Slideshow Transcript

1. Slide 1: An Introduction to Wikipedia and Cataloguing Issues kmenzies@cis.strath.ac.uk
2. Slide 2: The Glasgow Digital Library and Wikipedia  In 2003, the CDLR established 'The Maxton Papers’ as part of the Glasgow Digital Library.  Alan Dawson and Jane Barton decided to monitor how highly ‘The Maxton Papers’ were ranked on Google.
3. Slide 4: A Usurper!  For several months, they were in 1st position  Spartacus’ page on Maxton pushed them down into 2nd position  Pushed into 3rd by Wikipedia
4. Slide 6: Wikipedia was clearly important...
5. Slide 7: Potential Benefits  Increased interest in information retrieval  Participatory relationship between users/producers  Increase visibility of your collection  Ensure users provided with accurate information  Encourage drive toward standardisation  Engage with local/global communities  Mutually beneficial arrangement
6. Slide 8: A Call for Participation “We do not believe that any resource tool can be reliable without scholarly input; this is why we so warmly welcome and invite the contributions of experts. It is a longstanding mistake to think of Wikipedia as being anti-elitist. Virtually every top Wikipedian I know is an elitist of the best sort: We love people who know what they are talking about.” - Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia
7. Slide 9: PAC 2.0! Users’ experience of information seeking and retrieval is changing…  Wikipedia creates a hypertext/browsing model of searching  The model may be different but…  Underlying purposes and goals are the same as traditional catalogues
8. Slide 10: Entry points to knowledge  Wikipedia is a good starting point for information seeking  I believe it may actually CREATE a potential user group for libraries  There is lots of overlap between Library and Web 2.0 philosophies  Provided that libraries engage with/understand the phenomenon, they can benefit from it
9. Slide 11: Complementary Philosophies? http://search.wikia.com/wiki/Search_Wikia Wikia’s Four Organizing Principles (TCQP) – state that the future of Internet Search must be based on:  Transparency - Openness in how the systems operate  Community - Everyone is able to contribute in some way  Quality - Significantly improve the relevancy and accuracy of search results  Privacy - Must be protected
10. Slide 12: Some Familiar Categorisations  Overviews of Wikipedia  Featured content  Lists  Including - Topics and Basic Topics  Glossaries  Categorical Indices  Alphabetical Indices And some Innovative ones…  Portals  Timelines
11. Slide 14: A Nod to traditional schemes Wikipedia's other broad categorical indices are:  List of Dewey Decimal classes — lists the top two classes of each subject  Library of Congress Classification  Outline of Roget's Thesaurus — articles organised into a system based on six classes, with thousands of branches, following Roget's system
12. Slide 15: A Wikipedian explains: “From 2003, it became clear that listing articles in a topic area was an important activity, and I did a lot of that for mathematics. When categories appeared, they seemed like lists, but with different, overlapping functionality. So WP moved to lists+categories. Of course you could have a list of any kind. Some lists get removed as frivolous and not helpful. But in general both lists and categories have a navigational role. Any particular addition of a category is fallible.” - Charles R. Matthews, Editor, Wikipedia
13. Slide 16: Entry points for Libraries Entry points into the subject of Libraries/Librarians on Wikipedia:  Library and Information Science Portal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Library_and_information_science This portal is a ‘featured portal’ meaning it is “regarded as being particularly useful, attractive, and well-maintained.”  Topic list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_basic_library_and_information_science_topics  Project to introduce Librarians to Wikipedia and the world of Wikipedians, and vice versa! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Librarians
14. Slide 17: Exposing your collection!  Create an entry for your organisation on Wikipedia, as the California Digital Library and Bodleian Library have done  Allow users to find your collection by creating external links on relevant pages for example: Create a link to Maxton Papers on I.L.P article  Becoming involved in improving and updating the Library and Information Science portal: LIS Portal
15. Slide 20: Forthcoming Book ‘How Wikipedia Works’ by Matthews et al. Publication date: May/June 2008 No Starch Press Ltd. By Charles R. Matthews and Phoebe Ayers, both Librarians, who sit on Wikipedia’s Arbitration Board. ISBN 10: 1-59327-176-X ISBN 13:9781593271763
16. Slide 21: For the really pro-active…  Use the free Wikimedia software to create a Wiki for your own collection, independent of the main Wikipedia site  Get involved in the WikiLibrary Project run by Michael Sauers and others  Add learning materials on Cataloguing to Wikiversity to encourage awareness of the profession  Upload some text/images to Wikipedia Commons
17. Slide 22: No way to ignore it… Even if you do not wish to become an active proponent of Wikipedia, it is still a good idea to check from time to time, that links to your site, mentions of your institution or images/text taken from your collection and added to Wikipedia comply with copyright regulations.