Wikimedians of Indiana User Group/Reports/2024-2025
Summary
- This annual report covers the period from March 19, 2024 through March 19, 2025.
The report presents activities by the Wikimedians of Indiana User Group during their second year, March 2024 - March 2025.
During this time the Wikimedians of Indiana User Group hosted WikiConference North America 2024 which had 218 attendees and included 18 institutions from around Indianapolis. Additionally, we hosted 9 editing and related events, resulting in over 200 participants in total.
Projects
In 2024/2025, the Wikimedians of Indiana User Group hosted WikiConference North America 2024 at Hine Hall on Indiana University Indianapolis campus. Additionally, we partnered with local organizations throughout the year to host events around Central Indiana.
Women in Medicine editathon, March 18, 2024
[edit]In collaboration with Ruth Lilly Medical Library, the Wikimedians of Indiana User Group helped organize an editathon for Indiana Women in Medicine. During this event participants went through training and edited and wrote articles about notable faculty and alumni of the IU School of Medicine and other Hoosier practitioners.
There were 12 participants during the event, 10 whom edited; 18 articles were edited and 16 references were added to Wikipedia. The dashboard for this event is available here.
Wikipedia for Librarians, May 3, 2024
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INhistoryMaker and Thedailyclark of the Indiana State Library and Historical Bureau helped organize a Wikipedia for Librarians training that earned LEU credits for Indiana-based Librarians. During the event, participants learned how to add media to Wikimedia Commons, how to add images/videos and references to Wikipedia, and had an overview of Wikidata. During the event, 13 librarians from around the state joined us to
The event dashboard is available here.
Wiki Loves Pride 2024 editathon, June 17th and 26th, 2024
[edit]We celebrated en:Wiki Loves Pride this year with TWO edit-a-thons! One at the Indianapolis Public Library Central Branch, utilizing the materials from the Chris Gonzalez Collection, and one with Loudmouth Books, an independent, queer owned bookstore. Across the events we had about 21 editors, creating 3 articles, editing 20 other articles, and adding 33 references. The event dashboard is available here
We love BUTTER meetup, August 31, 2024
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GANGGANG, Black Lunch Table (BLT), and the Wikimedians of Indiana joined forces to document Underrepresented Artists during the BUTTER Fine Art Fair in Indianapolis with a photo booth featuring local photographer, Azia Ellis-Singleton. The groups came together to take photos, upload them to Wikimedia Commons, and worked together to add data and information to the photos, and write Wikipedia articles about notable artists. Azia worked with BLT to upload images for preservation in BLT's archive.
During the event, 13 articles were edited, 14 references were added to Wikipedia, and over 60 images were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. Since the event, an additional 10 articles have been written. The event dashboard is available here.
WikiConference North America, 2024
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The Wikimedians of Indiana User Group hosted WikiConference North America, 2024 October 4th - 6th at Indiana University Indianapolis in Hine Hall. We kicked off the conference with a Culture Crawl on October 3rd, with 19 partners from across the city. The Culture Crawl included tours of en:Indianapolis Public Library's Central Library, Lucas Oil Stadium (home of the Colts), The Ray Bradbury Center at IUI, an independent bookstore crawl that included 5 bookstores, and a presentation and tour of Indiana Historical Society that focused on Latine culture and history in Indianapolis and Indiana. An opening reception was hosted that evening at Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library featuring a panel, "Banned Books and Representation at the Crossroads" with Leah Johnson, Stephen Lane, Ann Matsuuchi, and Jason Auckerman as moderator.
WCNA kicked off with the announcement that mayor Joseph Hogsett had declared Friday, October 4th, 2024 Wikipedia Day in Indianapolis in honor of the city hosting the conference, the importance of access to information, and the work of local organizations to contribute to Wikipedia and improve coverage about the history of Indiana and Indianapolis.
That Friday, the Conference featured a United By Heritage edit-a-thon titled "Indiana's Crossroads: Celebrating BIPOC Pioneers of the Americas". The edit-a-thon was organized by Equis and Wiki-Cientificas Mexicanas and featured silkscreen printing workshop with local Chicana artist, Alejandra Carrillo. During the event, there was editing in both English and Spanish, resulting in 25 articles created, 97 articles edited, 99 Commons Uploads, and 226 references added from 26 editors. The evening, a reception was hosted at the Indiana State Library featuring a presentation from Depths of Wikipedia.
During WCNA, all of the tracks were virtually available, and each track had machine translation in Spanish and French, and the Main Auditorium featured live translation in Spanish (or English) depending on the language of the presentation. Saturday, October 5th, included presentations throughout the day in Spanish in the Main Auditorium.
The conference featured keynotes from Maryana Pinchuk of WMF, a GLAM keynote in honor of Effie Kapsalis with Andrew Lih and Sara Snyder, both of the Smithsonian, and Wikimedian of the Year User:Clovermoss. In total, there were approximately 72 content sessions across three days of programming. There were 218 registered attendees to WCNA, 132 participants in the Culture Crawl, and 80 speakers. For conference attendance, 107 scholarships were awarded, including 10 travelers from Mexico and 17 from Canada.
Acknowledgments
The Wikimedians of Indiana User Group is thankful for all the collaborations and contributions from its members, partners, and organizers. We are particularly grateful for their generosity with their time and accommodations for tours and spaces during WCNA, and swag for attendees.
With generous funding from the Indianapolis Foundation's Library Fund provided to University Library, the Wikimedians of Indiana User group has been able to increase the capacity of central Indiana institutions to engage with Wikipedia by working together on programs such as staff training, contributing digital collections images to Wikimedia Commons, holding public editing events, and more. You can read more here. WCNA was made possible by support from the Wikimedia Foundation, Indiana University Indianapolis University Library, the Indianapolis Foundation Library Fund, and the Indiana State Library.