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Fifth Annual Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon Follow-up

Purchase College Library was one of over 200 satellite locations to host the Fifth Annual Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon on March 10, 2018.

(Art+Feminism co-founder Michael Mandiberg speaks on making Wikipedia more equitable, video via 92nd Street Y)

Purchase College Library was one of over 200 satellite locations to host the Fifth Annual Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon on Saturday, March 10, 2018.

The day-long event, co-organized at Purchase by Kim Detterbeck, Art Librarian, and Marie Sciangula, Assistant Director of the Teaching, Learning, and Technology Center, aims to address the gender imbalance of Wikipedia editors, contributors, and content. Organized around International Women’s Day, the Edit-a-thon was designed to generate coverage and representation of women and the arts on Wikipedia and to encourage women editorship – a response to the well-known gender gap. Wikipedia’s gender trouble is well-documented; in a 2011 survey, the Wikimedia Foundation found that less than 13% of its contributors identify as women. This lack of women’s participation has led to an alarming dearth of content about women and art in the world’s most popular online research tool and the fifth most popular website worldwide. Art+Feminism’s Edit-a-thon impacts the gender gap through crucial improvements to art and feminism related subjects on Wikipedia. 

Forty-nine participants (students, faculty, and staff) attended the event, most of whom were students from Professor Elizabeth Guffey’s Design History & Theory: 1750 - Today course. Experienced Wikipedian Mike Feist (User:ɱ) was on hand to provide guidance and training to those new to working with and editing Wikipedia. Mike provided training on basic editing, creating citations, adding images, adding internal and external links, and creating new pages.

Purchase College Library’s Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon currently ranks #5 worldwide in terms of participants. A total of 60 articles were edited, seven articles were created, and over 150 edits were made. Throughout the day, attendees edited the Wikipedia pages for female artists focusing on design including Christina Knight, Emily Oberman, Ruby Onyinyechi Amanze, and Georgianna Stout, among many others.

We hope you will consider joining us in 2019 for the Sixth Annual Art+Feminism Wikipedia Edit-a-thon!