Building 9066 Archive into Wikipedia: A Case Study of Digital Scholarship, History and Activism at Fresno State

Raymond Pun (1)

1 Fresno State - California State University [Fresno]

Can special collections, archival materials and library exhibits support community activism? The paper focuses on Fresno State and how the university library’s special collections and exhibits served as important research materials to be cited into an online site such as Wikipedia. The case study presents how the library promotes the intersections of digital scholarship, activism and research in a Wikipedia-Edit-A-Thon in March 2017. The Wikipedia-Edit-A-Thon’s theme was the Executive Order of 9066, which was a controversial order signed by President Roosevelt to approve the designated military zones that Japanese Americans would be relocated during the height of World War II. To remember the 75th anniversary of this order, scholars, librarians and community members attended the Wikipedia-Edit-A-Thon and added new sources into Wikipedia from the library’s collections and exhibits. The paper provides the contexts and outcomes of this community activity.

Keywords: digital humanities; Wikipedia; special collections; digital collections; reference

Domains: Digital Libraries [cs.DL]

Raymond Pun. Building 9066 Archive into Wikipedia: A Case Study of Digital Scholarship, History and Activism at Fresno State. DH. Opportunities and Risks. Connecting Libraries and Research, Aug 2017, Berlin, Germany. ⟨hal-01665841⟩