Bibliowikis: The volunteer-driven, Catalan case study of libraries as hotspots for new Wikipedians and high-quality sources

Abstract

The Catalan Wikipedia (Viquipèdia) is a successful free-knowledge platform with a strong community of editors that has significantly contributed to the normalization of this minoritized language on the Internet. In 2012, the NGO Amical Wikimedia and the Public Library Service of the Catalan Ministry of Culture launched #Bibliowikis, an initiative that has involved several hundreds of librarians and public libraries in the improvement of this version of the online encyclopedia. This unique, successful model was presented to the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and has been highlighted as a case study by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA). The project involves the so-called Amical-way, in which scaffolded training, long-term self-management, and the geographically available Wikipedian volunteers constitute the three fundamental working pillars. #Bibliowikis’ success has experienced different levels of applicability and regularity over the Catalan-speaking territories, especially in the Land of Valencia and Andorra, and may be endangered by global online dynamics, loss of the volunteering principles, and prioritization of economic resources in the fast-changing Wikimedia environment. However, #Bibliowikis’ characteristics are fully aligned with those of Open Access, thus it is easily combined with academia and the public knowledge transfer at universities. Its robust ethical discourse on social contribution, negligible infrastructure, and linguistic heritage protection has allowed #Bibliowikis to be feasible and easily implemented in the increasing context of teleworking and the need for social digitization of bibliographic repositories.