In this episode, we talk with Sherry Antoine (Executive Director of AfroCROWD), Laurie Bridges (Instruction and Outreach librarian at Oregon State University), and Diana Park (Science Librarian at Oregon State University) about their work to RIGHT history by writing Black history into Wikipedia.
Learn about what is happening in libraries and partner organizations to further representation of Black folx (and all Black, Indigenous, and People of Color). Wikipedia is one of the first results that comes up when we search the web, while still often disregarded for its ability to allow anyone to add information to the large system of knowledge. That ability, for ALL to contribute to this repository of information and history, provides a new way to fight for social justice and Black futures.
Date of interview: February 13, 2023
Hosts: Melissa Anderson and Brittany Young
Links mentioned in this episode:
Link to the EDI & ANTIRACISM TOOLKIT
In this episode, we talk with Sherry Antoine (Executive Director of AfroCROWD), Laurie Bridges (Instruction and Outreach librarian at Oregon State University), and Diana Park (Science Librarian at Oregon State University) about their work to RIGHT history by writing Black history into Wikipedia.
Learn about what is happening in libraries and partner organizations to further representation of Black folx (and all Black, Indigenous, and People of Color). Wikipedia is one of the first results that comes up when we search the web, while still often disregarded for its ability to allow anyone to add information to the large system of knowledge. That ability, for ALL to contribute to this repository of information and history, provides a new way to fight for social justice and Black futures.
Date of interview: February 13, 2023
Hosts: Melissa Anderson and Brittany Young
Links mentioned in this episode:
Link to the EDI & ANTIRACISM TOOLKIT
*Intro Music*
Melissa Anderson:
Welcome to OVERDUE: Weeding Out Oppression in Libraries, a podcast by the Oregon Library Association's Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, & Antiracism Committee and supported by a library, science and technology grant and the State Library of Oregon. I am Melissa Anderson. I use she/her/hers pronouns, and I'm the campus engagement & research services librarian at Southern Oregon University.
Brittany Young:
And I'm Brittany Young. I use she/her/hers pronouns, and I am the Lane County law librarian in Eugene, Oregon.
On this episode, we will have a conversation about writing better representation into Wikipedia, especially African American history, with Sherry Antoine, Laurie Bridges, and Diana Park.
Sherry Antoine uses she/her/hers pronouns, and she is a New York-based outreach strategist and speaker committed to addressing gender and diversity gaps. Sherry is on a mission to improve representation on Wikipedia for people of African descent. She is the executive director of AfroCROWD, an initiative to create and improve information about Black culture and history on Wikipedia, and the lead organizer of the Wikimedians of the Caribbean User Group. Motivated by a sense of community during the pandemic in 2020, Sherry planned a 24-hour virtual event in which Wikimedia volunteers around the world uploaded pictures and shared updates that represented their experience in the unique time.
Laurie Bridges's pronouns are she/her/hers, is an instruction and outreach librarian at Oregon State University. She started working with Wikipedia in the classroom in 2019. Since that time, she has co-hosted several edit-a-thons, worked with OSU professors to integrate Wikipedia assignments in their classrooms, co-edited an open-access book titled Wikipedia and Academic Libraries: A Global Project, and this spring, she'll be co-teaching, with Diana Park, her fourth course about Wikipedia and information equity in the OSU Honors College. Laurie received an MS from Oregon State University in College Student Services Administration with a minor in women's studies and her MLIS from the University of Washington.
Diana Park uses she/her/hers pronouns and is a science librarian at Oregon State University. She started at OSU in the fall of 2018 and immediately joined the team in planning OSU's first Wikipedia edit-a-thon. She is currently working on a project to research retention of Wikipedia editors among underrepresented groups. She received her MLIS from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
All right, now we're going to get into the first question.
Sherry Antoine:
By the way, I'd have you know, Sherry Antoine is also an MPA in International Management, thank you very much.
Brittany Young:
And don't forget, don't forget, you would like to be called Queen.
Sherry Antoine:
Queen.
Brittany Young:
We need to make sure that we have that in here.
All right, our first question, which is supposed to be a fun one, hopefully it is, is what is your favorite icebreaker or opener?
Sherry Antoine:
I like the one where you share if it was the end of the world, what would your last day be? What would you do for your last day?
Laurie Bridges:
The icebreaker I like to use is one I use with graduate students once a year, and it's the students who teach writing instruction at Oregon State, and I start up the class by having them journal for a few minutes about all the questions they've had in the last week and where they went to get answers to those questions, and then we do a pair-share, where they share with their neighbor, and you just learn so much about each other, and it's a very sweet activity.
Diana Park:
One I like using recently is to ask people about their recent obsessions, and this actually ties in really well with Wikipedia because when you first start getting obsessed with something, you'll Google it and webpage, usually the first article, one of the first things that pops up. But also, you just learn about people's weird things that they're into.
Brittany Young:
Thank you. And one of the weird things I'm into, and that goes with Sherry's favorite, is I would be preparing for the zombie apocalypse. Just I want you to know that.
Sherry Antoine:
That would be fun. Make sure we have enough toilet paper. This is something I learned recently. Toilet paper is important, apparently.
Melissa Anderson:
That's something we all took away from the pandemic.
All right, should I get into our first question?
Laurie Bridges:
Sure.
