Dear Wiki-Friends,
September 6th marks the end of my time at the Wikimedia Foundation.
At my center has been the belief that I serve the movement above all else.
This was what motivated the creation of a research service for editors in
the first place. Today, it leaves me to look outside the Foundation to how
I can best influence and impact change for the open knowledge community,
and our broadly fractured society.
When I founded The Wikipedia Library in 2011, the course of my life
changed. I became a grantee with an Individual Engagement Grant, guided by
Siko Bouterse and Anasuya Sengupta, to expand TWL. It was a dream fulfilled
to be asked to join the Wikimedia Foundation full-time in 2014 to establish
the program worldwide.
With much mentorship and help, we grew TWL from a one-man, English-only
publisher signup project into an international, multilingual outreach
effort with a global campaign, national convenings, and a functioning
digital library stocked with 100,000 free-to-read scholarly journals. Those
sources can be used to verify information, write new articles, close
content gaps, and remedy systemic bias.
Now, librarians are as likely to be supporters and contributors as they
used to be critics. The movement is full of 'wikibrarians', from the
200-member Wikimedia and Libraries User Group to the 2000 person Wikimedia
+ Libraries Facebook Group. Conferences around the world have strong
advocates for the intersection and alliance of Wikipedia and Libraries.
Along the way I had the true privilege of building a team that gave me
confidence and extremely good company. It's my conviction that good work is
calm, full of humor, and has care for people at its core. I found that
generous spirit heartily alive in my team at The Wikipedia Library. I
cannot thank them enough.
The work is not yet finished and yet it is in good hands. With Sam Walton
in charge of managing The Wikipedia Library, Felix Nartey and Aaron Vasanth
running global outreach, Jason Sherman developing the Library Card
Platform, and a whole crew of coordinated volunteers handling reference
services…much more is still to come.
You can reach out to TWL any time at wikipedialibrary(a)wikimedia.org.
As I look ahead to new vistas, I leave with questions and hope to hear your
thoughts. What needs to be done next? Who could use the most support? Which
organizations are ripe for change? What capacity still needs to be created?
Where can I best advocate and help grow? How can we collaborate?
Email me at jorlowitz(a)gmail.com and share what's on your mind, or just say
hello.
It's been a true pleasure to serve our beautiful, messy movement: I
couldn't be more excited to join its ranks again.
Thanks and cheers,
~~~~
Jake Orlowitz
User:Ocaasi
Solicito nombre y correo de la Fundación Wikimedia de personas responsables para enviarles comunicación desde LIMA-PERÚ.
Le saluda.
Aquilino Huaytalla Ch.
PRESIDENTE
CEpyme
Enviado desde Correo de Windows
Dear all,
I thank you for your efforts. On March 19, 2009, I decided to create my Wikimedia account. Nowadays, it is 10 years since I became a Wikimedian. During these years, I contributed to many Wikimedia-related projects including Library outreach. Knowing that most library outreach methods developed by Wikimedia and Libraries User Group and GLAM-Wiki are not adapted to user group-led thematic projects, we created a library outreach method for user groups. After a successful pilot trial of our method in Tunisia, we will be honoured if our method will be applied on a larger scale. Further information can be found in https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wikimedia_TN_-_Library_Outreach.pdf.
Yours Sincerely,
Houcemeddine Turki (he/him)
Medical Student, Faculty of Medicine of Sfax, University of Sfax, Tunisia
Undergraduate Researcher, UR12SP36
GLAM and Education Coordinator, Wikimedia TN User Group
Member, WikiResearch Tunisia
Member, Wiki Project Med
Member, WikiIndaba Steering Committee
Member, Wikimedia and Library User Group Steering Committee
Co-Founder, WikiLingua Maghreb
Founder, TunSci
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