Hi there, Alice. Hi, how are you? I'm good, thank you, yourself? It's just been raining a lot today, so yeah, it's a bit miserable here. Yeah, same here, to be honest. Are you in the library there?

Yes, I am in the library. Very appropriate. Yeah. Okay, do you have your slides ready? I do have them. Do you want me to share my screen? Yeah, if you share your screen I can add your slides and I will take myself out of the stream. Alright, let me do that. Now just hold on, please.

Okay, no worries.

Okay, I can see them. There we are, so I will remove myself and leave you to present. I mean, I'll just hoot when you're out. Alright, Isabria, good evening. It's evening here.

Is everybody able to hear me or see my screen? You could just grant or hoot and then I'll go ahead with whatever it is I need to say. Yeah, we can hear you. Okay, fine. Good evening, everybody. Like I said, it's evening here.

And my name is Alice Chibombo and I am the Wikipedian in Residence with AFLEA. And that's an organization we're going to get to know more about today. I know this is Wikisite and, you know, Wikidata is the overarching subject.

But just allow me to take a few minutes of your time to explain this project, Wikipedia in African libraries. And then I'll also let you know the plans that we have for Wikidata as a collective. And then we'll be open to the questions. So without further ado, let me just dig into this.

So you ask, what is this? First of all, it is a year-long project that is being funded by the Wikimedia Foundation. And we had a few we had collaborated before as a collective with the Wikimedia Foundation.

But then in June of this year is when we officially received the grant to bring this to fruition. So Wikimedia Foundation's money and our collective human resource is what is bringing Wikipedia in African libraries to you as the project.

And then obviously before that, it's not something that, you know, just drops through the roof. There had to be something that informed its existence, something that justified its existence.

And what you see on the screen are things that we knew before. But as of September 2020, we had a survey of librarians in Africa. And what you're seeing on the screen are results that came from over 350 respondents.

And that number has still grown, but some of the statistics are constant. So over 80 percent of them spoke English and then 9.1 percent spoke French. And then the Portuguese speaking ones came in at 7.8 percent. But what I knew or what we knew and what was compounded by the findings

was that over half of them were not aware of Wikimedia communities in their countries, which meant that many Wikimedia communities were not able to participate in GLAM projects because they didn't have the necessary expertise.

And then the librarians who showed interest did not know where they could get any kind of local support on the ground. And then there were more females that responded, more females than male, and most were between the 31 to 50 years demographic.

And with this situation, this pointed out the opportunities that we could now begin to leverage because, OK, fine. A great number of them speak English, which means that when we come to this, our main mode will be English and then the French and the Portuguese will have to be cared for.

And if 54 percent are not aware of the communities in their countries, then we need to do something to bring the two communities together so that each can feed off each other's expertise and skills and network. And then when it comes to more females than male, obviously these can help us bridge the gender gap.

And then being 31 to 50 years old means that we are dealing with a generation that's at least a bit technically savvy. So we don't have to, much as technical literacy is an issue, it is not something that we have to start from scratch on.

OK, so I had mentioned AFLEAR. It is an acronym, but AFLEAR in full is African. It's a mouthful. It's African Libraries and Information Associations. I hope I got it right.

So it was started in 2013. It is based in Ghana. And from the screen, you can see the interests that the organization pursues because it combines so, so many people in so many different information institutions.

So it pursues the interests of library and information associations, the same services and the workers and the communities that are its constituencies. It's present. It has a presence in over 30 countries.

And this presence is managed regionally. We are divided into five, the north, the south, the east, the west and the central. And because it is spread over 30 countries, obviously there are Anglophone speakers and the Francophone speakers.

And then we have the Lusophone demographic. And yes, so that's AFLEAR and that's the existing situation. So you say, OK, this Africa in Wikipedia and African libraries project, how is it that we are going to go about it?

First and foremost, it's a year long. It's not something that's a flash in the pan for one month. It's a sustained campaign that's going to take place over 12 months. And we started back in September. At the moment, we're doing some background work, but I'll come to that later.

