CC Uganda participates in the Inaugural African Librarians Week, 2020.
African Library and Information Associations & Institutions (AfLIA) in collaboration with the Wikimedia Foundation, organized the African Librarians Week, #AfLibWk from 24 – 30 May 2020, as part of the global #1Lib1Ref campaign. The week-long inaugural event aimed at inviting and mobilizing librarians, engage the African library community to help fill key gaps in African content on Wikipedia by adding sources and missing references to articles about Africa on the online encyclopedia.
The creative commons Uganda: chapter member Eric Haumba was on the Ugandan editorial team. Apart from adding missing references, #AfLibWk set in motion a major iterative opportunity for all African librarians to share knowledge, discernment and perceptions that epitomize African voices, cultures, philosophies and other information worthy of being open and accessible for free knowledge.
Organized under the theme; “Promoting African Scholars to the World”, the campaign saw real-time participation by library and information professionals across 31 African countries including Uganda, which was represented by editors from the library fraternity and beyond.
By the end of #AfLibWk Campaign on 30th May 2020,
- 27,846 edits were made and 3,946 articles edited,
- 10,055 missing references were added,
- A total of 660,539 words were added by the editors,
- 81 uploads to Wikimedia Commons, of which 22 had been used in articles by 30 May 2020,
- Although the campaign largely concentrated on adding citations, it led to creation of 28 new articles as a result of the creativity of some #AfLibWk editors, and
- Wikipedia articles that were created during #AfLibWk have cumulatively garnered over 33.6 million views and counting, as recorded on the events dashboard.
Editing was concentrated on both English Wikipedia and French Wikipedia. Statistically, the contributions by #AfLibWk editors made on English Wikipedia constituted 96% of the overall contributions made during the Week.
Also worth noting is that Creative Commons Licenses were used throughout the campaign. It was interesting to find out which articles about Africa on Wikipedia were receiving edits and citations. One of the main and broad themes of articles edited during the week were related to biographies of famous Africans (politicians, intellectuals, authors, freedom fighters etc.).
This was not much of a surprise as it resonated with the theme of the first edition of AfLibWk: Promoting African Scholars to the World. Editors also appeared to be interested in making edits and contributing to articles related to the COVID-19 pandemic (its spread and impact) in their respective countries.
A total of 844 editors registered to take part in the week-long campaign. The top 50 editors were awarded with certificates of recognition and participation. They included Eric Haumba & Alice Kibombo who came in 10th and 15th positions respectively. They are both affiliated with the Creative Commons Uganda chapter.
Congratulations to Eric and Alice.