Melissa Anderson:
So this is for everybody. How did you get involved in Wikipedia work? Laurie, did you want to start?
Laurie Bridges:
Sure, I'll start. I got involved when my son was in third grade and he was assigned a project and they were only allowed to use Wikipedia in both Spanish and English. He was in a Spanish immersion school. And he came home talking about that assignment and he was very excited. So at that point, I started thinking more about what was I doing with Wikipedia in higher ed and in the library.
Melissa Anderson:
And Sherry, how about you?
Sherry Antoine:
Well, there is a long story and a short one. I'll give you the short version, and that is, I've always been involved in something using technology to empower others. The way I came upon AfroCROWD, which was founded by another Wikipedian by the name of Alice Backer, is that I was leading a group focused on women and girls in the African diaspora, young professionals in New York City, and we were focused on how to encourage each other, empower one another, and the different things that we were involved in that were along the lines of giving back to our communities as well as professional development. So we were on the same listserv, and I happened to be on the board of a group called Internet Society. Many people know about ISOC because they're the ones who kind of care for the .org. You know how there's .com and then .gov? They make sure they take care of .org.
So I wanted to do something that connected different issues in society, especially for women and girls of color, and technology, and this is how we intersected. And so when I saw Alice was looking for other women who are like-minded, we connected, and boy did we connect, because now it's been eight years later and I'm leading AfroCROWD. But the main thing was a passion for community and innovation and how those can intersect to literally, in this case, close some gaps that aren't being closed in other ways, but also just learning how technology can improve our everyday lives and how people, and in my case, it started with women, are using that to handle or address some issues.
Melissa Anderson:
I love that. Diana, how about you? How did you get involved with Wikipedia work?
Diana Park:
So I've always been interested in Wikipedia as a community and culture on the internet that is, as a previous anthropologist, it's like I'm always interested in different aspects of culture, especially in online communities. So when I came to OSU, Laurie immediate was like, "Hey, I'm working on this project, and it's going to be on a Wikipedia edit-a-thon." And I was like, "Sure, I'll get started on that." I had edited here and there a little bit, usually just like typos and things that bother me when I read Wikipedia articles, but I'd never really thought about what adding to Wikipedia would look like. So I've learned a lot these past four years, five years. Yeah, I am glad that I've gotten to contribute to something that I hope continues to grow.
Brittany Young:
That Laurie, getting people involved with things.
Thank you all. The next question is for Laurie and Diana. Can you tell us about the writing Black history of the Pacific Northwest into Wikipedia edit-a-thon?
Laurie Bridges:
I'll start. As I said, my son got me interested in Wikipedia, and because I had heard of other librarians doing edit-a-thons, it seemed like just the logical place to start, although I had never attended one. So I went to Facebook, honestly, and there's a Facebook group called, it's currently called Wikimedia and Libraries. And I went there and I said, "Okay, we want to do an edit-a-thon. I've heard of some that didn't go well. Can people please give advice? And we want to do an edit-a-thon on Black history in Oregon." And then there was some advice there, but the most useful advice was, "You need to reach out to Sherry of AfroCROWD, and Sherry will tell you what to do."
So that is really what happened and how it got going. Do you want to kind of talk a little bit more about the next steps, Diana?
Diana Park:
Sure. So I mean, like Laurie said, having Sherry on board was, I feel like, instrumental to it getting anywhere, because we would've probably struggled a lot more without her help. And I think every year, we've had the edit-a-thon, whether it's been in person or online. It's been really great because there's been different people that have attended each one. So the first couple times, it was in person, so we had a lot more local community members, and then the past two have been online, and so it was kind of people from all over the US. Did we have anyone international? I think there might have been someone from Canada maybe. So it's been kind of amazing to see how people are just so interested in this topic and wanting to make a change and close these gaps. I will say, for the in-person ones, and I guess one of the ones we had online, it's been really nice to partner with Oregon Black Pioneers as well, so learning about the history of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest in general, but having groups in the area also contribute their knowledge and expertise has been phenomenal.
Brittany Young:
Thank you. And clearly Sherry should be queen.
Sherry Antoine:
Oh. Oh, you. Oh, you. I have a scepter somewhere.
Melissa Anderson:
So our next question is for Sherry and Laurie. So what have you learned from your past edit-a-thons that were focused on Black history in Oregon? And what are some of the knowledge gaps in Wikipedia coverage?
Laurie Bridges:
I can get started since we're talking about the local and Sherry is really national and international.
So when we first did the edit-a-thon, I knew from looking for history, Black history myself that Wikipedia's coverage of the Oregon Black history was minimal, almost non-existent at best. I wanted to make sure that this knowledge was accessible to all. Because I had gotten a women's studies minor in grad school 20 years before. When we studied Black history in that program, we were actually reliant on a master's student's paper. So it was literally a paper was what we were using as the literature. So I was aware that Black history was underreported.
And so step one was begin identifying the stories that haven't been shared and then sharing those with folks and getting involved, as Diana said, with the Oregon Black Pioneers, looking in The Oregon Encyclopedia, which is also online, to see what was on there, and then also the amazing books that we have in the library. A lot of books have information locked away in them that had not been transported to online environments, so just pulling books from the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and seeing what was in those books and names that were mentioned. And so every year, we've been able to add more information, sometimes creating articles, sometimes adding references, but it's really grown exponentially since Black Lives Matter movement and George Floyd in that there's really been a national move toward teaching history and knowing that history. And so it's just been exciting to watch that growth on Wikipedia, but there's still a lot of work to be done.
