Rod Library Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon

Rod Library’s Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon is a concerted effort to improve the representation of women and minoritized individuals in the arts on the free encyclopedia and in the Wikipedia community. Wikipedia is the fifth most used website in the world, but there is systemic bias embedded in its content due to a lack of diversity. This project is an effort to change that. Students in LIB 3159: Creating Wikipedia for the Arts hosted the Edit-a-thon on March 24. The event was free and open to the public. In addition to community participants, students in ARTHIST 4608: Arts of Africa (who worked with the Waterloo Center for the Arts), ARTHIST 4320 , 19th Century Western Art, and ARTED 2500: Foundations of Art Education created more than 30 new articles, edited more than 50, and added more than 34,000 words to Wikipedia. Only two days after the event, those edits had been viewed almost 4,000 times around the world. This information about underrepresented individuals is now free and freely available for all. This poster will introduce the project and provide assessment data and statistics demonstrating the outcomes and world-wide reach of the event