Climate crisis, IFLA’s internal issues, the corona pandemic, and Russia’s attack on Ukraine overshadowed the international library meeting organized in Dublin. However, after participating in the event, the overriding feeling was a pure happiness and hopeful movement. Continue reading
Writer: Jarkko Rikkilä, coordinator, Tampere City Library – Regional Development Task, Finland
Besides enhancing our skills in evaluating, the libraries could also participate in organizing, producing and creating information. One of the interesting methods of doing so would be co-operating with the Wikimedia Foundation. There’s a lot of similarities between libraries values and the goals of the free encyclopedia Wikipedia. The aim of both is to make information accessible to as many people as possible. In addition, the professional ethics of the library staff has similarities to the principles recognized by Wikipedia volunteers.
One of the library development organizations that has opened up doors concerning this kind of co-operation is the Sörmland Library Development Unit in Sweden. I interviewed our Swedish colleagues Malin Klintholm and Victoria Lagerqvist, who shared kindly their thought to CPDWL blog readers. We met with Malin and Victoria in the Next Library 2019 -conference in Aarhus Denmark and we’ve been in touch since. Malin’s and Victoria’s ideas were the inspiration to our own Wikipedia related training sessions for librarians in our area. That’s why I think these are good tips and tricks for everyone working with professional development!
Malin and Victoria
“In 2020, together with Sörmlands museum and Wikimedia Sweden we initiated Project LBTQI on Wikipedia, where we improve Wikipedia from a LBTQI perspective in regarding content and representation of editors. Our co-operation is a way to work with democracy, sustainability and equality online, in line with the mission of the public library.”
“Because of Project LBTQI we had a lot of interactions with Wikimedia Sweden as well as the museum. These led us (Sörmlands museum and Biblioteksutveckling Sörmland) in getting a Wikimedian in Residence during for six months in 2022. With this position we want to explore how librarians can work with Wikipedia, how the museum and library can collaborate, and also strengthen our own organization as one that empathizes with a sharing culture, and accessibility to free knowledge. Both us and Wikimedia Sweden have also been contributing with courses and articles to the theme Wikipedia on Digiteket, the national learning platform for librarians in Sweden.”
“Librarians can participate in many ways, like enhancing Wikipedia with better sources as well as help others to find sources. It’s like being a reference librarian in a digital setting. Working on Wikipedia is a way to meet the users where they are and where they seek information, but also participate in building a community, making sure it’s a community for and by all. It’s also a great way to teach literacies.”
“The library could organize Wikipedia activities, for example edit-a-thons on different topics and gather people who are interested or have a lot of knowledge on the chosen topic. Maybe on the climate issue or local authors? Since Wikipedia is a global movement, librarians could also take advantage of the different languages spoken in a community, working together to improve articles in different languages at the same time creating a learning space for language development.”
“We encourage librarians to take part in #1Lib1Ref (which stands for one librarian, one reference) which is a campaign happening every year. Librarians could also join a Wikipedia project of relevance, for example in Sweden, they could join our Project LBTQI, in order to either learn more about how to identify and bridge gaps on Wikipedia, or to raise awareness of LBTQI knowledge in their own library and in the community.
“We see that librarians through Wikipedia could play a part in the work where underrepresented groups gain the visibility they deserve. If you put a light on more stories that matters in our understanding of the world, we contribute to broaden our collective knowledge, making it a much better and more relevant knowledge development.”
“Libraries and the Wikimedia share the common purpose of providing free public access to resources and knowledge for everyone. With our co-operation we’ve deepened our understanding of Wikipedia itself as well as all the other Wikimedia-platforms, and all the possibilities related. It’s been helpful for us to be more open-minded to different ways of thinking. Also through co-operation librarians are learning how and why it’s a good idea to be a librarian on Wikipedia. For example, increasing the understanding of open linked data, put on the role of being a reference librarian in a digital environment, skills regarding copy right and open source are in our findings.”
Since working on Wikipedia is a kind of never-ending story, it’s also a perfect fit for lifelong learning – for you, your colleagues and your local community.
Writer: Jarkko Rikkilä, coordinator, Tampere City Library – Regional Development Task, Finland
“It’s times like these you learn to… evaluate again!”
In today’s world every librarian should have the basic skills recognizing and evaluating misinformation. The changing media atmosphere and information advocacy affect to the librarian competence. Multiliteracy is essential as it describes the diversity of communication. Also, we could learn new abilities by producing and editing content in Wikipedia.
One of our key themes in library staff training in the last couple of years has been raising the awareness of the changing professionalism that deals with identifying false information. IFLA’s How to spot fake news -infographic is a relevant checklist that is also shared among Finnish libraries. The evaluation of information is in the core of the librarian spirit. We are professionals in evaluating and helping our customers with reliable information from the collection. However, in the diversified global information environment the library collections are just one side of the coin.
There’s so much going on and the libraries have an impact. For example the covid pandemic caused a phenomenon called infodemics and to address this the WHO launched a special training on infodemic management. On the other hand, new channels and tools cause thoughts for the individual library worker. A concept called Data Detox Kit is addressing these themes. The kit offers everyday steps you can take to control your digital privacy, security, and wellbeing.
Last year we organized and conducted a four-part training program with an external library consultant called Disinformation, change of expertise and management of own data. The program consisted of the following parts:
The first part consisted of the basic terms and concepts of the matter. Second part provided the participants with tools of fact-checking. The third part concentrated on the individual – what can I do to clarify my own information environment? The fourth part argued the role of libraries in providing reliable information through collections. According to the feedback we got the program answered many of the questions our librarians are dealing with. The sessions also provided participants with good discussion and perspectives on the role of the library now and in the future.
This year here in Tampere we were joined by two other regional development organizations (Lahti & Porvoo) to construct and educational program for libraries related to information, advocacy and libraries. Our series is focusing on themes like freedom of expression, fake news and change of expertise. We are kicking off the program with a special day where we have different specialists speaking out their views: Social media influencer, journalist, and civic activist. Besides this there will be a panel discussion where we point out the views of the library.
After the kick-off day we’re going to have three workshops this year for library workers throughout Finland. The workshops are happening this spring and the next autumn. Workshop themes are how to identify misinformation, how to plan a customer event and how to get started as a library with Wikipedia. In the next Future-proofing the librarian blog post I’m going to introduce ideas from Sweden about Wikimedia co-operation. So – stay tuned!
