Learning from each other: Reciprocity in description between Wikipedians and librarians

Abstract

Librarians, archivists, and museum professionals are increasingly realizing the value of using and contributing information to Wikipedia through projects such as edit-a-thons and the 1Lib1Ref project. As the amount of knowledge in Wikipedia and Wikidata grows, the benefits to libraries in partnering with Wikimedia projects to enhance their own bibliographic records and catalog search results also increase. Conversely, librarians have created an immense number of bibliographic and authority records that Wikipedia and Wikidata editors can use both as resources in and of themselves and as examples of various approaches to metadata and knowledge creation. Despite some challenges there are numerous benefits for working to integrate library data with Wikipedia more closely. This chapter will serve to highlight differences between Wikipedia resources and library catalog records, and how librarians and Wikipedians can learn from each other to improve description and discoverability in both Wikipedia and library catalogs for their respective users. It will also illustrate differences between these two systems in order to reduce confusion and errors when data are merged uncritically. The discussion draws on experience gained from a previous Illinois State University Research Grant-funded project that used the Wikipedia List of African-American writers to enhance library catalog records.