Melissa Anderson:
I'm sure. And Sherry, did you want to speak to more of like the national picture, so not as Oregon-focused, but the gaps in the national picture or even international picture?
Sherry Antoine:
Well, let me start first by saying that, so AfroCROWD, to start, is an initiative that's focused on increasing the number of people of color who engage with Wiki platforms, Wikipedia, Wikimedia, and its sister projects. So as part of that engagement, we're not only looking at the information that's on the site, but we're also looking at how we get more people to know that there's a community behind those pixels. Something that we noticed right away when we started as a meetup... I've been with Alice and AfroCROWD since basically the beginning. I started with her like four months in, and I'll keep bringing up her name because we got to sing about our heroes, and she's one of mine.
One thing that I, and I think I mentioned it before, is I love how technology can empower people. And I feel like it's been so amazing. I'm in the age group that was able to just dive into technology during its wild, wild west phase, and it could be anything, and I think over time, it's being slowly forgotten that it's for everybody, you know? That you can participate in it, you can code, you can create content. But I think a lot of people, it's become sort of social media, the occasional Google Search, and so forth, and there's something really empowering about being able to add, too, information that you see that so many people use.
Something we noticed right away was, one, that a lot of the groups that came to the libraries, the schools and so forth that we worked in, just were starting to forget that this is something, this is a thing, you know? And one thing that I noticed when we got someone to edit their first article, put their first sentence in, we used to say, "Before you leave here today, we want you to leave having added a sentence to the lexicon of history," whatever, is that they're seeing it on the screen, their eyes would light up.
Of course, for a lot of people, let's say... I'm just going to say younger folks because that could be a lot of folks. But folks that grew up with it just being part of the tapestry of our lives, this isn't a big deal. But for folks who didn't grow up that way or folks who are on the other side of it, where it's like, "Okay, yes, internet. Yes, it's a thing," when you're a part of it and you close a gap of knowledge, like you see something and you can fix it, you're empowered to change something right away that's concrete. There's so many things that we see in the world we're like, "What are we going to do? Let's protest, or let's write to our congressman, or let's do this or that, or let's just be frustrated and move on to the next thing and maybe put something on Twitter." This is something you can actually do that's available to everybody right away anywhere in the world, and when they're done, they immediately see the result of what they did.
And it's a small feeling. It's no small feeling to make a difference. Even if it's a small one, there's a little bit of melatonin. Is that the little thing that happens when you do something and you're happy with yourself? That's a good feeling, and we wanted more of that, you know? But it's not just that. There are PhDs whose works will remain in the library somewhere and locked away for years and years. There are people who've written these theses, and capstones, and so forth, and the information, maybe it became something in a book somewhere, and all that information is great, but who's consuming that information?
So something I'm saying is that over time, we've seen that reopening this door for some and opening it for the first time for others who may be, because of the digital divide or for other reasons, there's a lot of barriers that we help bring down by helping people over that threshold into technology using Wiki, is that now, you're not only closing up a gap of knowledge, something maybe that you could have added more to that information, or the information was incomplete or wrong, and so forth, you're not only closing that gap, but you're also closing another gap, which is that social divide, that understanding divide, the different walls and barriers that we have concerning not just technology and information, but also an understanding of how we can participate with the technology that's consuming and affecting our lives.
So that one little bit of knowledge can extend to other areas. Over time, we expanded. Some people just kept coming to our meetings. We tried to have one once a month. We've basically done that for all of our existence. We've had some kind of event somewhere in the world associated with Wiki. But generally speaking is that we saw that people were growing in their knowledge of this and they just wanted to continue consuming that. Some of them even became what we call Wiki coaches, some of them have continued in their journey so much they started their own groups. We had an intern when we were doing our oral knowledge work a while ago that is now at Harvard, and we did work at Columbia as well. We've worked in immigrant groups, we've worked at a school in New York City that has the largest diversity of languages spoken in the country, doing something called transliaisons, where we close linguistic gaps.
And what we see is that through these different efforts, different places, what it expands is not only an interest in what we're doing, but how you can add to that, what more can you do in these different projects. So my long-winded self is going to close, I'm working on that, and say that we went from a meetup that met in the Brooklyn Library when we were born in 2015, this month in 2015, to connecting all over the country. We've since gone to different parts of Africa, all over the world, like you said, with that project we did during the pandemic that connected New Zealand to India, to Ghana, to California. And we've also recently had some awesome connections with another group that helped start called Wiki Caribbean. The activity was very low in the Caribbean, and now we've seen...
Well, over the weekend, we were at the United Nations for the Global Digital Compact, which is looking at ensuring that the internet is open and free to everyone and everyone can access it, but also what the digital future will be like and how we can make sure that everyone can be a part of it. This can't even begin to express how much this is a reflection of something that we really believe in. This technology can be a game-changer, it can be a life-changer, and it could be a life-destroyer. Let's not forget that.
