I would love to see a number of generalist Wikipedians sign up for
this event. An experienced contributor could get a lot from 15 minutes
sitting with a curator talking through a key Wikipedia article on
their laptop screen after seeing the original material. I have
suggested to the curators that they think about recommended
bibliographies as a couple of good quality references supporting the
context that an enthusiastic curator can provide is bound to
immediately knock a C-class article up to B and we are likely to see a
few blossom to GA status.

Alex, I agree with your point about individual works and I would
extend that to popular film articles related to the lives and works of
these authors as well as associated artworks and other cultural
spin-offs. The impact of Oscar Wilde or H.G. Wells is so vast that
there are a huge variety of interrelated types of article than could
be improved and the British Library collections represents the ideal
reliable and verifiable source (which as well as being the legal
deposit includes many objects beyond books such as original draft
manuscripts and illustrations, playbills, audio interviews and the
personal papers of writers).

The British Library staff have been thinking about their wish list for
Wikipedia improvement and we plan to encourage event attendees and
others who are interested to continue their collaboration at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/BL where further requests
for support from the BL will be welcome.

Cheers,
Fae

On 11 May 2011 17:19, Alex Stinson <[email protected]> wrote:
> I am really glad to hear about the collaboration, the content on literature
> on Wikipedia is decidedly poor. Might I suggest that the articles that we
> work on in the third group, not be author pages, but rather individual
> works. Some of the most important literary works in the English language are
> c class or lower, with an emphasis not on their actual implications and
> meaning but rather on plot summaries and characters summaries, both largely
> unimportant in the grand scheme of literary criticism and secondary analysis
> of literature. I am excited to participate!
> Alex Stinson

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