I'm going to actually introduce Betha Gutsche. Welcome. >> And thank you, Jennifer and welcome, everyone, it's just really exciting to see so many people and the attendee numbers are rolling up here. I am joined here by Monika Sengul-Jones, who is our Wikipedian-in-Residence and has joined our WebJunction team for this project and also by Tiffany Bailey, who is with the fine arts division, she's a manager there at the Dallas Public Library and she has a story to share with us. So lots to cover today. We are here really to preview the possibilities and discover the opportunities at the intersection of public libraries and Wikipedia. And we would like to just start off with a story. One of the earliest efforts in this project has been to serve as examples of how public librarians are already connecting with Wikipedia. So I'm going to ask Monika to share one of those stories. >> Thank you so much Betha for this introduction. And I am going to start us off with a story. Let's head over to El Paso, Texas, where last April, Susan Barnum, an outreach library at the El Paso public library, was asked by a patron for references on chihuahuita. This is an endangered neighborhood, it's right in the center of El Paso, right on the rio grande, across the border from Mexico. So when she got this request, Susan compiled a list of looks, articles, and reference materials. But then she did something that might be unusual to some. She wrote a Wikipedia article using those notes. And then she sent the patrons this link. Why did she do this? In her own words, this was an easy decision. Susan has been involved in Wikipedia as an editor for a number of years. Editing this article was a natural move for her. And in doing so, she's extending her librarianship on the Internet. As she put it, it would have taken me just as much time to compile all of the references into a word document. Writing the Wikipedia article makes this information available to everyone. It has longevity and visibility. Here, you can see Susan. And we profiled her as a part of WebJunction's librarians who Wikipedia series, which has come out of interviews I've been doing with at this point, more than 20 U.S. public library staff who have already been engaging with English language Wikipedia. The goal initially was to use the interviews to inform the curriculum design for our online training programs, but in the meantime, I've gotten to know some incredible public library staff like Susan. So let's take a closer look at the work that she did here. This list of resources she's unearthed and shared. It's really great work and when you think about it, it's not totally outside the scope of the work of an outreach librarian. She's reaching out to people who are inquiring about topics that are relevant to her library's community and locale. She's doing it on the Internet. Since she created that article, right at the end of April, it's had just under 600 page views. And you know, that's a little number in the Internet world. But in the library, that's a lot of people who would have come up to the reference desk and asked for materials. So she was meeting them online. In her words, she edits Wikipedia because it's important to me to contribute to a collective body of knowledge that's accessible to all. I see myself as someone who's a librarian on Wikipedia. And now, I'll look to my colleague Betha to zoom out for a minute and give us some details about the project and why we're here today with you. >> Thank you, Monika, for that story. Yes. Well, the Wikipedia + Libraries project is really about strengthening ties between U.S. public libraries and English language Wikipedia. So we see this as expanding public access to authoritative information and serving public libraries' diverse communities as well as advancing the libraries' mission. The project is funded by the John F and James L. Knight Foundation and the Wikimedia foundation and I just want to note that we're also working with an advisory board and there are several of them in the audience today, so I want to thanks them for showing up and giving that level of support. So we have identified three key project phases and you already were introduced to the first phase, where Monika has been researching these public library connections that already exist. We heard the Susan Barnum story and we will hear more of those stories throughout today. And this webinar is also part of just building awareness and building this excitement and opening all of our eyes to really what the possibilities are of this intersection. Our second phase begins in the fall and this is when WebJunction will offer a free, 10-week online training program for up to 500 U.S. public library staff to learn to confidently engage with Wikipedia. The course registration opens today so this is the kickoff day for being able to enroll in this course and I hope by the end of the webinar today, you will all be so excited you can't wait to go to that link and register. And then in the third and final phase, we'll be collecting all this information and sharing it publicly. So all these resources will have more longevity and then, of course, evaluating the effectiveness of what we're doing here. So a little bit about you who are gathered here today. For those of you who registered, we have these statistics that 79% of you have never edited or have maybe tried to edit once. That's really good news, especially in light of the statistics that 90% of you said and agreed that Wikipedia is useful to my work. So to me, this is like