15 January 2019 marks the eighteenth birthday of Wikipedia—and the fourth year of #1Lib1Ref, an annual campaign that asks everyone to jump in and improve Wikipedia by adding at least one citation. In doing so, they help improve the reliability and authenticity of the site for billions of readers.
Though literally meaning “One Librarian, One Reference”, #1Lib1Ref has grown to include archivists, professors, researchers, and Wikimedia volunteer editors interested in an entertaining way to effect change on Wikipedia.
You can participate in the campaign through five easy steps:
- Find an article that needs a citation, using Citation Hunt
- Find a reliable source that can support that article
- Add a citation using referencing tools
- Add the project hashtag #1Lib1Ref in the Wikipedia edit summary
- Share your edit(s) on social media and invite others to participate!
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/1Lib1Ref_MySimpleShow_Explainer_Video.webm
Video by Felix Nartey/Jessamyn West/Wikimedia Foundation, CC BY-SA 4.0. The video may not play on certain internet browsers. If you are having trouble, please watch it directly on Wikimedia Commons.
Need more help? The new resources page has materials that can aid anybody who wishes to participate irrespective of their experience level on editing Wikipedia.
Event organizers and community leaders can register their #1Lib1Ref events and activities on an outreach dashboard that allows for easy metrics and activity tracking, and we invite all participants or organizers to share stories of their achievements and pain points through a new feedback form. Participants can also sign up to a community event or program near them.
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#1Lib1Ref has been a key catalyst for improving Wikipedia’s references and improving trust in the encyclopedia within the librarian and similar professional circles around our movement.
We’re very excited to see where this year’s competition brings us. #1Lib1Ref has proven to be a key catalyst in directly improving references on Wikipedia and has raised the level of trust librarians and other similar professional circles have in the encyclopedia. Wikipedia is an invaluable part of every researcher’s process, and more credible and reliable references help bring us closer to our dream of creating “the sum of all human knowledge.”
Felix Nartey, Global Coordinator, The Wikipedia Library
Wikimedia Foundation