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Rh participated in #CiteNLM by editing over 600 health articles. Seven academic libraries have also contributed by hosting affiliated events.

Campaign History and Evolution

Background

The initial idea for implementing a series of online edit-a-thons began at NLM in a conversation with Wikipedian Ashleigh Coren during fall 2017, at a time when NNLM leadership was seeking innovative methods of engagement to expand beyond one-way communications like email newsletters. Edit-a-thon campaigns presented a creative opportunity to engage members through health topics of broad interest. After a call for interested parties in January 2018, a project planning team, the Wikipedia Working Group (WWG), was formed of librarians from NNLM’s regional and national offices. The WWG held a series of conversations with the Wikipedia medical community about their needs. Notably, trailblazer Dr. James Heilman, the founder of WikiProject:Medicine, consulted and later provided training. Due to its adaptability and simplicity, Wikipedia Library’s already established and widely recognized #1Lib1Ref campaign, which encourages librarians to improve Wikipedia by adding citations, served as a model (“The Wikipedia,” 2020).

2018 Campaigns

The topic chosen for the inaugural NNLM edit-a-thon in spring 2018, a one-day virtual event, was rare diseases. The WWG, which at the time included just one experienced Wikipedia editor, quickly learned the basics of editing biomedical articles in order to teach others. The WWG also created a project page in Wikipedia and a Wikimedia Labs Programs & Events Dashboard (NNLM Edit-a-thon, 2018), so participants could easily locate suggested articles and other information about the project and the WWG could quantitatively track event participation.

Once issues like time zone differences and platform choices had been ironed out, the next major challenge was to communicate plans