So we want everyone who can, and I'm going to steal from the Wikimedia Foundation, be part of the creation of the sum of all human knowledge. And this process and the barriers that can, whether they're economical, whether they're just access barriers and so forth, we want to help bring those down, take away the intimidation factor that keeps people away and keeps people thinking it's not for them, it's for someone else who's smarter, someone like a Laurie or a Diana to participate in. It's open to everyone, and we want more people of color, we want more people of everything to participate and know that they've got potential friends and partners in us to help get them into the community. All of our events are open to everyone. As we've grown and we've connected with partners abroad and so forth, that has been something that we've loved to see and to know that there are many people who are allies and connectors who want to be a part of that growth and expansion with us, and we love learning about everyone as well.
So can you minimize that into like a sound bite?
Melissa Anderson:
That's amazing. The growth is just amazing, the way one thing leads to another.
Laurie Bridges:
I was thinking about while Sherry was talking, if you wanted to go and see what is covered about Black history in Oregon in Wikipedia, you could go to really any article. I'll just throw out Carrie Halsell. It's residence hall at Oregon State. It's named after Carrie Halsell. You could go to Wikipedia, and then down at the bottom, you may never have noticed, but there are categories down there, and you can click on African American History of Oregon in the categories, and we have been, I guess, curating the list that you see when you click on that link. And anyone can do that. Anyone can go into Wikipedia, and if you find an article that's about an Oregonian and it's not tagged, then you can add a tag to it, and that's a good way to bring everything together in one location so that everyone can look at it.
But it's a great way, too, for people who maybe are just thinking about, "Oh wait, I can edit Wikipedia?" You could go there, and if you see an article, for example, that I wrote, it's probably just a stub, it's probably not even that great, I'm not the greatest writer, but you might say, "I don't really like this article Laurie wrote. It needs more. It should be better. I need to edit this grammar." Go for it. That's what it's there for. Some people like to do different things within Wikipedia, and I like to create little stub articles just to get them there and then I hope people will go in and improve them.
Sherry Antoine:
I just want to mention, Oregon, Portland specifically, Oregon especially and the PNW especially, have become an amazing part of AfroCROWD. We have not only allies and folks like Diana and Laurie, but also, we've connected with other Wikipedians in the PNW, especially another one by the name of Pete Forsyth. He's another Oregonian I've had the chance to work with. We met at MIT when we were presenting about some of the things, the work that we've been doing. We ended up connecting for work focused on newspapers and documenting newspapers, especially those that were disappearing. We've lost a lot in the past few years. My area of focus, obviously, is going to be people of color, so Black-owned newspapers, and also, because of the Caribbean, looking at regional newspapers, too, for example, small island nations and other smaller countries and how the news that they report, how that's treated by the community and overlooked sometimes, for example, for larger, more-known papers. And of course, the central area that we looked at was the PNW and Washington, Oregon especially, and Black-owned newspapers, local newspapers as well in the area.
And another thing that I wanted to mention is that I recently got a chance to come out to Oregon, and the pandemic finally allowed... All this work that we did, by the way, on the papers was during the pandemic. But the great part is that now the pandemic's over, we got a chance to reconnect with folks that we haven't seen in person, if at all, over time. And when I came to Oregon, I got the chance to speak to folks at OSU, and in Portland, I got a chance to connect with local folks. You know, I just was able to talk to some folks in the community, especially traditionally Black communities, that told me a little bit about the history of their street or their neighborhood. Some have disappeared, some are having a hard time keeping some of their historical areas together.
Well, you guys are going to hear it first. I got a chance to interview some folks, too. You can tell already I'm pretty gregarious just talking to people at all, and I got a chance to talk to some folks about that as well as a little bit more about their experience living in Oregon, and in Portland especially, and got a chance to visit some places. We went to, there are some festivals, some interesting folks that you can learn so much about by just going to festivals in the area focused on the community. So soon, we're going to share that with everyone once those are ready, and I hope that you guys will be able to get to know these awesome people that I met a little more, and maybe in the future, you never know, we could do something together.
But one thing that is interesting to me and one thing that I think more people should know is a local history of places that we can overlook sometimes because I think we are seeing more of a national view of things now, especially in the news and other places. But there's so many interesting things to learn about your local street, far less your local neighborhood and community. So I think not just for the PNW, but in general, something like a Wikipedia and WikiProject. There's also other projects that integrate mapping, open-source mapping and other things. I think there's so much that you can enjoy using a reason, like collecting information for Wiki, that allow you to know more about where you are. So I'm looking forward to doing more of that and learning as much as I can as well.
Brittany Young:
Thank you. I'm looking forward to hearing those interviews. That sounds amazing. Most of the Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, & Antiracism Committee will probably be listening to this, but even so, I'm going to have to share that with them because I think we will all be very interested in hearing those.
And Sherry, you don't get to quite yet quit talking because this next question's for you, too. So the average Wikipedia editor is a young white man, and women make up less than 20% of editors. Do you ever encounter problems doing this work from Wikipedians who may not share these goals, the same goals that you have with Wikipedia?
Sherry Antoine:
Well, I think what I want to say is that the Wiki community is a very large global community, and so whatever happens in large global communities will happen in Wikipedia. And what you're going to do is you're going to find, okay, there's some pockets that are not as excited, and there's some pockets that there are, and we focus on the pockets that are. We find folks who really would like to partner with us. We want to find allies and partners wherever we go because we know that when we're able to connect with others, when we're able to connect with groups that are not only looking for an opportunity to partner and collaborate, but have skills that they can share with the larger community, especially those who are new... Most of the folks that we work with are fairly new Wikipedians. Some people we've worked with are just learning how to use computers. We work with folks from 16 all the way up to 106 if someone would show up.
