Wikimedia and Libraries User Group/Meeting minutes/2020/February/19

February, 19 2020

Attending: Mylee, Merrilee, Orly, Clifford, Aaron, Ayokanmi, Felix

Apologies: Simon, Rajene, Houcemeddine

Not attending:

Discussion

Wikimedia Summit 2020

Wikimedia Summit will be held in Berlin from April 3 to 5, 2020 https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Summit_2020 The focus of discussions will be the Wikimedia Movement Strategy https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2018-20/Recommendations Cheat sheet See also the Principles. Clifford is attending as the WLUG representative.

WLUG priorities discussed are summarised as follows (via Clifford):

The Steering Committee of the Wikimedia and Libraries User Group discussed the recommendations of the Wikimedia 2030 vision. As members of the steering committee of the Wikimedia and Libraries User Group, we regularly serve as ambassadors between the Wikimedia movement and (public, academic, special, and school) libraries around the world. We would like to underscore the importance of supporting the relationship between Wikimedians and librarians (who are frequently one and the same) and appreciate the attention given in the "Promote Sustainability and Resilience" recommendation to "[reaching] the highest potential for our partnerships with institutions, galleries, libraries, archives, and museums, among others." We suggest cultivating these partnerships as a way toward sustainability, looking to the growing number of Wikimedians-in-Residence at GLAM institutions. We also appreciate the emphasis in the "Improve User Experience" recommendation on creating environments to make it easier for newcomers to learn to edit Wikipedia. The Visual Editor, though not universally admired, has proved more friendly and accommodating to newcomers than teaching wiki text or markup in our experience. We look forward to the development of additional tools to increase accessibility during the implementation of the strategy. We note with concern, however, the intention to achieve financial sustainability, in part, by monetizing the application programming interfaces (API) of Wikipedia and Wikidata. While we recognize that large internet companies who rely on the editorial labor of Wikimedia volunteers should also support its software infrastructure, we are concerned that these APIs and bulk data services not be marketed to libraries or other nonprofit information providers as a "tiered 'premium' service." Finally, we hope that the movement strategy will be communicated in a clear and timely way to affiliates. In a quickly changing environment, it is not always easy for volunteers to keep up with who has responsibility for coordinating global campaigns. Finding the right balance between local initiative and centralized coordination will undoubtedly remain an ongoing task during the implementation phase of this strategic vision. Responsibility: Clifford

WLUG programmatic support and funding

A discussion document was circulated to gather thoughts on WLUG programmatic support and funding structure. Responsibility: Felix

Next meeting

18 March 2020