This presentation will therefore focus on how librarians can help build a global knowledge base by connecting their library metadata to Wikidata, a semantic web technology. This will allow for structured and interconnected representation of library bibliographic data, thus, making discoverability, accessibility and information retrieval easier. By connecting library data to Wikidata, librarians can also promote interoperability and collaboration among libraries.

Omorodion Okuonghae is Head of E-Library Services at Samuel Adegboyega University in Nigeria. He possesses Bachelors and Masters degrees in Library and Information Science from Delta State University and has worked as Systems Librarian at Wesley University Library. As a research scholar, Omorodion has published numerous scholarly works and presented papers at local and national conferences. In 2019, Omorodion was voted the best paper presenter at the 57th National Conference and Annual General Meeting of the Nigerian Library Association. His research interests include scholarly communication, bibliometrics, information literacy, and application of emerging technologies to Libraries amongst others.

References

1430 Connecting Library Metadata Workshop

Dr Tamsin Braisher & Pru Mitchell

This workshop investigates the power of connections between Library metadata and Wikidata. Following a short demonstration of adding and retrieving data, including types of relevant Wikidata queries, participants will work through examples of person, organization and place identifiers from the authority files relevant to libraries.


Tamsin Braisher is a free-range Wikimedian. Finding herself both over-educated and underemployed when her children went to school, she stumbled upon Wikipedia editing as a hobby by creating a page which was (deservedly) deleted the same day. Tamsin spends most of her free time thinking about Wikidata and trying to make connections between items about people and items about things, especially any items or people connected to the New Zealand Thesis Project.

Pru Mitchell is an educator and research librarian at the Australian Council for Educational Research, based in Melbourne, Australia. She is a Fellow of the Australian Library and Information Association, and served on the Wikimedia Australia committee from 2013-2023. She has delivered many wiki training programs focused on new editors across schools, higher education, libraries and other GLAM organisations. In addition to activity in the Australian chapter, her interests lie in Wikidata, WikiCite, and outreach in library and education.

1545 When African Librarians Met Wikidata

Alice Kibombo-Ekanya

Making library collections in Africa more visible, open and connected is a major objective of the “Promoting Open Knowledge practices in African Libraries through WikiData” project by AfLIA. The project which is funded by Wikimedia Foundation also aims to drive better understanding of open knowledge and linked data in the African Library sector. This is critical as the organization believes that access to knowledge is crucial for sustainable development and for creating more knowledge.

Alice Kibombo-Ekanya is a practising librarian as well as an active volunteer/editor based in Uganda. She contributes regularly to both English and Luganda Wikipedia, Wikidata and WikiSource. In 2020, Alice took on the role of Wikimedian in residence for AfLIA (African Library and Information Associations and Institutions), the umbrella body for the African Library sector.


Resources

  1. 1lib1ref https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Wikipedia_Library/1Lib1Ref