passion to share information and help citizens. When this symbiosis was recognized by Catalan Wikipedians and librarians, the initial mistrust started to fall. Librarians learned about a cohesive, online meritocracy of volunteer work that complemented the librarian ethos. On the flipside, Wikipedians learned about the commitment and dedication of librarians, the scope of bibliographic collections pending digitization, and the different timelines, needs, and characteristics of public institutions. Moreover, the issue of gender bias in Wikipedia acquired more significance. In the Catalan-language context, 80 percent of librarians are women while approximately 85 percent of Wikipedians are men (Roqueta, 2014). Reducing gender bias in Wikipedia became one of the biggest challenges of this case study.
What is more, as a minoritized language (Hawkey, 2018; May, 2013), editing the Catalan Wikipedia allows librarians to reinforce their role of promoting language diversity, especially in the case of Libraries specializing in local or heritage collections. It becomes an opportunity to normalize and digitalize the content of knowledge compendiums in this language, as well as to make visible and add value in the network on resources that can be found in their libraries. In areas with low usage of Catalan, #Bibliowikis can serve librarians as a tool to linguistically engage their users and provide them with sources that would not be consulted in other circumstances.
The Catalan Model of Librarians’ Involvement: A Volunteer-Driven Philosophy
Amical Wikimedia, as a nonprofit organization of about 120 volunteers, counts some of the most active Catalan Wikipedians among its members (Amical Wikimedia, 2020). Hence, the dual role of Amical Wikipedia’s volunteers, both in-wiki and off-wiki, becomes the best asset for the outreach of the organization and the free encyclopedia. Volunteers connect and engage with institutions (i.e., libraries for this topic) by introducing them to the values of Wikipedia. In addition, they transfer knowledge by mentoring