And how are we going to implement it? I'll still explain. We are going to use the OCLC curriculum. But one of the things that we noted coming into the project was that the curriculum is good as it is. But we needed to tailor it to the African situation, you know, use terms, context, illustrations and things that were relatable to our environment.

So we're going to be using that. And then later I'll show you the qualitative metrics that

we are going to carry out in three phases with one pilot group that's starting in November. And then two cohorts with one hundred and fifty participants each. And then when it comes to the community liaison, we'll use the country champions because these are drawn from existing librarians within the community who have shown a willingness to actually partner with the Wikimedia Foundation to spread the weekly gospel.

And then we will also use experienced working medians to facilitate the learning. There's going to be a lot of learning, you know, slides, classroom settings and everything.

And we will need experienced librarians. OK. Experienced working medians, preferably librarians to be able to facilitate the learning experience and the courses. And these are some of the timelines we are working in. This is very, very brief, very, very brief.

There's a lot that comes in between. But as it is right now, we we have already revised the curriculum and submitted it. And it's awaiting an evaluation that as of November 16, we are going to have a pilot group.

You know, just test a few bits of the curriculum with them and it's going to have built in pathways for the feedback. And then come Jan 2021 between January and February will take around four weeks for that.

And the mentor groups are the other country champions that I was talking about that are going to act as a liaison. Obviously, not everything is on their shoulders. And because they are just you know, they're just volunteering. We do not honestly expect them to know anything, but we also can't just send them out just like that.

So we will have some training to be able to, how can I say, equip them to deal with the kind of situations that they're going to be facing. Practical work with supporting the librarians that they will eventually be liaising with.

And then between February and April of 2021, we will roll out the first cohort. And then we'll roll on smoothly till May, between May and July of 2021. In May of 2021, we will have our, how can I put it, the AFIA general meeting that will be in Ghana.

And we will have a Wikipedia workshop there. We will also start with cohort two because a number of librarians that are catered for by AFIA will not be able to attend that physically.

And yeah, we come to our areas of focus. I'll just keep hacking on to this. There's no relationship.

OK, there is, but it is so minimal that it's not yielding anything at the moment. So between the librarians and the local Wikipedia communities, there is such a minimal relationship that sees very many communities not participating in GLAM related events because they don't have the expertise.

They don't have the knowledge. They don't have the manpower. And then the librarians are also left out because they do not know who to consult with. So one of our areas of focus is to cultivate relationships between these two communities and also with a wider community. And we are going to do this through a series of virtual meet and greets.

And I'll be sharing that information via email. So tune in for that. And then the other thing is we are open to partnerships. You know, different partners come with different advantages and they come with different skill sets. And, you know, they give you ideas that you have probably never even thought of.

So I know that's a very, very generic way of putting it. That's very big and open to interpretation, but something that we will explore much later on. And then we're also going to be looking at opportunities for offline contribution. Bear in mind that this is Africa.

The bandwidth isn't that big. The Internet speeds are not that fast. There are power cuts in very many different places where the Internet goes off with political unrest. So one of the solutions for that is exploring opportunities for offline contributions.

And then the English Wikipedia and the French Wikipedia are really big. So the Francophone and Anglophone librarians do have a wide community for support. I mean, they cannot of all the things that they cry about. They can't put their hands on their heart and say that we didn't have any support from the wider community.

But then our colleagues that speak for two days are really being left behind. And that's for a number of reasons. You know, as a collective, we don't have. Very many contacts in the list of home community, and then we will also need to speak for two days to the people that speak for two days.

So we need to mobilize support for the Portuguese speaking librarians, bring them up to speed so that they're equally as competent and knowledgeable about the project and their Anglophone and Francophone counterparts.

And then we're going to focus on Wikipedia. Mostly for starters, though, we will focus on other projects like Wikipedia, but that will run parallel. But our main focus will be on Wikipedia. And then we also focus on local languages. We need to contribute and grow our local language.

Wikipedia is for very many librarians, especially the reference librarians. You go to the library and they can point out the resource in English or French or whichever foreign language it is that they speak. But when they are beginning to explain the content, they are very they are only able to explain it in their local language.

