Evaluation
Each partner library learned valuable lessons and identified opportunities for improvement of future #CiteNLM events. Most partners identified a desire for a greater number of participants at their events and plan to address this issue in several ways. Since upcoming events will most likely be virtual for the foreseeable future, some institutions are exploring the possibility of holding edit-a-thons as asynchronous events similar to the main #CiteNLM month-long campaigns to enable more students, staff, and faculty to participate as their schedules allow. Partner libraries also mentioned plans to expand promotion to wider audiences (e.g., through posted advertisements in spaces frequented by students and hospital staff), advertise earlier, and collaborate with university health sciences departments to draw in more editors by emphasizing the educational potential of edit-a-thon participation.
In some cases, event location may have contributed to low participation. Due to space restrictions, UMB held their event in library classrooms located in the basement away from the usual library traffic. They hypothesized that moving future in-person events to a central location on campus or in the library may pique the curiosity of passers-by and lead to increased attendance. UMass experienced difficulties tracking participation because not all participants joined the event dashboard, so their edits were not captured. In spite of reported lower-than-desired attendance in some cases, all responding partner libraries agreed that taking part in #CiteNLM helped transform Wikipedia users into contributors by changing their perceptions of Wikipedia. Participants and hosts both learned that they could make an impactful contribution to Wikipedia by becoming editors and improving the encyclopedia’s health information.
The NNLM WWG is extremely appreciative of the work their academic library partners have done to bolster the success of #CiteNLM and hopes that these collaborations will grow even stronger for future editing campaigns. Partner feedback has consistently proved essential for shaping the future direction of #CiteNLM and academic libraries will continue to be a core audience for the WWG’s efforts to improve
