Librarians as Wikimedia Movement Organizers in Spain: An interpretive inquiry exploring activities and motivations

Abstract

How do librarians in Spain engage with Wikipedia (and Wikidata, Wikisource, and other Wikipedia sister projects) as Wikimedia Movement Organizers? And, what motivates them to do so? This article reports on findings from 14 interviews with 18 librarians. The librarians interviewed were multilingual and contributed to Wikimedia projects in Castilian (commonly referred to as Spanish), Catalan, Basque, English, and other European languages. They reported planning and running Wikipedia events, developing partnerships with local Wikimedia chapters, motivating citizens to upload photos to Wikimedia Commons, identifying gaps in Wikipedia content and filling those gaps, transcribing historic documents and adding them to Wikisource, and contributing data to Wikidata. Most were motivated by their desire to preserve and promote regional languages and culture, and a commitment to open access and open education.