So what we love is when folks are able to bring that to what we're trying to do, because if we are able to partner with people who want to see us grow, connect, and so forth, we're able to do so much. We've worked with folks from many different communities, for example, the Dalit Indian community. I always like telling this story because the Dalit Indian community, they're formerly known as the Untouchables, right? And they face discrimination fairly similar and on par to what a lot of folks in the Black community have dealt with. And so we have overlapping interests, right? Number one, it's good for us to understand each other's experiences. And so when we were approached by folks from the Dalit community to do something together, it opened our eyes to our stories, it opened our eyes to where we are coming from as communities and some of the similar things that we historically have dealt with in this world.
This month for Black History Month, we're focusing on Black futures. That is our theme for the month of February. We're calling it Black Futures Month, which is also Black History Month, because your future is your history as well, or something really cool that I could have said there. For Black Futures Month, we're focusing on what could be. We're focusing on the folks that are making a difference now and today and improving the future of the Black community and people of African descent, people of color in general. And we want to highlight that and efforts that are being made, whether it's society and social development or even in music and culture, that are making future brighter and also more inclusive and helping to solve some of the problems and issues that we've been dealing with. So that's how I'm going to answer that, because I want to focus on what's working, what's helping, what's growing, and what is making the future better, and there's a lot of that. So I'm trying to keep the spotlight on those things. But yes, every community has its issues and ups and downs.
Brittany Young:
Thank you for that answer and for making it inspiring.
Melissa Anderson:
Our next question is for Diana. So Diana, I'm sure you've heard instructors tell students that they shouldn't use Wikipedia. How do you challenge that and how do you incorporate this work that you've been doing with the edit-a-thons into the classroom?
Diana Park:
Yeah, so this is something we hear a lot from students, from other faculty, from librarians even. I think this bias comes from when Wikipedia first started and the kind of anyone-can-edit ethos, and for a lot of people, if anyone can edit, it means like, "Well, then maybe that information that is there is not accurate, so why should we be using this in a classroom setting?" And I think over the years, as more and more people have edited Wikipedia, as more and more people have held editors accountable in what they've written and kind of overseen what is out there, I think this perception of Wikipedia being inaccurate or full of false information is been proven in a lot of different ways is false.
So when it comes to students who come in with this perception, I then ask, "Oh, but have you used Wikipedia at all? Maybe not in an academic setting," and they always say yes. And then I lead with my examples of how I use Wikipedia, and it's basically, every day I use it. Maybe it's not always for doing a research project. Maybe I just want to look up some celebrities' controversial information, like I did yesterday. But they have a great way to break up the controversies, so I always like looking there first for celebrity gossip. But anyways.
So with students, this bias doesn't come out of nowhere. It's from who they perceive to be experts. So I try to push back with the students by helping them think critically about how that information is there, how they can add to it, and how not just Wikipedia, but other sources of information needs to be looked at critically with a critical lens, and so to apply that in every situation. But also, with faculty or other teachers or instructors, whenever I hear that, that's where I try to push back because that's where that bias is being handed down to the students.
So by pushing back in with the students but also the teachers, I'm hoping that in the future, we hear less of that in that, "Oh, Wikipedia shouldn't be used in the classroom," or isn't accurate, or whatever it is, and that bias changes, and that we can continue to make it grow and that we close some of the content gaps that we have, and it's always really inspiring to hear of other teachers using it in the classroom and encouraging their students to learn more about it, add to the information, and be a creator and someone who contributes their knowledge to a resource that is used by millions of people. So for a lot of times it's, Sherry kind of mentioned the immediacy of that work being available, and I think that's important in the classroom as well so that you can see the impact that you're having, and whether that's good or bad, that you can see it happening in real time and it's not just something that's being stored away in the ivory tower.
Melissa Anderson:
Absolutely. I mean, we're always saying that scholarship is a conversation, right? And you're showing that dialogue actually happening in real time. That's really cool.
Diana Park:
Yeah. I think that's something. You know, we always talk about peer review, I'm a science librarian, and the peer review process is something I go over, I feel like, in almost every class that I teach, and with the peer review that's happening in Wikipedia, it's slightly different, but it's still the same concept of your knowledge that you have contributed is being checked by peers in the Wikipedia community. And sometimes, when you're doing that work in the classroom, you don't really understand how much impact you can have with reviewing someone else's work, but when you're on Wikipedia, it's immediate and you can provide that and have that dialogue in that space relatively quickly, so I think it's always a really great lesson for students to see.
Melissa Anderson:
Thank you.
Sherry Antoine:
I also just want to mention, too, that visual information is important as well, visual representation. So that's also something that more and more are getting even more committed to because it really makes quite a difference when you're able to get a 360 understanding of the data that you see on your screen. One example is just adding a photograph of someone who, perhaps... In one case, we had someone who came to our women's history edit-a-thon in New York, and she had met Shirley Chisholm, who is a personal hero of mine. She met Shirley Chisholm when she was a child, and they had a picture, and she had a picture of her in her wallet. And through that event, I guess we were talking about adding information like this, she added it because of that, and she participated that day in a way that was a lot more personal because we were able to talk about how your lived experience is history. You may have right now on your phone or in your album something that could really change someone's understanding of history, because you were a part of it.
