Last week, a bit of controversy erupted surrounding Wikipedia, after claims surfaced of contributors with paid consultancies editing with a conflict of interest after having been paid to use their Wikipedia savvy to promote their clients. While it is not my intention to get into the particulars of that case here—feel free to read more [...]

On May 23, 2012, the White House released the Digital Government Strategy, which outlines how all federal agencies will work to make information and services easily accessible on the internet, anytime, anywhere, and on any device. President Barack Obama said, “Ultimately, this Strategy will ensure that agencies use emerging technologies to serve the public as [...]

Today’s post comes from National Archives at Kansas City staff members, Archivist Elizabeth Burnes and Exhibit Specialist Dee Harris. Photograph, Improvement Missouri River in Vicinity of Glasgow, MO, August 1881. RG 77, Records of the Office of the Chief of Engineers, Omaha District.  (National Archives at Kansas City) The National Archives at Kansas City welcomed [...]

This is a guest post by Lori Byrd Phillips, US Cultural Partnerships Coordinator for the Wikimedia Foundation. Lori has also served as the Wikipedian in Residence at The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis since 2010 and is currently a museum studies graduate student at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. It’s a well-known fact that Wikipedians love NARA [...]

David Ferriero’s recent post over on the AOTUS blog made mention of NARA’s Wikipedia ExtravaSCANza in the context of a discussion of the “Yes We Scan” initiative and a broader digitization strategy. I want to take the opportunity to recap the citizen archivist scanning the National Archives has been hosting for Wikipedians in recent months. [...]

Throughout this holiday season, we encourage you to participate in the exciting activities featured on the Citizen Archivist Dashboard, which is available starting today. Check it out and try tagging, transcription, editing articles, uploading digital scans, and participating in contests all related to the records of the National Archives. We hope that you’ll share any suggestions [...]

A few weeks ago on The Text Message, I introduced Wikimedia’s Wikisource project to you. A sister project of Wikipedia, Wikisource is a free repository of primary-source texts which are transcribed, proofread, and arranged—like Wikipedia—collaboratively by a community of online volunteers. It is my pleasure to announce that, since August 15, Wikimedia’s presence now extends [...]

We asked our new Wikipedian in Residence, Dominic McDevitt-Parks, to tell us a little bit about himself and his passion for Wikipedia.  Welcome to the National Archives, Dominic! Tell us a little about yourself.  Where are you from?  What do you study in school? I am a history buff, a word nerd, a news junkie, [...]