How Wikipedians-in-Residence Are Opening Up Cultural Institutions
Wikipedia's comprehensive entries have become the default source of collective knowledge on the Web as our attention spans and patience for deep archival research shrink in the digital age. Yet concerns over the encyclopedia's accuracy and consistency remain. That's where Dominic McDevitt-Parks comes in. The Simmons College graduate student recently joined the National Archives and Records Administration as a summer "Wikipedian-in-residence." McDevitt-Parks is tasked with integrating NARA's vast stockpile of primary documents and records — the bread and butter of history — with the sprawling ecosystem of collective knowledge and collaborative editorship that has defined Wikipedia.
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Cultural institutions, especially those with a glut of historical documents, have an interest in utilizing Wikipedia to call attention to their untouched stores. "The National Archives maintains national records and preserve cultural heritage, but they don't do a great job of presenting this information to the public in a searchable, digestible format," says McDevitt-Parks. "This is exactly what Wikipedia does: presenting history and cultural in a way that people use every day. For the Archives specifically, the mission is not just preserving documents, but promoting their use. Through some sort of collaboration, we can make these records available for regular use by the public at large."
McDevitt-Park, who's earning a Master's degree in history and archive management, is one of several new Wikipedians-in-residence working within cultural institutions around the world in collaboration with the digital encyclopedia. The initiative, first conceived by Wikimedia Cultural Partnerships fellow Liam Wyatt in 2010, was focused in the disconnect between "significant" collections in public museums and the "notable" entries on Wikipedia.
By partnering with Wikipedia, the National Archives is creating unprecedented access to high-resolution prints and scans of primary documents that were originally limited to special-order copies or confined to reproductions available in a pricey catalog.
