Wikipedia Edit-a-thons: A Networked Approach to Community Engagement and Information Activism
Simon Underschultz (NGA)
Abstract: On International Women’s Day, 2020, the National Gallery of Australia’s Research Library hosted a Wikipedia edit-a-thon. Since its success, the library has hosted several edit-a-thons online during the COVID-19 shutdown. This presentation will demonstrate how these edit-a-thons achieved two goals: increasing meaningful community engagement with our library; and enhancing the representation of Australian artists who identify as women.
By collaborating with Know My Name (the gallery’s initiative to celebrate the significant contributions of Australian women), Wikimedia and volunteers, our library has become part of a network of information activists who utilise in-house library resources to research artist biographies. This presentation will argue that our edit-a-thon project re-imagines the way our collection materials are used and why being proactive in the global community of Wikipedia editors, who manage one of the world’s largest and most popular research tools, is vital to providing equitable public access to information.
About: Simon Underschultz studied a Graduate Diploma in Information Management at Curtin University in Perth. He has been the Special Collections Officer at the National Gallery of Australia Research Library and Archives since 2013.