Your Name and Title: Greta Kuriger Suiter, Processing Archivist

Library, School, or Organization Name: MIT Libraries

Co-Presenter Name(s): Kai Alexis Smith, Architecture and Planning Librarian

Area of the World from Which You Will Present: Cambridge, MA, US

Language in Which You Will Present: English

Target Audience(s): Librarians, archivists, Library staff, educators, and faculty in academic institutions

Short Session Description (one line):

MIT Librarian Kai Alexis Smith and Archivist Greta Kuriger Suiter will talk about their work sustaining a collaborative Wikipedia community.

Full Session Description (as long as you would like):

Libraries as Conveners & Connectors - topics and examples related to how libraries work collaboratively through visionary partnerships to facilitate collective impact work to address existing challenges and opportunities with a focus on community well-being and self-reliance

We will explore: 

This presentation will explore how library staff at the MIT Libraries have empowered themselves and acted as conveners and connectors by working collaboratively across library departments, with students, and with the Wikipedia and local communities to better understand, engage with, and strengthen editorship and content on Wikipedia.

You will leave the session with:

  • An understanding of how collaborative cross institutional Librarians work together on Wikipedia projects
  • A framework for librarians cultivating and supporting on campus and off campus Wikipedia community engagement.
  • Tips for empowering and educating BIPOC students with Wikipedia training to address the race and gender gaps in the shared knowledge resource.

In 2015, what started as an informal group of librarians, archivists and writing instructors at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) offering a few edit-a-thons and classes has developed into a long-term, enduring collaboration that has provided a foundation for connecting Wikimedia projects with archives and distinctive collections, scholarly communications, technical services, and liaison outreach. Lib

In a newly remote learning and working environment, the importance of inclusive, distributed and accurate online information as represented on the Wikimedia projects has only grown. Greta will discuss how she is working with student workers and staff to incorporate Wikipedia editing into archives description workflows and Kai will discuss collaborations with faculty and teaching students about the intersection of Wikipedia and critical information and visual literacy. Collaborations between the librarians and the campus community and off campus collaborators will become even more important in a post-COVID future.

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