an enormous learning opportunity. I personally am in that 79% who have edited once and I personally can't wait to get started. So to answer the question today of why Wikipedia for public libraries? We have sort of three main areas, key areas in which we see a really strong alignment between Wikipedia and public libraries. So beginning with the alignment with the mission of these two entities, and also the idea of meeting patrons where they are, libraries are really -- always interested in going to where your patrons are and then third using Wikipedia as a way to engage with community. And I just wanted to note about the article series, the story series that Monika has been writing, the librarians who Wikipedia. Yes, we have turned it into a verb. So hopefully, you all will learn to Wikipedia, as well. >> Thanks a lot Betha for giving us that project overview. Now, I would like to take us into this question of why Wikipedia for public libraries? And the first is really the idea of mission alignment. For me, personally, I'm a communications scholar and an educator. I was attracted and interested in Wikipedia and interested in learning to edit because of this mission and vision of the Wikipedia project. It's a collaborative tertiary reference source that's so open and accessible. What I found is that the Wikipedia project is just one of many projects within the Wikimedia movement. This is a collection of projects that all kind of fall under the ambitious goal of seeking to facilitate access to information to all. And the Wikimedia movement has done this through many wiki projects of which English language Wikipedia is just one. Other projects include other Wikipedias. There are 290 Wikipedias in different languages. Spanish language Wikipedia, Turkish language Wikipedia, and so on. There's also other projects like Wikimedia comments and Wikidata. I do want to mention that the one wiki project that isn't readily to the Wikimedia foundation is Wikileaks. Just to keep that clear. The vision and mission of this project is also what has attracted thousands of volunteers globally to participate. Just take a look at the smiling and waving people pictured in this photograph. There are real human faces, volunteers who are behind the edits on Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects. This vision and mission of Wikipedia is also what has attracted the participation of public library staff. So the libraries, librarians that I've spoken with have described how they've dovetailed their librarianship with the Internet borne projects. It's a way to bring free and open access to information to all. We have Christina, she said about her engagement with Wikipedia, which includes organizing events and editing, that quote, "both are beneficial. It's crucial to do free programs that connect the people to reliable sources of information ." For her, there's a clear alignment between what Wikipedia is and what libraries can do with Wikipedia. And it serves both. Also, we have Janos McGhie who's pictured below and among us today as an attendee. He's a reference librarian at St. Paul public library and he says the mission of Wikipedia is the same as that of libraries: Get information freely to people who need it. It behooves librarians to be a part of this project and to help shape it. So I would like to share with you a couple more stories about what public libraries are doing to help shape the way that people get information by working with Wikipedia. As I mentioned, there are events. In Wikipedia terminology, editing events are often called edit-a-thons. You can think of them as a maker space. Pictured here, we have one that took place at the Carnegie museum of art sculpture hall. It was hosted in conjunction with the Carnegie library of Pittsburgh, which is a public library. Mary Phillips, a reference librarian helped coordinate this event and it was the second one that she had participated in. The first one had 70 participants. So many that they crashed the server. When they organized an event like this, it was a moment to collaborate with all kinds of different institutions, an opportunity to build bridges. Mary says, at the event we plugged our databases and collections. We're a public library. We serve everyone. But I got a lot of oh, I didn't know that you could do that at a public library! And for Mary, Wikipedia editing is also a conduit to thinking about what public librarianship is and can be, given this alignment of missions. But there are really distinct ways that people engage with the library and engage with Wikipedia. So this is an opportunity to bridge engagement. Mary says librarians are really important to Wikipedia. We're experts at recognizing authority and we're experts in how people interact with information that is mediated. We are uniquely positioned to help this resource become the best it can be. And in our current moment, helping people learn to interact thoughtfully with information that is mediated is a skill and a mind set that's never been more critical and this is why Alison Frick, pictured to the left here, a youth services public librarian in Pennsylvania, has used Wikipedia in one-hour inquiry-based information literacy sessions. She believes that Wikipedia is an excellent and important jumping off point for information literacy. And she does this because patrons often tell her they have been told Wikipedia is unreliable. She says, when they say this, I respond well, yes, you can. It's good to use Wikipedia, to edit Wikipedia, to think with Wikipedia. This