Leveraging Wikipedia: Connecting Communities of Knowledge

The vision statement of the Wikimedia Foundation states, "Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge." Libraries need not see Wikipedia as competition; rather, failing to leverage its omnipresence in the online world constitutes a missed opportunity. As a senior program officer at OCLC, Proffitt has encouraged collaboration between Wikipedia and cultural heritage institutions, leading to increased visibility and user engagement at participating organizations. Here, she brings onboard a raft of contributors from the worlds of academia, archives, libraries, and members of the volunteer Wikipedia community who together point towards connecting these various communities of knowledge. This book will inspire libraries to get involved in the Wikipedia community through programs and activities such as

• hosting editathons;
• contributing content and helping to bridge important gaps in Wikipedia;
• ensuring that library content is connected through the world's biggest encyclopedia;
• working with the Wikipedia education community; and
• engaging with Wikipedians as allies in a quest to expand access to knowledge.

Speaking directly to librarians, this book shows how libraries can partner with Wikipedia to improve content quality while simultaneously ensuring that library services and collections are more visible on the open web.

Merrilee Proffitt is a senior program officer at OCLC Research. She provides project management skills and expert support to institutions represented within the OCLC Research Library Partnership. Among her many projects is looking at developing better relationships between Wikipedia and cultural heritage institutions. Proffitt started exploring this connection in 2011, and in 2012 she created OCLC's Wikipedian in Residence program. Along the way, Proffitt became a more confident member of the Wikipedia community, and she has contributed to dozens of Wikipedia articles and helped to run several edit-a-thons. She is a member of the GLAM US Advisory Group. She is a founding member of the Wikimedia and Libraries User Group.