CEE/Newsletter/January 2018/Contents/Poland report

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Poland report: Getting Wikimedians together and inviting librarians to Wikipedia

By Natalia Szafran-Kozakowska

Winter Retreat 2018

Every winter Polish Wikimedians meet on a Winter Retreat. It's a meeting aimed to create a space for our community for sharing ideas, learning, and discussing future projects. This year it took place January 12-14th in Rochna, a small village near Łódź. It was attended by 53 Wikimedians who could enjoy a 3 day program of discussion panels, lectures and workshops in two simultaneus tracks.

We worked on various topics - from education projects to the good and bad practices in photography, from editing contests to Wikimedia under political pressure. We learned how to do 3D editing and audio recordings for Wikimedia Commons. We also held a Wikimedia strategy sessions to discuss how our community would like to see Wikimedia Polska work in the context of Wikimedia Strategic Direction. A significant part of the program was dedicated to Wikidata - we had an introductory session for beginners, a SPARQL workshop and a discussion about Wikidata and Wiktionary (held by Leszek Manicki from Wikimedia Deutschland).

And the speakers whose sessions were the most interesting and well prepared received a special prize - a Wikipedia Cup. Awarded speakers were chosen by a jury of experienced Wikimedia volunteers.

But Winter Retreat was never just about the program. It was also meant to bring the community togehter by various social activities. So this year we had fun with ice-breaking games, a Wikipedia themed Monopoly game variation and a bonfire.

1Lib1Ref in Poland

Imagine a world where every librarian added one reference to Wikipedia? Sounds great! So this year we organised some 1Lib1Ref related events in Poland. In cooperation with the Society of Librarians of Poland we held a 1Lib1Ref edit-a-thon on January 24th. Also throughout January a group of students of the Faculty of Journalism, Information and Book Studies at University of Warsaw worked with their teacher to add citations to Wikipedia. In total 1Lib1Ref in Poland brought references to more than 50 articles. And (hopefuly!) some more engaged librarians to Wikipedia.