70 Pages of Change: Improving Queer Representation Online through Strategic Partnerships

Much of the knowledge developed in online spaces skews to a white, cis-male, heteronormative default, creating significant representational gaps in digital spaces. To tackle these representational inequities, academic librarians and MLS students took digital activism to a new level, partnering with public library and public radio staff to organize two events to address gaps in Wikipedia’s LGBTQIA+ representation. In an initial research event, faculty, staff and students identified missing or inadequate Wikipedia entries and located sources to fill those gaps. The second event put those sources to work in a large-scale Wikipedia edit-a-thon, part of a tech and music festival.