Wikimedia World at the Library Fair 2025: Report on Participating in Wikimania Nairobi

The Wikimedia movement has a strong connection with libraries, so we exhibited a booth called “Wikimedia World at the Library Fair 2025” at the annual Library Fair & Forum, where Japanese library professionals gather. On this occasion, I shared my experiences participating in Wikimania Nairobi with the Japanese community. The forum on October 24, 2025, was held both in-person and online.

First, I introduced the various Wikimedia projects and explained the global volunteer community that actually runs these projects. Next, I showed a list of past Wikimania conferences and discussed the results of my research on how many Japanese people have participated. With the exception of the Wikimania 2018 Cape Town, several Japanese people have participated in every Wikimania since the first one in Frankfurt 2005. Nearly ten Japanese people participated in the Taipei 2007 and the Hong Kong 2013, both held in Asia, and the keynote speaker at both events was also Japanese.

Next, I discussed an overview of this year’s Nairobi conference and introduced each of the four other participants from Japan besides myself, explaining their contributions. They were VZP10224, a Wikipedia administrator and acting representative of Wikimedians of Japan User Group (WJUG); Sae Kitamura (Saebou), a Shakespeare scholar*; Eugene Ormandy from the Toumon Wikipedian Club Japan; and Narumi Shibata from WJUG. Each of them is actively involved in the Wikimedia movement, and they are all very reliable colleagues.

I talked about my three collaborations in Nairobi. The first was presenting at a “Storytelling and Learning with Diff” session, the second was participating in the WikiWomen* Summit, and the third was participating in WikiChoir. I also mentioned that I personally handed out origami cranes. As an extra point, I also talked about wearing a Japanese yukata at the opening ceremony. Thanks to the yukata, I was able to take pictures with many people and have lively conversations.

Following my presentation, there was a lively Q&A session with the participants. Discussions covered various topics from multiple perspectives, including the characteristics and trends of the Japanese Wikimedia community, collaboration between libraries and Wikimedia, and the reasons why the reliability of early Wikipedia, which was initially not very high, gradually improved. Finally, a participant from the audience emphasized the importance of collaboration, which resonated with many of present. The video recording of the forum has been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons; please feel free to watch it.

*I mistakenly stated the wrong title of Sae Kitamura’s book. The correct bibliographic information is: Sae Kitamura, “Shakespeare, Which You Will Never Learn at School,” Asahi Press Inc., 2025.