The Library of Congress (LC), recognizing the potential of Wikidata as being a hub of identigfiers, included links in their authority records out to Wikidata in spring 2019. ey bulk loaded 400,000 more LC identifiers into Wikidata to add to the 650,000 IDs in Wikidata. is brought their total to about a million of their identifiers in the system. e majority of these identifiers are to their NAFs and 35,000 link to the Library of Congress subject heading file. Likewise, these links to Wikidata also appear on over one million Library of Congress Linked Data Service authority pages and in the data (Ferriter, 2019).
The PCC also acknowledges how Wikidata can be an important collaborative partner and system to help in the development of identity management and identi er creation for libraries and institutions. In September 2020, the PCC launched a Wikidata pilot project “to further advance the movement toward identity management” (PCC, 2020). Over seventy academic and cultural institutions across the globe will be part of the pilot to increase the movement toward identity management, and membership in PCC is not required to participate in the project.
Conclusion
Even though the project had a narrow scope (focusing on one Wikipedia list and MARC cataloging), the authors were able to learn many significant lessons about Wikipedia practices, cataloging, and how they interact. The practices and goals of catalogers and Wikipedians are often aligned, and even differences between the two group’s practices can be seen as complementary rather than opposed. The Wikipedia-focused project also provided an excellent entry for the authors into associated services such as Wikidata and has led to further projects using that platform. With major institutions such as PCC backing Wikidata-related projects and Wikipedians-in-residence becoming increasingly accepted, additional opportunities for collaboration between Wikipedia and academic libraries are emerging. Critically, the reciprocity of knowledge and expertise between librarians and Wikimedians can significantly improve services and contribute greatly to the overall information landscape.