So if they're able to explain the content in their local language, then they should be able to contribute it in the online sphere. And then we will also be looking at Africa specific content, obviously on the premise that we tell our stories better, but facts are subject to debate on very many occasions.

And then if all goes well, these are just the quantitative metrics. We are looking at 300 participants for the online training. Like I said, two cohorts of 150 people each, which would mean 300 million registered users.

I do not expect that everyone doesn't have an account now. But then, you know, I'm hoping for the domino effect where, you know, different people tell different people and then they also join. So we're wildly optimistic on that.

And then we're also optimistic at a hundred content pages that have been created or improved, of course, the media projects. And then we are looking at a hundred librarians joining the one we've been working on in 2021. But I need to give a word of caution on this. And this is not shooting ourselves in the foot.

So it's just that numbers can be very deceptive. I'll give you an example that we had in May when we did the African Librarians Week and we concentrated on one with one web. We had a total of around 832 people signing up on the dashboard.

And then the eventual submissions was something like, say, a hundred or a hundred and ten people. So quantitative metrics might be a little bit deceptive, but we will go with that for now. But then on the qualitative side, that also cannot be measured.

But in an ideal situation, we want the project to be branded on people's consciousness, you know, so that even if they do not participate in the project, even if they don't contribute, it is there at the back of their mind, you know. I'm not saying that they should sleep, dream, breathe it, but they will know about it.

You know, if somebody mentioned it, they would know what it is that they are talking about. But we would also look at cultivating an awareness of Wikipedia as a local resource, especially for librarians. That is one of the qualitative metrics that we're looking at.

Like I said, it is not measurable, but I think we will see those effects after time. And then we would also like to see the collective filling in information gaps in a synchronized manner. You know, you do a thematic contribution. So the effort is focused and it is meant to be impactful.

And with this project, I am talking about it right now, but I do not work alone. I work with a team in Aflia. I work with people from the Wikimedia Foundation and I also work with a curriculum development consultant.

So these are my colleagues in the project. You will get to meet them in the course of the work that we do. And they are very knowledgeable, not even just because they are older than me, but they have been in the field much, much longer.

And they are very aware of the landscape and the environment in which we operate as African librarians. So that is the team from Aflia. We have Dr. Helen Assamuah Assam. She's the founder of Aflia, actually, as well as executive director.

We have Dr. Kim Osweigwe. She is the director of human capacity and training and the curriculum development consultant. And I really work hand in hand with her to identify opportunities and tweak the curriculum. And then we have Stanley. Stanley is very helpful in letting us test the waters and tell us what is out there.

Of course, it's the research that he carried out that let us know that over 50 percent of the librarians we were dealing with were not aware of the Wikimedia communities. And then Doreen, for lack of a better word, she is the sergeant at arms for the project.

You know, monitor the activities. They see things that are see that things are on schedule. And, you know, the challenges that the participants are having and be able to sort them out. And then this is the team from the Wikimedia Foundation.

We have Alex Enson and Felix Maté. It is a pleasure to work with them. I believe a number of us here in this audience have worked with them before, so I will not sing their praises any further than I have sung them for now. And then I for the curriculum development consultant that was hired for the project is Professor Rosemary Shafak.

She's from Cameroon, and a lot of the content that you see out there is because a lot of the content and

even the quantity of the content is a testament to how much thought and input she has put in adapting this curriculum. Obviously, when I come in, it's simply to point out one or two things that were an oversight. And then on the right is me when I was younger and more stressed.

So, yeah. And then, yeah, any activities so far with the project? I've put two activities here, the one strictly led to the other, the African Librarians Week that dealt with one labor unrest that was between the 25th and the 30th of May.

But it is after this that we really amped to be able to get the grant. And then just last week, we participated in the Open Access Week and our contribution was translating specifically cinema-themed content,

because we were commemorating the month of African cinema, too, that are running between October and November. Yeah. So like I had said, that was about Wikidata, sorry, Wikipedia.

And Wikisite is really about Wikidata. So how about Wikidata? Are we thinking about it? Yes, we are. And these are some of the things that are making us think about it. The original focus was on Wikimedia, but then we have parallel ways because, you know, there's something for everybody.

