Education/News/February 2022/The Learning and Connection – 1Lib1Ref with African Librarians
The Learning and Connection: #1Lib1Ref with African Librarians
It all started with the awareness of #1Lib1Ref which is an annual global Wikipedia activity involving librarians in improving articles with AfLIA championing the African Librarians' Week, there were massive online training programs for participation in the #1Lib1Ref. The Library Associations in different countries of Africa acknowledged it and set the balls rolling in their countries. Nigerian Librarians made things happen by giving it visibility and joining in the Wikipedia training programs. There were also physical training sessions which yielded great output in registering new Wikimedians, improvement of articles and creating new articles.
In Anambra State, South-East, Nigeria, special training was planned and implemented at the Professor Kennet Dike State Central e-Library, Awka. The facilitators were Dr. Ngozi Perpetua Osuchukwu and Dr. Nkem Osuigwe. Twenty-one librarians participated. There were ten new sign-ups while six who signed up earlier made their first edits in the training. The other five participants increased their edits in the historic #1Lib1Ref.
- A gathering of librarians that participated in the online African Librarians week
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The participants were happy and followed up with effective participation in the Edit-a-thon. The lessons learned from the Wikipedia Training showed that professionals are willing and ready to participate in Wikipedia activity. What they need are spaces to learn and contribute. They were eager to share their learning and engage interested Library users with Wikipedia concepts. Following up on the training sessions with the Nigerian Team, some of the librarians trained have become champions, winning prizes in different Wikipedia Edit-a-thon. They have also organized more training programs and started integrating their students in contributing to Wikipedia.