'Ask a librarian'—connecting Wikimedians with the National Library of Australia; watch 'Cracking Wikipedia'
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Editors of Australian-related topics on the English Wikipedia may have noticed an odd addition if they viewed the article's talk pages. For example, on Talk:Darwin, Northern Territory, they might be drawn in by the question mark, nested within what is often a sea of WikiProject templates: "Need help improving this article? Ask a librarian at the National Library of Australia, or the Northern Territory Library."
Just what is this?
It's the newest development in GLAM-Wiki. The National Library of Australia (NLA), the largest reference library in the country, is collaborating with WikiProject Australia on the English Wikipedia to "make authoritative information about Australia available to the world". The initiative has been led by Wikimedian Liam Wyatt—the Library's social media coordinator—and Renee Wilson, one of the institution's reference librarians, who now coordinates the ask a librarian service. Liam has brought his experience of WMF sites to the NLA, and has been responsible for marketing and communication surrounding the program.
Wyatt said "it's a great precedent for the library community here (and also internationally) to see Wikimedians as a potential usergroup of their services that they really want to engage with. After all—answering a reference enquiry from one person helps that person, but answering a Wikipedian helps thousands!"
The partnership will give Wikipedia editors of any nationality the chance to use the library's research services on articles related to Australia; the arrangement is that a research librarian can spend up to one hour on the questions asked of them. While many GLAM-Wiki efforts have focused on uploading new content and editing articles related to the institutions involved, this project will break new ground by connecting Wikimedians with the NLA's research librarians. Instead of new content, Wikimedians will be provided with verifiable information backed up with reliable sources from the library's holdings.
He said the library has collaborated with the Wikimedia movement before, most recently in uploading a scan of a letter by Jane Austen to memorialise one of the recently deceased Adrianne Wadewitz's favorite subjects. Their Trove collection of digitised newspapers can give fully formatted Wikipedia citations; librarians from the State Library of New South Wales have been creating Wikipedia articles on the newspapers in the archive.
How did it come about? "We were very careful to allow the Australian Wikipedians' noticeboard to come to its own consensus about this project, recognising that large proportions of external links are often seen as spam. We also spent a lot of time internally to the organisation thinking about what kind of information Wikimedians might ask for, building contingency plans in case we get too many questions, and informing our partner libraries across the country—whose equivalent Ask a librarian service is also linked (when applicable to the subject of the article)—so they knew what was happening."
Could other institutions from other countries replicate this model? "Having a reference desk—and the ability to ask questions by computer—is a standard and very important free service that every reference library offers. It's possible that other libraries might also wish to work with their local community to be involved in a similar way. One of the big questions for us was to have an appropriate scope—therefore these links only appear on articles that have the Wikiproject Australia template in the English Wikipedia. Perhaps in language editions where the country border and the language community have a strong overlap it would make sense for links to appear on all articles, or for a dedicated reference desk to be set up on-wiki, but not on the English Wikipedia."
Editors interested in participating should be aware of the library's privacy statement and policy, which do not allow the editor's name or article being worked on to be released by the library (unless they are asked in a public forum; public inquiries on their Facebook page, for instance, are responded to via the same medium). In short, Wyatt stated that "we won't publish information about an individual or their question that could enable the person to be identified, without seeking permission."
Wyatt will soon take leave from the National Library to take up a role in Bologna, Italy, as the GLAM-Wiki coordinator for Europeana; this internet platform—a "meta-GLAM", in Wyatt's words—gives users access to "millions of books, paintings, films, museum objects and archival records that have been digitised throughout Europe", according to its Wikipedia article. Wyatt told us that it has a long history of working with GLAM projects across Europe—including, to take just two small examples, the uploading of images of the Mona Lisa and recordings of Mozart's music. His primary task will be to support the development, integration, and usage of the GLAMwiki toolset project on Commons.