Grants:Project/Rapid/WikiGlam Awareness for Librarians in Lagos State/Report

Report accepted

This report for a Rapid Grant approved in FY 2021-22 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:Project/Rapid/WikiGlam Awareness for Librarians in Lagos State.
You may still comment on this report on its discussion page, or visit the discussion page to read the discussion about this report.
You are welcome to Email rapidgrants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.

Goals

Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went?

Yes, we did and we are happy that the project was a success. We hosted 4 physical training and Six online training sessions. We had new editors and existing editors. The librarians were so eager to learn and explore the various Wikimedia products to promote open access to information for quality service delivery. The Librarians asked relevant questions about Wiki-Glam initiatives, reliability of Wikipedia sources, creating articles, and editing wiki pages. The facilitators were very helpful in providing them with the answers to their questions and guiding them through the editing process as they followed up with new editors between sessions and helped monitor the articles they worked on. It took longer than we expected for new editors to learn the basic skills to create new articles, so we focused our efforts on helping them add reliable sources, and hyperlinks to existing articles. More so, the new editors created Wikidata items and improved existing ones.

In addition, the project's success has made other librarians from other states ask if we could come to their states to train them. Librarians from secondary schools who were at the training requested for their teachers to be trained on how to use Wikipedia. Today, Hopeful School is requesting training for their teachers. They have been discussing with one of the trainers, a certified Wikipedia trainer in classroom. The chairperson of the Nigerian Library Association, Lagos state chapter, Dr Taiwo Bosede Ajayi is asking for more training for other members of the association. Today, we have a WhatsApp group of over 100 people who are Librarians from Lagos state that we still mentor. Many were at the Wikimania, and we have been putting them through other projects they can do to contribute to the community. The mentoring has not stopped. Many participants now see contributing to Wikipedia as a second way of life. Their enthusiasm and continuous zeal to contribute to Wikipedia is a fantastic outcome for me as the Project lead.

Outcome

Please report on your original project targets. Please be sure to review and provide metrics required for Rapid Grants.

Target outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanation
Number of events:10	10	6 online training sessions and 4 physical trainings
60 participants	81	81 persons participated
Number of new editors: 60	48	A total of 48 new editors participated
Number of articles created or improved: 200	734 articles created, 20,711 articles edited, 5,505 references added	734 articles and items was created or improved. There was more work focused on improving articles and Wikidata items than creating new articles dashboard

Learning

Projects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

What worked well?

Participation in the training increased as a result of publicity and awareness made to heads of libraries and librarians in Lagos state. A meeting was held with the executives of Nigerian Library Association (NLA) and the Association of Women Librarians in Nigeria (AWLIN) Lagos State Chapter respectively to discuss the importance and raise awareness of the project. In addition, we sent messages and announced information on the WhatsApp groups of NLA and AWLIN. Before the training commenced, we followed up with each participant to ensure they arrived at the venue on time and to create their accounts, user pages, and join the event dashboard.

What did not work so well?

Academic institutions in Nigeria, embarked on a national strike, affecting attendance the number of new editors. Secondly, some new editors were blocked from editing by Wikimedia administrators and this was very discouraging to them. Although we did an overview presentation at the beginning of the training for new editors, we found out that it took more than one-on-one support for participants to be able to make their first edits. We spent too much time talking and answering questions on the WIKI-GLAM initiatives and pillars of Wikipedia because it was new to them.

What would you do differently next time?

We will consider providing participants with the training presentation slides, include pre-event questions and comment options on the participants' registration form before the commencement of the training to prepare ahead of time and avoid spending too much time answering questions.

Finances

Grant funds spent

Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on.

Library Space: NGN 120,000.00 X 4days = NGN 480,000
Food, drinks and snacks: NGN3,500.00 X 60 for 4days= NGN 840,000
Internet support for the participants during the 4 weeks online session for participants including all Editors = 180,000
Banner, design and flyers and poster=NGN 50,000
Projector = 25,000x 4= NGN 100,000
Camera for four days=NGN 80,000
Branded T-shirts and souvenirs for participants and contigency=NGN 200,0000
Transportation for 3 other facilitators within Lagos = NGN 22,000 x3 = 66,000
Total= NGN 1,996,000 (USD 4,802.50)

Remaining funds

Do you have any remaining grant funds?

No

Anything else

Anything else you want to share about your project? Many participants were able to attend Wikimania conference and they were inspired by what people were doing in the community. They were so happy that a Librarian from Nigeria got an award. Some have been asking questions that how can they do more for the community. The event really inspired them. The training is over but we have continued to mentor them.This is the link to our Whatsapp platform https://chat.whatsapp.com/Lndb7BrZPnw8sgyH8XPPP7. We have 113 participants on it that we still mentor.

For more images kindly check WikiGlam Awareness for Librarians in Lagos State

Pictures from the events

L-R, Project lead, Prof Uluocha Anyaogu, Dr.Taiwo Ajayi, Dr Stella Tiding, Mrs Uju Onuoha and Dr Chris Okiki- heads of Libraries at the training
Day 2 Training for Librarians 07
Day 2 Heads of library with project lead and facilitator
Day 4 Presentation of Certificates
Group photograph with the Librarians in Lagos state
Cross section of Librarians in Lagos state
Facilitator, Richard Edozie leading a session
Dr(Mrs ) Tayewo Adebowale recieving certificate from Dr Taiwo Ajayi, Chairperson of Nigerian Library Association
Presentation of certificate to Dr Okiti, Automation Librarian,UNILAG by Dr Ajayi,NLA Chairperson
Day 2 Training for Librarians 06