will get your brain ready to do more research. I recommend using Wikipedia as a jumping off point and I'm helping youth learn to edit so that they have a sense that they can do things. They have permission, and that there's more than one way of doing something. At her recent event, which she cohosted with Christina, a colleague from Penn state university library, they had 12 participants who stayed for the duration and by the end of the event, which was thematically focused on women in science, the group collectively had added one citation to Wikipedia. Other public library staff can learn to do the same thing: Use Wikipedia as the backbone for information literacy instruction. Alison says, our event was so positive. I can show my head librarian these outcomes and say they wanted this, they came, they stayed. We need to do more. Incorporating editing Wikipedia into digital literacy instruction will pay off. A recent study snap shotted here shows that instructors find that editing Wikipedia in higher education is more effective than other methods or assignments to achieve these crucial information literacies. It's that process of developing an article in a collaborative environment, gathering the sources, assessing reliability, verifiability, building out a tertiary reference from secondary sources, this work promotes a mindset of literacy. And it couldn't be more important. And in this way, Wikipedia is just really excellent as an opportunity to meet patrons where they are, which is the second point I wanted to talk with you about today. I'm pretty sure I don't need to convince this audience that people use the Internet because it's convenient and you're well aware that most people in the United States today often begin their information inquiries using searches, social media, and often mobile devices. So with that in mind, what's well worth considering and thinking through is where are they going? These top websites, these top gateways to information sources, are all for-profit. With the exception of Wikipedia. To put it another way, Wikipedia is the only not-for-profit in the top 100 websites in the United States. So we have English language Wikipedia is number seven this month in the United States. And English language Wikipedia is number five globally. And given the lower profile of libraries on the commercial Internet, where even some of the largest libraries are overshadowed by these commercial giants online, it really makes sense for public libraries to engage with, to become a part of, Wikipedia in order to meet patrons where they are. And that is precisely what the librarians I've been speaking with have been doing. They've found in Wikipedia a pathway to expanding the work they're already doing in the libraries and bringing it online. Mary Phillips, who I introduced earlier, says she regularly adds citations to articles. As she put it, it's my nerd card. I'll help with finding reliable sources of information so I match my skill set to improve the quality of this resource. I'm a librarian on Wikipedia. There's Mary. A librarian on Wikipedia. And then finally, mission alignment, meeting patrons where they are, these are all opportunities for public libraries to engage communities with Wikipedia. So libraries I've spoken with have seen a great deal of success in organizing and participating in thematic events, particularly themes that promote a more inclusive and representative society. Wikipedia is really big. English language Wikipedia has more than 5 million articles. And by and large, studies have shown that what's there is as reliable as what's in encyclopedia britannica. Research also shows there are missing viewpoints, gaps in coverage. The upside of naming these gaps is that they've inspired community engagement around Wikipedia. So, for example, let's head over to San Francisco where public librarians organized an event called the queerest Wikipedia edit-a-thon in conjunction with the citywide celebration of pride. The purpose of this event was to attend to gaps in Wikipedia's coverage of queer local histories by having an effect at the library and that meant that about 20 people came together and spent the day at the library. This was a mix of people, some who had no experience editing Wikipedia at all but were very interested in the theme and in the topic and in the resource, and there were also experienced Wikipedians who came to the event but actually they had not set foot in the library before and didn't have library cards. Well by the end of the event, they had library cards and the San Francisco public librarians had the opportunity to showcase the rich diversity of materials about the queer histories of San Francisco. So Andrea Davis who coqueened the event, she's a teen services librarian, said we did a song and dance about our resources and we brought out carts of printed materials and showed the wide variety of materials we have and how to link these to that beautiful marker, citation needed. And that's the potential of this kind of event, she said. It's connecting one public source to another, bringing them together. For Andrea and for you, too, gaps on Wikipedia can be opportunities. Gaps are also opportunities for Susan Barnum whom I introduced earlier from El Paso. Susan is a really prolific editor but she's also been involved in a project related to raising the visibility of women and women's history on the Internet. In her words, she's writing articles about women who you cannot Google and made them visible on Wikipedia. She also finds