So that's another reason why it's so great to have many different kinds of people involved in the telling of the story of our lives, of the world, of human history, because you get an even better, more crystal clear view of what it really was like or what that information really means. You were just talking about science and how, for me, when I was growing up, I was interested in biology. It was one of my favorite subjects. And being able to see the photos, the pictures of what the human anatomy looks like, and then go layer by layer into it and see what everything is is sort of a good representation in my mind of that because you see the surface layer of something. Okay, so you have a surface understanding.
But if you're able to go deeper, whether it's deeper than the data, deeper into the history of a person... I was very much looking up Rihanna's history this weekend, my queen, and you're able to go deeper into the background of the person. This month, we were bringing back Wiki Trivia, which is something that we've done before to get people engaged with the knowledge of Black history, not just the understanding of what that person did when they were famous. We want more people to connect with what they did when they were children, what they did before they were famous, and one of the few places that you can go to find that history right away when you go online is through Wikipedia. And you get to know, "Oh wow, they went to the same school I did," or, "They had dyslexia just like I do," or other things, you know? So the deeper you can go...
And by the way, I hope you guys participate in Africa Wiki Trivia this month because we're trying to post something every week, a Wiki challenge every week. We're highlighting historically Black colleges and universities all year from here to homecoming in October. So we hope you guys can learn more about HBCUs that way and the people and the contributions, not just of folks from HBCUs, but in general that we are talking about all month. But the deeper you go, if you have an image of it, if you can hear what the person sounded like, if you can hear what the march sounded like or what the machine sounds like that they created, or you can go to the street in Oregon through photographs, learn more about what used to be there, photos from the community, from history, all these things deepen your understanding, gets you more excited, gets you more interested in the world around you.
Yeah, so I just wanted to mention how these different forms of media, whether it's photography or general data, like you would put in Wikidata, or indeed more of the linkages and then the stories that you pick up really add to what we know about the world, and I hope that helps to illustrate that. So that's something that she made me think of when you were talking about scientific discovery.
Brittany Young:
All right. Our next question is going to be for Diana and Laurie. I'll have Laurie go first. But that question is, how can librarians add to Black history and/or knowledge in Wikipedia?
Laurie Bridges:
So there are many ways that librarians can contribute to Wikimedia projects. I just want to say that Wikimedia is truly the world's biggest repository of online information. It's also the world's biggest open-knowledge, open-access project, so this really should connect with librarians on a very basic level. If we want information to be public, there's nowhere better to put it than on Wikipedia. And if you put something on Wikipedia, let's say you create a new article, there is an algorithm right now that makes it maybe a month until it appears in the info box on the right-hand side, which you're used to seeing now whenever you go to Google, the right-hand side is the Wikipedia information. So it's there, it becomes the top search result almost always.
And so just putting our information that we have locked away in books and other information sources helps folks to find that information. So just on a basic level of creating, maintaining, and updating information related to Black history in the Pacific Northwest is incredibly useful, timely, and it helps uncover the history, especially in these times where history is being censored in many places throughout the country. Well, you just cannot censor Wikipedia. So you can put the information on there and there's... The only way Wikipedia can be censored is if a country blocks the entire site. So that actually happened this week in Turkey. Or was it Iran? Oh my gosh. I'll have to look it up. But it was done this week, and then within three or four days, it was undone because the country realized there was too much backlash to blocking the entire site.
So putting information out there for others, it's also available in over 300 languages. So when you put something out there, other countries may come or other people may come along and translate it into different languages. So I have done some articles on Black history in Oregon or the Pacific Northwest that have been translated into French, which I find interesting, like, "Why did someone decide to translate this article into French?"
In addition to the smaller things, I do want to say that a way that I've been really thinking a lot, and this is the first time I'll make this public announcement, I am thinking a lot about books as many librarians in the US are thinking right now. And to that end, if you go to Wikipedia and you Google books, especially controversial books, sometimes they're good, but usually they're not well-covered in Wikipedia. So the information about books, not just the plot, but also any controversies, awards, those pieces need to be updated in Wikipedia. So if you go and Google any of the top-10 banned books as an example, you'll see that, and you know how to look at the page views, which you can see for any Wikipedia article, you can see the page views, they're hit thousands upon thousands of times every month. So this is a great way to help support authors and books and make sure that information out there is up-to-date and accurate.
And so with that in mind, I have, in the past month, teamed up with some other folks in other countries. There's two people in Botswana, two in Brazil, two in Mexico, one in Spain, one in Canada, I think that's it, and we are going to be unveiling a idea for a new campaign within Wikipedia, and a campaign is like an event that runs for a longer period, and the campaign is going to be called Every Book Its Reader, as you know by Ranganathan's third law of library science, and it's going to be focused on librarians, publishers, authors, everyone around the world who's engaged with Wikipedia to improving information about books in Wikipedia.