And you will find that there are people who don't want to contribute content. And they say, you know, the threshold for entry onto Wikipedia is too high. So I'd rather deal with Wikidata or with Wikicomons or with Wikisource or whatever. But the existing situation right now in Africa and even with the constituents of Africa is that the libraries that are big,

the libraries that are active, the libraries that actually have an impact, they are academic and they are designated as national repositories, meaning they have a lot of information. How, when and why they should release it is a matter of debate.

But for me, it's a mindset change. And then with this comes the fact that people, a number of African librarians are being increasingly skilled. And we have those that specialize specifically in metadata.

So that's a demographic to be tapped into in case they don't want to write the text and they just want to use strings. And then last week when I checked, this was something from July of twenty twenty nine. But I saw that around 43 percent of the items on Wikidata are scholarly articles.

And right now the biggest emphasis is on scholarly publishing in Africa. That's the landscape. So that leaves us the question. I could put it to you. I also ask myself, but now that I'm presenting it to you, how can we leverage this?

I mean, what opportunities do we see in this? Is there something that is focused? Is there something that can come out of this? Is there something that can be thematic? Is there a skill set to be transferred here? Something that can be shown like, OK, this is how you can reach your work.

This is how you put your content on show. So this is something we need to consider as this community and all the suggestions at this point are welcome. And we hope to act on them. So this is where you can know more about us.

Of course, AFIA does have a page on Wikipedia. It also has a website. I did not provide the link for the Wikipedia in African libraries method page. But you can read all about the grant on the grant page. So anything it is that I have not left out, you can familiarize yourself more and then you could also address your questions.

And I expect I will be in a position to answer as honestly as I can and as wisely as my brains will permit. So thank you very much for your time. Thank you very much for this invitation.

And the questions can begin. Sorry, not at all further. Thank you. That was a great presentation, Alice. We do have a few questions.

The first one is how can we help mobilize support for Lusophone librarians? Is there anything as a user group that we can be doing to support that work? At the moment, no. There is no established Lusophone speaking user group in Africa.

What we have are a few individual editors from, let's say, you'll know one person in Mozambique. Then you'll know two from Sotome and Principe. Then one who is between Zambia and Angola. So no, we do not have an established community.

So this is an opportunity to actually cultivate a community or to have really specific and targeted efforts towards this community.

Because even when it comes to the online classes, we will be translating the work into French and into Portuguese. It's one thing seeing this with Portuguese subtitles, but it's another thing when this session is delivered to you in a language that you actually understand.

Because when they translate, they are translating context. They are not translating word for word. So that's a piece of work that you haven't really started digging into yet. And you've got to build the connections to engage with people.

Right. OK, thank you. I think another question we've got is, is there a working project for North African countries? And that's the Arabic speaking nations. Good question, because I actually noticed that I think it's only Egypt that is covered by, it's only Egypt that is covered by Afriya.

The opportunity here is during the virtual meeting, we are obviously still going to get the North African communities and their library associations and get them together.

And much as the project is under Afriya, it is not a must that anybody who participates in it must be a member of Afriya. I mean, the basic minimum is to be a practicing information professional.

Well, not practicing, but an information professional. And you can prove that. We've got a couple more questions. Do you manage to coordinate with Wiscom, the African regional hub?

Yes, we do. We are in touch because Wiscom is actually what's helping us get in touch with many of the local communities. And also we needed to, how can I say, get, not that we lacked credibility, but you know, people were very skeptical about this project. It was big, it was ambitious, and very many people were not buying into it.

So we needed to employ the help of Wiscom to put in a word for us on that when it came to the time to sell the project to the people. Do we have another question about, did you manage to participate with Wikia Indaba and Wikia Arabia to have more contributors?

Yes, we would like to have that, but as we speak, Wikia Indaba has been postponed to November 2021. So what we could do now is just cultivate the interest, cultivate the awareness, and make people, empower people that they're active enough to be

able to show what work it is they've done within the project and within the community when it comes to selection time for Wikia Indaba.

That's great, thank you.