an art+feminism Wikipedia edit-a-thon : materials + reflections – Chelsea Heinbach

"I recently, with substantial support, hosted my very first art+feminism wikipedia edit-a-thon. In fact, it was the first time I’d hosted any wikipedia edit-a-thon. For those of you who are unfamiliar, art+feminism is a campaign in its fifth year dedicated to improving representation of women and genderqueer artists on Wikipedia, where biographies about women and feminized topics receive less than stellar attention. The most previous experience I had with Wikipedia was teaching an activity wherein students added citations to a page of an important woman last year on “A Day Without a Woman”. I taught my credit bearing class that day, and I decided to go to work, wear red, and amplify women while teaching my students information literacy skills. This was a nice primer, but I was still basically starting from scratch in terms of skills and knowledge. I just recently started in my position at UNLV University Libraries in October, so I didn’t really know what I was in for when I suggested we host an art+feminism edit-a-thon in our library. However, I was met with unbridled enthusiasm from my colleague Brittany Fiedler and unwavering support from Rosan Mitola, our Outreach Librarian. We collaborated to make a really cool thing – something way better than I could have done on my own. Our event focused on women of color artists and surpassed my expectations, so I thought I would share the resources we created in case others wanted to use them...."