And so as a library, we are discussing having an edit-a-thon in April here at The Valley Library focused on adding and improving information related to books by POC authors, and so that would be in person, and of course, folks in the area are invited to join, and if any librarians want to see what an edit-a-thon is like in a library. I don't know of any that have been hosted in libraries in Oregon. I think UO may have had one maybe quite a while ago, like a decade ago. But edit-a-thons, if you ever thought about doing an edit-a-thon, we went and did ours without ever having attended one, so I would suggest attending one first and knowing that other librarians, and Sherry, and all these other folks in the world are ready to help you engage with Wikipedia.
Melissa Anderson:
That's some great advice, and I love the idea of librarians contributing to the information about books in Wikipedia. I mean, I think that's such a natural fit.
Sherry Antoine:
If I can add to that, we actually connected with... When Laurie and I got to know each other and we were working on that first edit-a-thon together, we learned that we had a connection with Nigerians in Nigerian librarians. So I connected with Wikipedians in Nigeria at Wikimedians of Nigeria user group. So long story short is that there are chapters of Wikipedians all over the world, including many that are now growing throughout the continent of Africa. One of them is Nigerian Wikimedians group. We recently did one with Wikimedians of Benin, for example. We also have had events with South African Wikipedians as well as, like I mentioned before, Wikimedians of the Caribbean. And there are many, few other ones have popped up. We've actually traveled to Ghana and done events with Open Foundation West Africa, for example. So if there are any others who want to connect, obviously, we'd love for you to connect with AfroCROWD, and then we'd love you to also meet some of our friends in the movement.
Can I make a plug? We have an event coming up. This month, we're working on a few ways for you to participate with the community. You can go to join us by clicking bit.ly/joinAfroCROWD to learn more of our events. On the 23rd and the 28th of February, we're connecting with students in Albany and an ethnomusicologist professor there who will be focusing on hip hop. Hip hop has turned 50 years old this year. Well, in August, it'll be 50 years old, and the reason we know that it has a specific birthday is that many track it to the Bronx and a party held by Kool Herc, DJ Kool Herc in the Bronx. And no matter where you come from or how you feel about music, it's certainly going to be very interesting to connect with others who will be working on this topic. And we're going to have an in-person event on the 23rd, but you can join us on the 28th from 1:00 to 3:00 PM Eastern Time by clicking bit.ly/AfroCROWDHipHopWikiUA. So I'll just say it again, bit.ly/AfroCROWDHipHopWiki, the letter U and the letter A for University of Albany, and that's open to whoever would like to join.
The entire month, if you're a fan of trivia, we're going to be, like I mentioned before, holding a Wiki Trivia challenge every week. Basically, we're going to find some folks you think you knew and find some more obscure information about them from their Wiki article and share and see if you can figure out the answer to the challenge that we're going to post for each. But we're also going to mix it up with general Wiki Trivia about some lesser-known folks. That'll be every week throughout Black History Month, and we're going to probably extend it into Women's History month as well, so you can stick around for that.
And finally, the theme this month with AfroCROWD is Black Futures, which includes Afrofuture for many. Afrofuturism is an interesting area. So we want to highlight some folks who are involved, whether in the arts, in writing, in other areas, in Afrofuturism as well as generally Black futures. And of course, I mentioned before we want everyone to learn more about historically Black colleges and universities. We're going to be highlighting the community culture and contributions of HBCUs, starting now, when we kicked off in February, all the way into the fall, when everybody starts hearing about the cool homecoming bands and activities. We're going to be trying to highlight all of that in the next few months.
So as you see, we like to keep busy, and there's always something to do. So if you don't see a way for you to plug into in one of those, still connect with us by going to afrocrowd.org/contact, and we'll help you find a group of one of our friends that you can connect to. Let us be your welcoming committee.
Brittany Young:
Thank you, Sherry. That was perfect because that was actually a question that we were going to make sure to ask you at the end. So that was perfect.
Diana, I did want to make sure to let you also answer about how librarians can add to the Black history and knowledge in Wikipedia.
Diana Park:
Yeah. I mean, we've mentioned a lot of different ways that we've used, whether that's making use of our own collections, like the physical collections we have, or access to different newspapers and things like that, and I think that's important because whether it's information that is only available online or physically in our libraries, most people can't access that information, and I feel like that's very gatekeeping in a lot of different ways. But by holding edit-a-thons and opening it to community members, I think that's one way we can let others have access to that information but also share out with the larger community that is online. So anyone who is interested in a topic in Wikipedia but, say, a lot of that information was kept in books that haven't been scanned in Google Books or isn't available in a digital format, by sharing that in an edit-a-thon, you can allow others who wouldn't have had access to that information access it in an open-source environment, which is Wikipedia.
So I think one of my students called librarians Fairy Godmothers of Information, and I really like that description because I think it shows how we can open up the information that has traditionally been kept in buildings or behind paywalls and have it available to people who traditionally wouldn't have access to that. So I encourage to those listening that if you are able to host an edit-a-thon or encourage others to use the information that is in your libraries. Laurie and I are always willing to help, Sherry as well. But if you want someone local, we are always willing to help you get started and just give you that initial boost so that more people can have access to the things that we have access to.
Sherry Antoine:
I'm glad that access was mentioned because that's another area that I think the Wiki community is really well positioned to really answer, is the need for folks to continue to close a digital divide. I think we've learned, especially with the recent pandemic, how much technology was needed during that time. We see that there's a lot of gaps in access and a lot of gaps in the knowledge of how to use technology. A lot of kids came home to their parents who really didn't know how to help them in a technical standpoint, using technology for more than, for example, Facebook or social media, so I just want to reiterate it.
