“Uplifting Global Voices: A Reflection on Publishing an Edited Book on Academic Libraries and Wikipedia”

From a Diff Blog Post by:

Laurie Bridges, Instruction and Outreach Librarian at Oregon State University
Raymond Pun, Education and Outreach Manager at Hoover Institution Library & Archives
Roberto A. Arteaga, Instruction and Reference Librarian at Pacific Lutheran University

In fall of 2019 we set out to publish an open access edited volume titled Wikipedia and Academic Libraries: A Global Project. Two years later that volume was published by Maize Books, an imprint of Michigan Publishing. The online edition became available on September 15, 2021 and the print edition began shipping in October 11. In the week following online publication, Wikimedians quickly uploaded the book to Wikisource and created structured data in Wikidata. With over 1,700 views and downloads since the book’s launch, it became clear that many readers around the world were excited to explore, recreate, or design projects centering Wikipedia, as a multifaceted resource, for academic engagement in their libraries. In this blog post, we share our rationale to collaborate on creating this edited book in this topic and its journey to fruition.

[Clip]

This book contains 20 chapters (including a bookend chapter that details the two-year process) by 52 authors or co-authors from Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Netherlands, Nigeria, Scotland, Spain, and the United States. Our authors are both new and longtime members of the Wikimedia community, representing a range of experiences and perspectives. In this book, chapters are clustered into four sections: Practical Applications in the Classroom, Practical Applications Outside the Classroom, Wikipedians-in-Residence; and Wikipedia Sister Projects.

Read the Complete Post (645 words)

Direct to Full Text Book: Wikipedia and Academic Libraries: A Global Project
DOI: 10.3998/mpub.11778416
Read Online, Download, Purchase

Filed under: Academic Libraries, Archives and Special Collections, Data Files, Libraries, News, Open Access, Publishing