archival images that she will upload and share to her articles, such as this striking public domain photograph of five women officers from the 19th century women's club movement. Prior to her efforts, this was not easily available on the open web, and now it is. Susan has a message for public library staff who are curious about what she's doing. It's worth remembering she says that your patrons are all online searching for information. As repositories of our local history, public libraries are particularly well positioned to contribute their unique collections. And so we can help you learn how to do this with editing, with partnerships. You can enrich the programs and events that you are already doing with Wikipedia and that's what happened with the Brooklyn public library in New York. In Brooklyn, the public library has collaborated withafro crowd, a movement to increase the number of people of African descent who actively participate in open source projects like Wikipedia. Brooklyn public library, Afro crowd and other Brooklyn civic and cultural organizations have collaborated to put on an art and culture walk with Wikipedia incorporated into that walk. From biological to St. Paul, El Paso and San Francisco, the interviews I've done with public librarians who have already engaged with Wikipedia demonstrate how they are able to extend the reach of what they do with Wikipedia. And now, I would like to give you the opportunity to hear from one of them directly. We have with us today, a guest speaker, Tiffany Bailey, from Dallas Public Library who recently put on an art and feminism Wikipedia event at her library. Thank you so much for being with us today, tiffany. >> Thank you so much. Good afternoon, everyone, as Monika said, Dallas Public Library held our first art and feminism Wikipedia edit-a-thon this past March in the downtown central library location. I was first approached by the programming director for the local arts organization here in Dallas. And she introduced me to -- Dallas X architecture forum and we discussed the opportunity to bring an art and feminism Wikipedia edit-a-thon to Dallas Public Library. She had previous experience working with a much smaller library and she wanted to bring the same program to a larger library system. I jumped on this opportunity to serve as a host location because I wanted to work closely with local arts organizations, building up the partnership and to work under the art and feminism umbrella as an event location. If you aren't familiar with art and feminism, it's an organizing body made up of professors, artists, art workers, art lovers, who exist to promote meaningful changes to information related to feminism and the arts on Wikipedia. I saw this as a multibeneficial event. One that would promote tech literacy, promote women in the editing and skill building. It's also an event that has legs. So there are many opportunities for this program to grow and evolve. So what did I do? Over the course of two months, I worked closely with Kate and the art in feminism team on planning and developments for the program. The great thing about working with art and feminism is that they provided what they called an organizer's kit, which is basically a digital file that has all kinds of information in it or things like tips for beginning editors, training power points, both on beginner and intermediate levels, promotional and marketing information, all kinds of things that really helped when putting the program together. To get the word out, we utilized social media, we created a Facebook event page, posted on Instagram. We also posted on the library's website and other social calendar sites, really focusing on those that appeal to the art community. All three of us reached out to our organizations, put out a call for volunteers. We had about five, which isn't a lot, but it worked out well because we didn't want to have too many bodies and not enough jobs. That in itself can create its own problems. So I also reached out to our children's center. Our children's center is located in the same building, just a different floor and I wanted to find out what kinds of programs and activities they were offering on the date of the edit-a-thon. I wanted to get rid of any roadblocks for participants and sometimes finding entertainment or things to do for your children can be a roadblock. So participants were able to take their kids to the children's center, hear a story, do a craft, things like that. So further successes, the whole event was such an amazing success. We had an intimate gathering of people who were really engaged in what they were doing. Most of our participants stayed the entire day and this really showed me that there's a real need for this kind of programming in our community. We had about 20 participants, which was great because I got to know everybody on a first name basis and there wasn't a competition for work space or finding and offering help. It was a really supportive environment and people felt comfortable being themselves and applying a new skill they had acquired. There was a lot of positive feedback from our community. Those who participated and those who wanted to participate but had a conflict on that day. There was a lot of enthusiasm to see this kind of parameterring happening in Dallas, we had a lot of people ask if we would do this again next year. It was a really empowering event for those who participated. I just can't describe the level of enthusiasm that existed as people were thrilled to learn how to edit