CCA Hosts Inaugural Wiki Edit-a-Thon

Article written by Caroline Speirs, Digital Product Manager – Canadian Centre for Architecture

The Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) held its first ever Wiki edit-a-thon on May 22 in our Study Room. We selected a topic that would be of interest to our local public, as well as to those who may not yet be familiar with the CCA: Women photographers whose works in our collection are architecture-adjacent. We reached out to recent graduates from nearby schools of art history, photography and library sciences.

We set aside 2 hours for editing, which proved to be not enough for attendees, who were mostly first-time editors. We also had a featured guest speaker – Clara Gutsche who was recently awarded the Scotiabank Photography Prize – who gave an engaging talk during the editing portion of the event. Also in the Study Room were selections of photographs from several of our featured women photographers, along with many book and encyclopedia sources from our collection.

Towards 5pm, the group migrated to historic Shaughnessy House where they had drinks and refreshments, socialized, and were offered tours of our current exhibitions in the gallery. Attendees told us they planned to keep editing on Wikipedia, but that it took a while to really grasp what it’s all about and how it works. Participants also said they learned more about the CCA, what we offer, as well as asking when our next Wiki event would be. We were thankful to have some great How to Edit slides prepared by Wikimedia Canada, in English and French, we learned a lot about how to run an edit-a-thon, and we are already planning the next one.

➜ 16 Total Edits made the day of
➜ 13 Editors participated
➜ 167 Words Added
➜ 3 References (citations) were added
➜ 452 Article Views in the 2 weeks following the event.

Photo credit: Foregrounding Women Photographer Wiki edit-a-thon, Canadian Centre for Architecture, 2024. Photographer: Mathieu Gagnon CC-BY-SA-4.0