Sloane Art Library wants your help in its Wikipedia editing workshops

If you have ever wanted to edit a Wikipedia page, Sloane Art Library is ready to teach you how.

The library is hosting its monthly Wiki Arts Edit event on Friday at 2 p.m. The event will take place at the library, which is located in room 102 of Hanes Art Center. 

Emily Jack, community engagement and outreach librarian at UNC Libraries, said the library is well-equipped to answer questions about art and teach even first-time users how to edit Wikipedia pages.

“There is no expertise required, either in knowing anything about art or knowing anything about or having experience editing Wikipedia,” Jack said.

Alice Whiteside, head of Sloane Art Library, said the monthly editing events are a more low-key affair than the library’s annual “Art and Feminism” Wiki edit-a-thons.

“It is a drop-in, collaborative Wikipedia editing time, so it's pretty informal,” she said. “Basically, we're set up here in the art library at a table, and they have some resources on hand. People can come at any time, stay as long as they want and learn about editing Wikipedia.”

Whiteside said the response to the library’s annual “Art and Feminism” edit-a-thons inspired her to create a monthly spin-off of the event.

“Many people asked if there were going to be others, and for a while, the answer was, ‘We'll do it again next year,’" she said. “So, we thought we'd try this out, the Wiki Monthly Art Edit, to provide a more regular time to get together and edit.”

Elin O’Hara Slavick, a professor in the department of art and art history, said she is skeptical of Wikipedia but is excited about the event because of the library’s staff.

“I give my wholehearted endorsement of it because this is going to be people who appreciate the arts,” Slavick said. “The librarians there are brilliant, and they know a lot about art and the history of art. The people who would be involved in that are people who are committed to making it as good as it can be. I know they make an effort to include and cover people who haven't been covered, like women and people of color. I think that's really important."

Whiteside said much of the event will be focused on continuing to update information on women and artists of color because they have historically been underrepresented on Wikipedia.

“Recently, there has been more scholarship around women painters in the Renaissance who have been overlooked for many years, but actually were successful and prolific at that time,” she said. “I think it's really important for us to know about these women who were influential and successful.”

Both Whiteside and Jack said the missions of Wikipedia and UNC Libraries are similar: to provide information to the masses.

“We find that there is a strong alignment of missions between the work of libraries and the work of Wikipedia,” Jack said. “Both are committed to a world where information is free and freely accessible to everyone. So, working on Wikipedia and other Wiki projects is a way to extend the work we do every day in the library to have an impact on a much bigger population that, on Wikipedia, includes the entire English-speaking world.”

Jack also said the event is also about empowering people to share information.

“Editing Wikipedia, especially for the first time, can be scary,” she said. “You're putting something out there that the whole world potentially could see. But when you do that in the library, surrounded by other people who have edited before or are interested in editing and surrounded by librarians who can guide you, it can be far less daunting and more fun.”

@domferrara5

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