Wikipedia pages and how to know that they could apply this skill any time they wanted, even from the comfort of their own home. This event allowed us to reach different audiences. We had a really heart-warming mix of individuals, women, men, parents, homeless, childless, everyone came together to learn and support one another. Further successes, this event helped to raise the visibility of our library, especially our collections. We developed a suggested articles page that had the names of Dallas pioneers in the arts. These names included Nancy nasher, Anne Williams and their organizations. Having this resource helped to bring a focus to the kinds of pages we were interested in creating and improving. I was able to pull material out of the library's collections for on hand references, as well. This edit-a-thon event allowed us to build our partnership with other organizations in our community. I think partnering is such an important part of developing library programs, especially where marketing and PR are concerned. Between the three organizations, cedars union, Dallas Public Library, and Dallas architecture forum, we found that we had quite a reach across the whole city when we really put our minds together and thought about the people that we do, the networking and the organizations we could reach out to, to help get the word out about this program. When the event was all said and done, the three of us came together for a post-event meeting, and we discussed ways that we could improve in the future. Some of those things we discussed were date and time, maybe we want to do it at a later date and not on a weekend. We wanted to keep in mind city calendars and school calendars. We didn't think of the Dallas independent school calendar and when they were on spring break so we held our event during spring break. We'll be sure to not do that next year. We also want to amp up our marketing and developing by developing press releases for the events and engaging more with local universities and community colleges. Another missed opportunity that we had was we didn't take enough photos. We were so preoccupied by what was going on around us and being so engaged, we forgot to take pictures. So next year, we're definitely going to take all the photos that we can. And lastly, we're looking into finding convenient ways to look into the longevity of the program's effects by looking at page progress and creation. >> Wow, well thank you so much, tiffany. I think that's a wonderful story. We have a pause here for some questions and I see a number of questions have flown by in the chat and also some wonderful responses from the community that's here today. There's some mentoring going on right here in the chat. I'm just going to interject, the straightforward answer is to take the course. My understanding is it's been increasing since working here with Monika and working on this project. What a complex environment Wikipedia is. There's a rich, deep community behind what you see when you just click on a link and go to one of the pages and there's a lot to understand in the environment in order to really promote your own success in it and we are going to cover that in rich detail in the course, but I wonder if Monika, you have anything you want to respond to in terms of people who have the greatest intentions, go into Wikipedia and don't meet with success right away? >> Thanks a lot, that's a really great question. And thanks again, tiffany for your presentation and for all the questions that are coming up here about how to do this in a way that you feel like you're being heard. And I really think that's what's going to make the online training program so meaningful is that in my mind, editing Wikipedia has been most meaningful when I know in person or have met before or have really gotten to know online in a social way other Wikipedia editors. So it's a really alienating experience to go in and make edits by yourself, but when you actually have a sense of the community, of the way people interact and respond to each other or you go to an event and you're doing it with others, then you kind of get that Wikipedia as one of the advisory board members who's here today said, bob, Wikipedia is a social encyclopedia. It's incredibly social. There's humans behind it and they've created, we've created, people have created a very social and dynamic environment. And so when newcomers are joining this online training program, we're going to be in it together, learning best practices, learning what conflict of interest means in the Wikipedia world, how to suss it out and how to manage our experiences in ways that build bridges with the Wikipedia community. And the Wikipedia community has been by and large extremely supportive of this project as a way -- as a pathway to bringing on board new, like -- new participants and so I think this is going to be a really great time to do this together. >> Great. >> Does that help? I'm trying to think if that helps that kind of reoccurring question of how to do this in a meaningful way. >> I will encourage anyone who has follow-up questions to enter into chat, but I wonder if toughany you could share a little bit about your experience of getting acquainted with Wikipedia and you made a very bold move to stage this edit-a-thon and that's a wonderful example of building your own skills and knowledge so you can then make it accessible for other people and as you were saying, making it as easy as possible for the people that you gathered together to be successful in Wikipedia. So