Participate in the “Library Fair 2024 Forum in Yukuhashi”

by , Member of The Wikimedian Society of Tokyo and edit Tango. I have written over 1000 articles and have written approximately 30 Good Articles for the Japanese Wikipedia. I have been participating in Wikimedia outreach activities since 2014. I also provides explanations and editing support at Wikipedia-related events. I was featured as a Wikipedian in the 2022 Japanese book "Librarian Directory" (Seikyusha).
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On September 20, 2024, I participated in the “Library Fair 2024 Forum in Yukuhashi” held at Librio Yukuhashi in Yukuhashi City, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. I exhibited a booth for the “Wikipedia Exhibition” with Soseki-no-Neko.

Booth exhibit “Wikipedia Exhibition”

The “Wikipedia Exhibition” is a general term for Wikipedia projects at the Library Fair, and is run with the support of the Wikimedia Foundation.

At the “Library Fair 2024 Forum in Yukuhashi”, we exhibited a booth in front of the hall of the Library Fair venue Librio Yukuhashi. We received Wikipedia-related inquiries from visitors to the booth, explained the philosophy of Wikipedia and the significance of “Wikipedia Town”, etc. We also explained the activities of the “Wikipedia Exhibition” to Mayor Kudo Masahiro of Yukuhashi City.

Among the visitors to the booth was the chairman and wife of the Tagawa History Research Society. There is an article on Wikipedia about his grandfather, a soldier, but his career is only written halfway and the content is inaccurate, so he asked what ton do. I opened the Wikipedia editing screen on the spot and explained that anyone can edit Wikipedia.

In 2018, the Tagawa City Library started operating the “Chikuho-Tagawa Digital Archive,” and the Tagawa History Research Society is also cooperating in the digital archiving of local materials. In 2023, “New Tagawa Travelogue” edited by the chairman of the Tagawa History Research Society, was also published.

People who are already involved in such activities will immediately understand the significance of the Wikimedia project. There are few Wikipedia outreach activities in the Kyushu region, including Fukuoka Prefecture, so I feel that the role of exhibiting at a booth where people can easily ask for advice is great.

“Library Fair 2024 Forum in Yukuhashi”

The people who participate in the Library Fair are not only librarians, but also a wide range of people, including local government officials, library and information science teachers, and employees of library-related companies.

The Wikipedia Exhibition was exhibited as one of the sponsoring company booths, but other sponsoring companies included BRAINTECH Co., Ltd., Calil Co., Ltd., and TRC Library Service Inc.

– BRAINTECH is a company that sells the “Information Center” library system for small and medium-sized libraries. More than 1,200 institutions, including school libraries and municipal libraries, have introduced the “Information Center”.

– Calil is a company that provides a cross-search service for books. Users can perform a comprehensive cross-search of books in more than 7,400 libraries nationwide.

– TRC Library Service is a company that manages public libraries under the designated manager system. It is the largest designated manager of public libraries in Japan, and manages more than 200 public libraries.

We spoke with many participants at the booth, but the people we had the most opportunities to talk to were probably the people from the sponsoring companies.

We will continue to hold the Wikipedia Exhibition in the future to make many library professionals aware of the high affinity between libraries and Wikipedia.

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