Wikipedia:GLAM/State Library of Queensland/Wikipedia Training Manual

State Library of Queensland's Wikipedia Training Manual

The State Library of Queensland is working with Wikimedia Australia to find ways the State Library can add authoritative content to Wikipedia and encouraging Queensland Public Libraries to do the same. Getting Queensland communities to share their places, people and stories with the world.

Wikimedia Australia is committed to growing regional Australian content within Wikipedia, and recognises that public libraries have the local knowledge and contacts required to generate the articles needed to enhance the Queensland subject coverage of Wikipedia. This approach also supports the State Library's goal of creating a statewide distributed collection of Queensland Memory and gives regional Queensland communities a practical way of to promoting their own local history and showcasing their collections online.

By creating Wikipedia articles on your local community's stories, people and places, you have the opportunity for your content to be searchable and linked into other articles on Wikipedia, the worlds 5th most searched website. Wikipedia will also give your public library and its community the ability to promote itself on the world stage with a website that has a well known international reputation. By creating content you will also get the opportunity to partner with other similar organisations both locally and further afield. (E.g. Local museums, historical societies etc.)

The training manual created will give you the skills to create new articles for Wikipedia and enhance existing articles using images from your local collections as well as from the 50,000 images available from State Library. By learning how to use Wikipedia you can then transfer these skills to other interested people in you're community such as; local historians, museums, art galleries, family history groups, public librarians, teachers or anyone who has knowledge of the local community and wants to be part of one of the most searched encyclopedias in the world.

Using Wikipedia will benefit your local community by:

Providing locals with the skills they can use, wherever and whenever they are online, to create, edit and link articles in Wikipedia about local landmarks, locations, historical and contemporary events and notable people from your area, accessible on a global basis.

Allowing your community to access a platform where your digital collections and expert knowledge can be uploaded and made available to all Wikipedia authors who then use them in new articles and add value to the images through their own knowledge and research.

Enhancing the local profile and attractions of your area on Wikipedia through the development and expansion of the Wikipedia articles that have already been written regarding your community.

Providing an opportunity to network with likeminded local knowledge specialists and library services within the region as well as a professional development opportunity for all library staff.

Placing the library in the centre of this initiative, as host, content provider and facilitator

Gallery

John Vandenberg, Wikimedia Australia President teaching participants in Miles about Wikipedia
Pilot Wikipedia Training class at Dagwood Crossing, Miles Public Library
Sharynn Brigg, Tambo Librarian at Tambo Training
Quilpie Wiki Training Participants
Townsville Wiki Training Participants
Hinchinbrook Wiki Training Participants
Cassowary Coast Wiki Training Participants

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/SLQ - List of articles created at each regional Queensland Wikipedia Training Session

External links