any thoughts, Tiffany, on that? >> When I was approached, I had never done any kind of editing on Wikipedia, so this was all new to me, too, and I was able to learn along with everyone else, which kind of gave me an edge when supporting new editors. So again, working with art and feminism, they gave me all the tools I needed to learn those skills, and I was able to beef up my editing skills by teaching. So it was all new and I loved it and I feel empowered myself. >> Great. And I know, I'll direct this to you Tiffany again, there was a question about is this something that teens can do as a project and you had said you had quite a spread of ages at your event; is that right? >> Absolutely. We had quite a span of them. I think the youngest was 16. She was in high school. And so that goes along with the follow-up that me and my partners wanted to do was to reach out more to the colleges and universities, but also like the local schools, the local high schools. >> Wonderful. So here's a really good question. I don't know whether you can answer it definitively, but love to hear your thoughts. Wikipedia was considered unreliable. When did it become an authoritative resource? >> That's such a great question. I think Wikipedia needs to be understood and contextualized as being part of an Internet ecosystem. There's lots of things on the Internet that are unreliable, but it's great to go to Wikipedia because among the English language Wikipedia, among the 5 million pages that there are, there's actually ways you can read a page and see the level of development that it's undergone and understand the peer review process that Wikipedians have developed to evaluate if it meets standards of reliability, notability, depth of coverage, neutrality, these are guideposts that Wikipedians have developed and as you learn to read and engage with the community itself, you can see where reliability is and know when a page is underdeveloped or it has room to grow. Wikipedia is collaboratively made, and it's always under revision. So there is the possibility that a page at any given moment may have something on there that's not correct. But at the same time, Wikipedians have put incredible work into safeguarding the work that has been done to create this kind of ethos of neutrality and reliability on Wikipedia. It's really learning about it as a community, a dynamic community, not a static reference source where the question of reliability is most important to think about. That said, there have been a number of academic studies that have been done that compare articles in encyclopedia britannica, for example, and Wikipedia. One of those studies I believe is in the related links page on our webinar page, so you can go to that study which was done a couple of years ago, 2012, which compares side by side particular entries on Wikipedia and britannica. Wikipedia is pretty even keel in those entries with the ones on britannica. >> Great, thanks a lot for asking about that question about safeguards, just to follow up. This is exactly the kind of discussion that we're going to be having in the online training course. There is so much to talk about with Wikipedia. I could go on and on. On and on and on. And this is what we're going to be doing in the course. And it's creating a community where people can openly ask these questions, can suss out their concerns and work together to engage in a meaningful way. >> And I just really want to appreciate Susan's comment that the edits, having that experience of having your edits blocked increases your trust in Wikipedia as a reliable authoritative resource and the thinks you feel blocked by are just evidence of how carefully constructed and carefully thought out this is in order to ensure reliability and this is the kind of thing that really takes a deep exploration, which we'll be doing in the course to grasp the whole complexity and environment so that it all makes sense so you go oh, I see why that happened and I know the value of it. I just want to add hopefully a little clarification to a lot of questions about who is eligible to enroll in the course and just reiterating what has been shared in chat that this is primarily focused on anyone who works or volunteers in a U.S. public library, the curriculum is being designed and customized for that audience. I think the intent of the grant was to really augment the engagement of that particular audience because other audiences such as academic librarians, have been more engaged historically. But that said, I believe and I'll need to confirm this on our FAQ page, we will give priority to public librarians, but if we have fewer than our goal of 500 enrollees, we will accept enrollments from other participants, is my current understanding. Okay. >> Trying to see what other questions there are. Thanks. Yeah, I've heard some questions from academic librarians or folks in the academic realm and I do want to point you to the resources that the Wikieducation foundation has developed. They have a suite of tools to use Wikipedia in instruction in higher education. They are a partner in this project in many ways and will be building on the -- in working in academic settings to bring this out to public libraries. Public libraries, you know, there are as you probably know more public libraries than there are McDonald's in the United States. So this is a big audience of libraries that the project will be serving. >> Yeah, and Elaine, I know you have a persistent question. If one of our mentors in the audience can help