If you feel that you want to participate in the community in some way and you're not sure how, just show up, because a lot of times, you have something to offer, whether it's just understanding how to even use a computer in some cases, to just having an interest in learning, in participating, in helping others to learn. We could use some hands. So whether it's through Laurie, or Diane, or whether you want to contact us at AfroCROWD, we'd love to hear from you if you feel that there's something, some way that you'd like to participate or collaborate.
Melissa Anderson:
Thank you, Sherry. We'd love to end with a call to action, so that's wonderful.
All right, so this question would be for Sherry, and are there other nonprofits associated with improving Wikipedia and that support improving and increasing information that's related to African American and BIPOC history, or other people that we should know about?
Sherry Antoine:
Well, I want to give a shout-out to other members of the Wiki community. There's quite a coalition of us that often do things together. One thing I also want to give a shout-out to are some of the partners we've been able to work with. We've worked with a lot of libraries. For example, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, it's been a long-time partner. We've also worked with groups like Whose Knowledge?, who focus on marginalized communities. We've got partners at Women in Red, for example, who have focused on ensuring that more of us women are not left out of history and of the story of knowledge. I think when I started out, it was somewhere in the lower teens for involvement on Wiki. Now, it's come up close to 20%. So these things do make a difference. People coming together in this way does make a difference.
I'm going to give a shout-out to the Black Lunch Table, who we worked with as well. They focus on artists, Black artists. And I also want to give a shout-out to all of the chapters. I believe there's a Cascadian chapter that is in the area. If you want to get connected to Wikipedians in Oregon, I'd say they're a great community to connect with. But there are also online communities. So if you want to find your plug, if you want to find the place where you fit in and you belong, we know a lot of people. We've certainly worked with a lot of folks, and we can help you get to that destination, and hopefully, you'll also spend some time with us.
Oh, and we are trying to grow at least a thousand new editors this year, or at least who are a part of our campaign. We have an ongoing campaign. So if you'd like to join up with us and you're an editor and you just want to edit with purpose, we're trying to get to that 1,000 mark this year and, over the next few years, grow it even more. If you'd like to do that, we're trying to certainly get more people connected. So again, it's bit.ly/joinAfroCROWD, or you can just go to afrocrowd.org and click on our about section.
Melissa Anderson:
Thank you.
Brittany Young:
Thank you so much, Sherry, Laurie, and Diana, for doing this podcast with us and providing just a wealth of information, how to use Wikipedia. I know there were some things that I had been told before and forgot that you all reminded me of, like being able to check the views in Wikipedia, and thank you for being inspiring.
Melissa Anderson:
Absolutely. The work you're doing is so inspiring to all of us who are trying to get information out there and into people's hands, brains, eyeballs, and all the rest of it, so it's so wonderful to see the way that you're really making information accessible to everyone.
Diana Park:
Thank you for having us.
Sherry Antoine:
Yeah, thank you very much, queens. Thank you, Brittany. Thank you, Melissa.
Brittany Young:
We're just aspiring queens. You are the queen.
Sherry Antoine:
We are all queens.
Brittany Young:
I love it. Thank you.
We would like to ask you to reflect and act on the information gained from this podcast episode. What are your takeaways or a takeaway from this interview? For me, my takeaway was when Sherry mentioned that a lot of people get involved and become part of change through things like protests and writing to Congress. But you can do this anywhere from your computer, in your pajamas through Wikipedia, and you can see the results immediately online.
What about you, Melissa?
Melissa Anderson:
Probably for me, the takeaway, it was really that one of the core values of librarianship is access, and what these projects with Wikipedia are doing is really all about access, giving people access to information that hasn't been available in this way before, and it's also about participation, making space for anyone who wants to participate to do so. For me, it's exciting to think about the ways these projects can just keep on growing basically forever, uncovering new information, discovering new contributors, and just expanding access for everyone.
Brittany Young:
I love that, especially as a librarian.
We challenge listeners to join one of the Wikipedia events mentioned, or start editing and adding to BIPOC history and knowledge in
Wikipedia. We'll have links to some of the events mentioned in the podcast description. You could also sign up for a campaign with AfroCROWD to help them get the 1,000 more editors. Thank you.
Voiceover:
This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services through the Library Services and Technology Act, administered by the State Library of Oregon.
Este proyecto ha sido posible en parte por el Instituto de Servicios de Museos y Bibliotecas a través de la Ley de Servicios de Biblioteca y Tecnológia (LSTA), administrada por la Biblioteca Estado de Oregón.
Voiceover:
We would like to take time to acknowledge historical injustices. We recognize Oregon was established as a white sanctuary state with the intent to exclude African American and Black people on ancestral lands stolen from dispossessed indigenous peoples. We recognize and honor the members of federally recognized tribes and unrecognized tribes of Oregon. We honor Native American ancestors, past, present, and future, whose land we still occupy. This acknowledgement aims to deconstruct false histories, correct the historical record, and disrupt genocidal practices by refocusing attention to the original people of the land we inhabit, the slave trade and forced labor that built this country, and to the oppressive social systems interwoven into the fabric of our national and regional heritage. We ask that you take a moment to acknowledge and reflect as well.
*Outro Music*