Also to add on to this, to generalize wildly university librarians tend to care about: * maintaining, adding to, and describing correctly their library collection, and making the collection useful or comprehensive in some way (for instance a complete archive of one scientists papers, or useful to the students doing research; often different parts of the collection will have different goals) * assisting the researchers and faculty at the university do their research work, via providing access to materials, research tools such as indexes, and providing assistance and advice on using them * making information available to a wide audience, including through methods like supporting open access journals, digitizing materials, managing research data (eg making it available and described online), etc; and preserving that info for the long-term * assisting students in learning about their field and how to do research, including how to evaluate all kinds of information in context. * making the library an inviting and interesting place that assists people and that they want to use to learn about all kinds of things (not only their research subject).
The constraints are generally, money (books and journals cost a lot of money, as does maintaining buildings and computer systems), time (it both takes a long time to do many things and libraries focus on the long-term), space (physical and digital), coordination costs (it's hard to collaborate with many disparate goals and institutions), and adequate personnel to do all of this. So our jobs often reflect one (or more) of these areas, and it is helpful to work on Wikipedia with those goals in mind as well. best, Phoebe On Mon, Sep 17, 2018 at 12:45 PM phoebe ayers <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Reem! > > No one has addressed point 1 yet so: > > * At universities there are different kinds of jobs in the library, > involving quite different work. Some librarians focus on acquiring and > describing the material in the library. These people might be catalogers > (if they focus on cataloging); acquisitions librarians (if they focus on > buying or getting materials); or archivists (if they focus on older and > rare or unique materials in archives). There are also librarians who focus > on working with the students & staff of the university. They might be > research librarians (there are different names for this) who specialize in > doing research in one subject or many subjects. (For instance, my specialty > is engineering, and my title is department liaison librarian, so I mainly > work with engineering students and buy engineering materials, with a > special focus on the EE & CS department). These librarians may assist with > research, buy books, and teach classes as well as assisting faculty or > researchers. Then there are librarians who specialize only in teaching, or > only in metadata or technical work (like working on the website or database > structures). > > My suggestion if you don't know who you are meeting is to ask them what > their jobs entail and what their concerns and interests are. Some of the > things that I say to librarians are: > > * students and researchers are using Wikipedia anyway, so it is in our > best interest to learn how it works and how to use it well (eg > understanding the page history, how material is added, why is ar.wikipedia > so much smaller than en.wikipedia?) > * if they teach students: teaching students to contribute to Wikipedia can > be an excellent pedagogical exercise that can help them learn to use the > library, since Wikipedia *requires* references > * if they work with more advanced researchers: contributing to Wikipedia > or assisting others to do so can improve information about their subject > for the public, and is an excellent way to disseminate good information > about the subject. It can help students and researchers who do not have the > opportunity of university. > * if they work with archives or old or unique materials, Wikipedia & > Wikimedia commons provides a free and open way to share information about > objects and collections with the entire world (add free photos, archival > descriptions, etc.) > * if they are more focused on the cataloging or database end, Wikidata can > be very interesting since it links open data in a way that libraries have > been trying to do for a long time in their catalogs. For instance, the > library catalog could add identifiers from Wikidata that would connect > their authority records to catalogs around the world . > * if they are focused on the licensing and acquisitions end: Wikimedia is > an excellent argument for supporting open access efforts, since our readers > would like to access the scholarly references that are cited. > * it's rather out of date but you can check here too: > https://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Loves_Libraries for project > ideas > > Also I like to say that the missions of Wikimedia and libraries are > aligned: we both want to make good information available to all, freely and > openly. > > I'm not sure of the politics of Egyptian libraries, but you could mention > that we had Wikimania 2008 at the Biblioteca Alexandrina, a wonderful > experience for many of us, and we had great conversations with those > librarians about contributing digitized and older unique materials to > Wikimedia Commons. > > all best & good luck! > Phoebe > > On Mon, Sep 17, 2018 at 7:22 AM Reem Al-Kashif <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> >> Hello, >> >> Hope this finds you well. I didn't plan on meeting librarians at a >> university here in Cairo, Egypt, but they expressed interest in Wikipedia, >> so we are meeting :). The problem is, I really don't know what activities >> to offer them. I have zero experience in Wiki+libraries collaborations. It >> would be more than great if anybody could help me out. What I need is: >> 1. Understanding the nature of librarians work (I know it is a big topic, >> but some general remarks would do). >> 2. Having examples of activities they can be part of to contribute to >> Wiki (be it Wikipedia or Wikimedia). >> 3. Understanding how rewarding those activities are (so that I explain to >> them) >> 4. Having examples of similar activities, if any, around the world. >> Bonus point 5. Having a clear plan of action to give them (i.e. what do >> we do after the meeting and so on) >> >> Thank you so so much in advance for helping me navigate this uncharted >> territory. >> >> Best, >> Reem >> >> >> >> >> -- >> >> *Kind regards,Reem Al-Kashif* >> _______________________________________________ >> Libraries mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/libraries >> > > > -- > * I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers > <at> gmail.com * > -- * I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers <at> gmail.com *
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