answer that, but I really would encourage you to take the course and we'll explore that. >> We totally will explore all of that in ways that you can provide your local expertise while citing sources. This is -- Elaine, I hope to see you there! [Laughs] >> Well, I think we have a lot of questions flying by. And I think we need to spend a little bit of time just talking about the logistics of the course. >> That sounds great. >> So let's move into that, and then hopefully, we'll have time for questions at the end of that. So I know a number of you are dying to know how you get started, a couple of said you just enrolled, thank you. This is really all about being better together, not just Wikipedia plus public librarians, but public librarians and whoever else gets to take the course being together as a community so definitely spread the word and let your colleagues know all about it. So this is really your opportunity to as we said get into that very complex and very well constructed environment that is Wikipedia and once you've learned those inner workings and really get to know why all the reasons behind it, what are the policies, what are the procedures, what are sort of the key principles, once you get to know that, you will have success in the environment and your engagement with it. So part of that is just meeting the people behind the pages. As Monika says, this is a community. These are people who are really committed to making this a reliable and authoritative resource and expanding the knowledge base for the benefit of everybody. So by engaging the course, you'll build your own confidence and be able to participate more successfully with that. So we'll be talking about how you assess quality and reliability and that's part of knowing how that's ensured by all these mechanisms that are in place in Wikipedia and then you'll be able to help others experience Wikipedia successfully and help them to add their knowledge and insights to the encyclopedia. And also as Monika's story indicated, it's really wonderful for teaching digital information literacy. Just a very good way to get authentic understanding of what information literacy is really about. Other benefits of taking this course is that you'll be able to enhance yourself and contribute in a number of ways, and I think that's one of the discoveries that we'll reveal during the course is the variety of ways you can contribute. It's not necessarily all about writing a whole new article. There are any number of ways that you can add your value and your little bits of knowledge to make this a richer and ever more wonderful resource. It's also really wonderful for community-centered program. So using Wikipedia as sort of the instrument for programming with your community, to build their skills and literacies but also to address the issues and stories that your community cares about and not going into detail here, but we have some wonderful examples of how that can happen. And, of course, you'll be learning the WebJunction way. In all of our WebJunction online learning programs, we really emphasize working together as a community of learners and we have gained some skills over the years of being able to do this effectively in a virtual environment and I really think that the pure learning experience that we can generate through our WebJunction community building is really, especially fruitful in this Wikipedia training course, because as we engage with the Wikipedia community of individuals who are really committed to that resource, we will be reinforced by our own public librarian community to apply what we're learning together and reflect on our experience and really sort of work together so that we all have a really successful engagement with Wikipedia. So the details, when is it happening? It starts September 13th. It will run for 10 weeks and there will be six live online sessions and as we've said and you've seen links in the chat, registration opens today and it is free. We'll be clear about the times that are posted. We generally offer times -- >> It's actually 1:00 p.m. pacific time. >> Oh, we're -- >> Eastern, eastern. >> Thank you for clarifying that for me. Eastern time. So go to www.timezones.com and figure out your time zone. What do you need for the course? The key ingredient is you need lots of curiosity. What you don't need for the course is any prior experience with Wikipedia. If you've never edited Wikipedia, that's fine. That's great. We are going to really discover and learn together. You also don't need any money. The program is entirely free. That's assuming as long as you have a computer with an Internet connection and if you're working in an library, you'll have access to your library reference materials. We're estimating that your investment of time will be about three to five hours a week. So we encourage you to enroll now. There is an FAQ that's been compiled and we'll continue to add to it. It has answers to many of the questions, some of which have come up here today and encourage you to go do that. If you're ready to enroll now, go to that link and do it. And since I've been talking, I sort of lost track of questions that are flying by. So there are any questions that we can address in our final minutes here? >> I think maybe just reiterating the clarification that our goal is to enroll as many public library staff or volunteers in public libraries that are interested, knowing that if there are spaces, we will certainly take those enrollments from folks who are in academic libraries, school