Wiki Academy/Department of Public Libraries, Bangalore

Date and Time
12 Sep 2011, Monday, 11:00AM to 2:00PM

Venue and facilities
Indira Priyadarshini Childrens library near State Central Library, Cubbon Park. It has a projector and lecture facilities and computers (10) with internet access.

About the Institution
Department of Public libraries runs Public libraries across Karnataka. More information (in Kannada) is available at the Dept website

Participants
20-30 Library professionals of Department of Public libraries

Contact Persons at the Organisation

 * RK Badigannavar, Deputy Director,Dept of Public libraries.

Volunteers

 * Arjuna Rao Chavala
 * G K John
 * Hari Prasad Nadig
 * Ansuman
 * Omshivaprakash H L

Custom brochure for the event
Event brochure

Report


About 30 participants primarily comprising of Deputy Directors and Chief librarians of the department attended. Sri RK Badigannavar, Deputy Director, State Central Library welcomed the participants and introduced Arjuna Rao Chavala, Gautam John and other wikipedians. Sri KG Venkatesh,Director, Department of Public Libraries thanked Wikimedia Chapter for the initiative and encouraged the participants to make the best use of this session, to learn about Wikipedia, the encyclopaedia that anybody can contribute to. Arjuna Rao chavala presented a copy of Wikipedia and chapter brochures to Sri KG Venkatesh. All participants were given a copy of brochures by Sri Ansuman, who managed the registration desk.

Wikipedia Overview
Arjuna Rao Chavala explained how Wikipedia was founded ten years back and how it became the fifth most popular website with content in over 270 languages. He clarified how the principles of verifiability and Neutral point of view help in ensuring the quality of Wikipedia articles.

Kannada Wikipedia Demonstration
Omshivaprakash, Kannada Wikipedian demonstrated how one can contribute to Wikipedia by explaining various commands available on Wikipedia page. He explained how to create account and the advantages of editing with an account. Several questions from the audience were addressed.

Wikipedia Lab
Several participants made use of the internet lab available to create accounts, browse Wikipedia and create articles. Arjuna and the team assisted them and provided feedback on making the articles better. They also recognised few participants who successfully created stub articles in a short time. The topics were Copyright department of Public library, Single parenting and a Kannada poem extolling Wikipedia. Post lunch, the session was concluded with some of the participants sharing their learning experiences and highlighting that Wikipedia provides them a great opportunity to collaboratively contribute content and enrich the knowledge.

Future plans if any
Proposed Editathon (Article creation event) and some more Wiki academies over the next 3-4 months