Learning patterns/Being the connector between GLAM partners and community
What problem does this solve? edit
The National Archiv in Oslo have employees that more or less regulary come together during working hours to edit Wikipedia articles. Some technical issues they found difficult and they wanted to have someone to reach out to via email to get answers to their questions. Many newbies are not comfortable with using talk pages or the village pump to ask questions. From their professional work they are very used to asking questions per email.
What is the solution? edit
- Together with the National Archive, Wikimedia Norge wrote a post on the village pump of Wikipedia (no.wp) asking for experienced Wikipedians who could be interested in being "technical mentors" via email. This is the post at the village pump (no.wp)
- Wikipedians interested could contact the National Archive directly
- After 2 hours enough connections were made
Things to consider edit
The key, in our experience, is to make these connections when the community already has seen that employees from a GLAM institutions have contributed to Wikipedia.
When to use edit
This could be an easy thing to test if your GLAM partner is skilled enough to edit Wikipedia on their own, but still need someone to contact during working hours for technical assistance. It can be difficult to bring Wikipedians and GLAM partners together online.