1Lib1Ref

#1Lib1Ref (known in some Romance languages as #1Bib1Ref) is a Wikipedia campaign inviting librarians to participate in the online encyclopedia project, specifically improving articles by adding citations.

#1Lib1Ref
An Israeli librarian using Wikipedia (publicity photo for the project)
StatusActive
FrequencyAnnual
Location(s)Online
Inaugurated15 January 2016 (2016-01-15) – 23 January 2016 (2016-01-23)
Previous event15 May 2022 (2022-05-15) – 5 June 2022 (2022-06-05)
Next event15 May 2023 (2023-05-15) – 5 June 2023 (2023-06-05)
Organized byWikipedia:GLAM
Website1lib1ref.org
A Be like Bill meme relating to the campaign

The first #1Lib1Ref campaign coincided with the 15th anniversary of the founding of Wikipedia in January 2016.[1][2][3] Based on the premise of One Librarian, One Reference, organizers estimated that if each librarian on the planet spent 15 minutes adding a citation, the combined effort would eliminate English Wikipedia's backlog of 350,000 "citation needed" notices.[4] The inaugural, weeklong event ran from 15–23 January 2016, and employed the hashtag #1lib1ref on various social media platforms.[5]

Results of the first campaign

The inaugural campaign ended with 1,232 revisions on 879 pages, by 327 users in 9 languages, using the hashtag #1lib1ref in the edit summary; these numbers likely underestimate the overall impact, since many participants were observed omitting the hashtag from edit summaries. On Twitter the #1lib1ref hashtag was used in over 1,100 posts by over 630 users.[6]

Recurring event

The campaign has been revived as an annual celebration of Wikipedia's birthday,[7] expanding into a three-week event in subsequent years.[8] The 1Lib1Ref campaign is part of the Wikimedia Foundation's GLAM outreach strategy to involve librarians in the improvement of Wikipedia,[9] and other Wikimedia projects (as of 2022 plans).[10]

References

External links