libraries, and elsewhere. So know that we will follow up with you if we have too many people, but for now, you can go ahead and enroll and we'll hopefully bring lots of folks into the course. >> Yeah, I think we don't want to discourage anyone at this point from enrolling. >> And to emphasize as well that after this live online learning process goes through the cycle, we will be bringing all those resources and essentially, opportunities for you to learn through a self-paced process about all of things that were covered so know that at the end of the year and at the beginning of next year, those resources will be available, as well. >> Great. And like Sam had asked about what Wikipedians can do and that's really a wonderful opportunity for our community of librarians taking this course to get to know the community of Wikipedians and really build a relationship because once you have a strong relationship, you can work through all kinds of potential barriers. >> Yeah, I'll be headed over to Wikimania, which is the Wikimedia annual global conference in a couple of weeks and they're beginning -- we've already begun to bridge back outreach to the Wikipedia community and working to build out kind of support scaffolding for the course and for after the course. We have as Betha mentioned, and I think we said before a wonderful advisory board as well as many, you know, allies in other Wikipedia related projects who have been really generous and interested in this project and will be on hand to lend a hand and will be working to develop a mentorship program during the course, so that people have the opportunity to talk and I just wanted to thank again those of you who have been here in chat today, Janos and Bob and others, Mary lee, who have answered questions in the chat and all of that really will be what we are aiming to dig deep into during the training program. >> And just a word about the WebJunction way again. For a course like this, we create an online community and in that community, you will always have access to the resources for the course, the curriculum, discussion forums, either access information for getting to the live sessions or once the live session has been conducted, you will then be able to get to an archived recording of it and the chat log so all of that gets kind of contained and preserved and added to in this online community and noting that there are activities that happen in between the live sessions, so it's not just all about the live sessions. It's really about meeting each other and working together and learning together in this entire online environment that we create for courses. >> And I know some of you are heading out. So I just want to mention, too, as you leave today we'll be sending you to a short survey that will collect your feedback on today's session and also have some questions about Wikipedia, your experience with Wikipedia, your perceptions. So it will be extra helpful for us for you to provide those resources. It will help us as we continue to dive into the curriculum so thank you for taking the time to do that and I'll also mention that I will send you an e-mail later today once the recording and all the other resources are posted to that event page and within a week I'll send you a certificate for attending today. >> So just to clarify one more time. Go ahead and enroll, regardless of who you are, if you're worried that you're not a part of that public library group, we will respond to you if the course fills up, but go ahead and feel free to enroll for those of you that are interested, regardless of your role or organization so thanks for that question. >> And thank you to the 41 people who have already enrolled! >> 41 enrollees already, fantastic! And please help us spread the word. I would say we really are relying on you to reach out into your library communities, knowing that you're connecting with folks throughout your region. We encourage you if perhaps you're a little timid about learning in this course alone, bring other colleagues along with you. Consider even maybe folks around the region, if you want to connect and do some additional learning together in that way, we will be providing some resources for folks who maybe are learning as a subset together, knowing that it's a way for you to bring some of those activities and projects to your library or to your system. So if you're perhaps a trainer, training coordinator, know that we will be providing some extra resources for you as you bring your staff together for this project. So if you have questions about that, as you can see at the bottom of the FAQ, mercy will answer questions related to that. And eager to hear about your plans for any sort of cohort learning. >> All right, well, I believe we are just about at the top of the hour. Again, know that any other questions that come to mind, please don't hesitate to ask. We will be adding many of the responses that we've pulled together, in addition to those that are already on the FAQ. And we look forward to staying in touch with all of you. We're so excited to be finally -- we've sort of been all gearing up for this day so we're so excited it's here and now we can look forward to September with all of you. So thank you all. Thank you, especially to Tiffany for bringing your great work to this webinar. Thank you so much to our Wikipedian-in-Residence, Monika, for all of your great work and Betha and the rest of the team here, as well. So thank you all and have an excellent day. >> See you in the course. >> Thank you. See you.