Join us for the...
MIT Rare Books Edit-a-thon
- Interested in rare books? Interested in Wikipedia? Come to this edit-a-thon to learn about rare books at MIT and edit Wikipedia. There will be a selection of rare books from the MIT collection for participants to look at, read, and use to edit Wikipedia.
- MIT is home to thousands of rare books, from the 1493 Nuremberg Chronicle to a first edition of Whitman's Leaves of Grass. Electricity, telegraphy, magnetism, popular science – even witchcraft and mesmerism – are among the topics covered in MIT's rare collections. Join us for an afternoon in the MIT archives to learn about rare books and how you can use them to contribute to Wikipedia.
PHOTOS Please cite: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Institute Archives and Special Collections
 Aerial view of the East Campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) along the Charles River | |
| When and Where | |
|---|---|
| Date | Friday, October 28, 2016 |
| Time | 12:00 pm - 4:00 pm |
| Address | MIT, bldg. 14N-132 DIRC; 14N-118 Institute Archives Reading Room |
| City, State | Cambridge, MA |
When and Where edit
Friday, October 28, 2016 from 12:00 to 4:00 PM Eastern
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, building 14N-132 DIRC and in the Institute Archives and Special Collections reading room 14N-118
You may also join us remotely from wherever you are!
Register! edit
All are welcome to participate, newcomer and veteran alike. This is open to the MIT community and the public at large.
Register here, on the Event Dashboard
On-site attendees edit
- Gkuriger (talk) 19:10, 13 September 2016 (UTC)
- Rtbhive (talk) 19:45, 30 September 2016 (UTC)
- bobmodikiw
- FaerieDevilish
- Ctanguay
- Pi.1415926535
- EdJohnston
Remote attendees edit
- Remote attendees are welcome to participate in the edit-a-thon, but will not have access to the live presentation and trainers. Please enter your Wikipedia user name below.
Schedule edit
Attendees may come and go throughout the session. Bring your laptop! Snacks will be provided in the DIRC. Rare books will be in the Institute Archives Reading Room 14N-118 only.
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| DIRC open for edit-a-thon! | |
| Overview of Wikipedia, with option for training class. Library sources available. | |
| Rare book presentation in the Institute Archives and Special Collections reading room 14N-118 | |
| Let's edit! in Reading Room or DIRC | |
| Announcements, accomplishments, thanks, wind-down |
Articles to edit / create edit
- Eliot Bible: Mamusse wunneetupanatamwe up-biblum God. Cambridge, Mass., 1685. This book relates to Robert Boyle (the Eliot Bible – is dedicated “to the Honourable Robert Boyle Esq.”, read more about this at Big Names on Campus: Robert Boyle) and the Wopanaak Language Reclamation project which does not have an article.
- Add a line about the dedication to Boyle's article
- Create an article page for the Wopanaak Language Reclamation project. There are many Wikipedia articles that mention the project including the article Wampanoag people
- Other sources include articles in the MIT Technology Review - Language Reclamation 101 - Saving a Language
- Huggins: An atlas of representative stellar spectra. London, 1899 Margaret Lindsay Huggins / create an article for the book: An Atlas of Representative Stellar Spectra
- Create article for The Street Railway Gazette - multiple issues in DOME, but can’t find in Wikipedia - 150 years in the stacks
- Two volumes will be on hand to look at
- View the Grammar of Ornament during the rare books session and clean up the Wikipedia article about its author by adding sources to the Owen Jones article. We will have 1st and 2nd editions on hand.
- Add info about the Vail collection to the Theodore Vail article
- George Edward Dering - collector of books that became the Vail collection at MIT. His interests were not limited to "telegraphy, chemistry, iron- and brick-making" but also included things like witchcraft, the occult, and gymnastics. A few books he collected will be on hand.
- William Barton Rogers - Geologist, educator and the founder of MIT.
- Emma Savage Rogers (wife of William Barton Rogers) is missing from Wikipedia! Should she have her own article?? She did edit the publication William Barton Rogers Life and Letters - copies will be on hand
- She is mentioned in her father's Wikipedia article - James Savage and in the article for William Barton Rogers.
- Emma Savage journal from 1836 - at Harvard, description available through Hollis
- Synesius: Synesiou episkopou. Paris, 1553
- In Synesuis's Wikipedia article it states "His scientific interests are attested by his letter to Hypatia..." but Synesuis had a few letters to Hypatia - something that might be worth clarifying
Other things to work on edit
- Master List of WikiProjects might help identify articles for creation or improvement based on topic.
- List of Meet-Up Events - event pages often have lists of suggested articles
- Art and Feminism meet-up has a list of artists who worked in Boston and don't have Wikipedia articles.
- Boston area meet-ups
- #1Lib1Ref (One Librarian, One Reference)(make sure to include the hashtag #1Lib1Ref in the edit summary in order to track participation)
- Women's history article list from Simmons 2014 editathon Under "Suggested Topics" there are many articles that need citation and reference work
- Sloan Fellowship article needs updated references and external links
- MIT School of Architecture and Planning could use some work/more citations
- Boston start-class articles and stub class articles about Boston
- Translation - learn more about how to translate English articles to other languages.
Missing:
- Alfred Keil (Ocean Engineering)
- Alice Kimball Smith (author of A Peril and a Hope: The Scientists' Movement in America 1945-47)
- David Epstein (composer, conductor, MIT professor of music)
- Any topic you're interested in!
Resources about editing Wikipedia edit
- Five Pillars of Wikipedia
- Beginners’ Guide to Wikipedia
- How to use Primary Sources on Wikipedia - No Original Research
- Wikipedia Mark-Up Cheat Sheat
- What is an Infobox?
- Categorization
Resources edit
- Big Names on Campus: Tumblr exploring rare book connections to those big names that are on some MIT campus buildings
- 150 Years in the Stacks: "...a look at MIT through the prism of its library collections. Think of this as a tour through the MIT Libraries’ open stacks and offsite storage areas, with a side trip to its closed-stack rare collections and an occasional glimpse into the vault."
- MIT Libraries
- Historical newspapers (online) MIT Libraries
- Reference Resources (e.g. encyclopedias) online via MIT Library
- The Tech: MIT's oldest and largest newspaper
- Internet Archive Digitized Texts
- Hathi Trust Digital Library