This project page co-ordinates activities to improve articles and images related to the State Library of New South Wales and the items in its collections. In partnership with
Wikimedia Australia
the Library is working to add authoritative content to Wikipedia and to encourage other public libraries in New South Wales to do the same. The goal is to share the State's stories with the world along with information about its people and places.
From March to June 2013, the library hosted Whiteghost.ink as Wikipedian in Residence.
For more information on the Library's Wikipedia projects, talk to Aliaretiree or Odysseus voyage14.
To ask a question about our collection or services, visit our Ask a Librarian page.
Sydney
GLAM/State Library of New South Wales (New South Wales)
SLNSW under lights
State Library of New South Wales Staff guidelines for editing Wikipedia
Wikipedia is different from most other social media channels used by the State Library of New South Wales. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, so it is a tertiary source that does not publish original information, that is, information for which no independent secondary source exists. Wikipedia contributors, including Library staff, do not own their contributions; contributions may be contested or changed. Wikipedia is a community-written encyclopedia and members of the public may write about Library objects or the Library itself.
These guidelines communicate the State Library’s expectations of staff engaging in editing Wikipedia articles and provide a public-facing explanation of the editing methodology of State Library staff, and also acknowledge that the institution is aware of and dealing with any potential conflicts of interest in (paid) staff editing.
The guidelines were developed using as a template the draft United States National Archives WikiProject's internal guidelines, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. These guidelines are published under the same license.
Policy statement
Creating and editing articles in Wikipedia is in line with the State Library of New South Wales’ mission of providing equitable access to contemporary and historical knowledge.
State Library staff participate in Wikipedia on an equal footing with all other editors by using individual rather than Library accounts.
Where State Library staff are contributing Library assets (ie, digitised images of collection items that are in copyright, or photographs taken by the Library) to the Wikimedia Commons, they must: have Library authorisation to release the specific files; use the appropriate license; and apply the Library's template. They must also complete the Open-source Ticket Request System (OTRS) process to verify and archive copyright licensing permissions on images.
State Library staff must disclose their affiliation with the Library on their user page before editing. Templates are available on the State Library’s Participants project page.
If State Library staff edit articles about the Library as an institution, other users may perceive a conflict of interest. Simple factual changes (e.g.: personnel updates or outdated statistics) may likely be made without contention, but more substantive changes should be proposed first using discussion pages or other fora.
Additions to articles must be verifiable. This means that independent media or secondary sources should be cited whenever possible.
When editing articles, an impartial voice should be maintained. State Library staff must remember they are writing an encyclopedia, not speaking for the Library.
The State Library’s Social Media Policy and Code of Conduct and Terms of Use for Interaction with State Library of New South Wales Forums applies to all State Library staff interactions with Wikipedia.
Target content
The Newspaper Project
The Library's Newspaper Project is writing and developing Wikipedia articles about current and historic NSW newspapers. It includes comprehensive List articles as well as articles on individual newspapers from the lists.
Biographical Project
The Library’s Biographical Project is developing existing stub articles about notable NSW people. It is also creating new articles. Articles are referenced from secondary sources including the Australian Dictionary of Biography and standard works from the library’s collections both published and unpublished.
Library collections
The Library edits articles and topic areas related to its collections. These include:
Ongoing work on articles as part of the Wikipedia project at the State Library of New South Wales can be found at
SLNSW article creation and improvement
.
Resources
Exploring Wikipedia: Content Creation Training Manual
Manual
The
Wikipedia:GLAM/BeginnersGuide
.
Image categories
Category:Images by the State Library of New South Wales (For images produced by library staff in their official duties - whereby any copyright is owned by SLNSW. Use {{SLNSW-license|itemID=xxx|2d=yes/no}}. Only apply this if you have specific SLNSW approval for release and the appropriate OTRS permissions information has been submitted.)
Category:Images from the State Library of NSW (For images from the collections that have not specifically been approved for release. Use {{SLNSW-image|1=71976}} (where the number is the itemID). This may include 2d images deemed to be out of copyright, or could be applied by an uploader who had personally photographed a copyright-free object from the collection.)
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