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The Wikipedia Library/Newsletter/November-December 2020

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Books & Bytes
Issue 42, November–December 2020

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In this issue we highlight new collections, #1Lib1Ref, a spotlight from the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, and, as always, a roundup of news and community items related to libraries and digital knowledge.

New collections

We have added a number of new databases from EBSCO to our collections, primarily in Spanish and Arabic:

  • Caribbean Search
  • Salud en Español
  • MedicLatina
  • Fuente Académica Premier
  • Enfermería al Día
  • Referencia Latina
  • Arab World Research Source: Al Masdar
  • Al-Kotob Arabic eBooks Collection

Because EBSCO is part of the Library Bundle, if you meet the minimum requirements you will have immediate access to these databases without needing to apply. Go to the EBSCO page and click on "Access Collection".

1Lib1Ref

Reminder: 1Lib1Ref returns from 15 January to 5 February 2021. This year, in celebration of Wikipedia's 20th birthday, there is a special competition with prizes on offer: the "Human" Challenge. This challenge focuses on improving coverage of human rights. To participate, simply use two hashtags (#1lib1ref #WikiForHumanRights) to submit an edit.

New Library Card platform work needs your input

The Wikipedia Library is working on two new projects over the next 6 months and is requesting community input:

Spotlight: Libraries love Wikimedia, too!

An excerpt from a post on Diff by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA)

In August 2019, at WLIC 2019 in Athens, Stacy Allison-Cassin presented workshops on Wikidata in libraries to bring our communities together. Following these meetings, a call was made to bring together librarians who would like to get involved in a working group. This initial group included Karim Tharani, Joachim Neubert, Carla Colombati, Catarina Reis, Dan Scott, and Miguel Mimoso Correia.

In February 2020, the IFLA Wikidata Working Group received a grant from Wikicite to develop a satellite meeting for the annual IFLA conference, the World Library and Information Congress. The aim of the event was to bring together librarians and Wikimedian communities to exchange ideas and build further capacity in this field.

COVID-19 modified the initial plans and therefore the working group proposed to produce videos with experts, with the aim to introduce useful topics and projects as examples and best practices for the library community.

The six videos were produced thanks to the contributions of Jason Evans (@WIKI_NLW) and Simon Cobb (user: Sic19), Barbara Fischer (@fisherdata) and Sara Hartmann, Meg Wacha, Ahava Cohen, Nicolas Vigneron (user: VIGNERON), Karim Tharani (user: Ktharani) and Stacy Allison-Cassin (user: Smallison @stacymallison). Each presentation has subtitles available in five languages (Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, French and Portuguese) to enable several language communities to benefit from the content. The videos are available on Wikimedia Commons and cover topics such as Wikidata, Wikisource, citations, authority files, equity of knowledge issues, and scholarly communications in libraries.

Bytes in brief

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