Wikimedia World at the Library Fair 2025: Booth Exhibition and Yokohama Editathon

In addition to the online and in-person forum,  this year’s Wikimedia World in Library Fair 2025 also held a booth exhibition and the Yokohama Editathon.

Booth Exhibition

At a booth set up in the exhibition hall at Pacifico Yokohama from October 22nd to 24th, posters showing Wikimedia’s history and current status were displayed. The “Wikimedia chronology” ran from 2001, when Wikipedia was launched, to 2026, on the vertical axis, and recorded events in the Japanese Wikipedia and Japanese Wikimedians, as well as developments in the global “Wikimedia world.” The chronology clearly showed that the Japanese community had been very active since Wikipedia was launched in 2001.

The “Wikimedia community” poster features a world map showing Wikimedia’s affiliated chapters and user groups, with an explanation of the regional hubs underneath. The community structure can be difficult to understand, but by showing the map, we hope to gradually deepen understanding.

The booth also displayed books published in Japan, some goods distributed at the recent Wikimania, and demos of Wikimedia projects. In the Speakers’ Corner on October 23rd, Satoshi Iida from OpenStreetMap Japan gave an overview of OSM and a demo.

Yokohama Editathon

I held the Yokohama Editathon from October 1st to November 24th. The event was themed around Yokohama, the location of the Library Fair, and aimed to enrich the contents of Wikipedia, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, and other related sites. I prepared an event page that took into consideration participation from overseas, and promoted the event in various ways. A friendly Wikimedian created Malay, Tagalog, Korean versions of the Japanese event page, and also created a Malay poster.

A total of 35 people contributed in the Japanese, Malay, Tagalog, and Korean editions. Wikimedians from Malaysia, the Philippines, Korea, and Australia, whom I had become acquainted with at the ESEAP conference, lent their support. A Moroccan friend I had met at the online editathon also contributed. The editathon resulted in 105 new and improved articles added to Wikipedia. Wikidata resulted a total of 67 new and improved articles . Wikimedia Commons resulted 106 new data items. These numbers weren’t the only achievements. The approximately two-month online editathon attracted many contributors from Japan and abroad, fostering a wide range of interaction. We were also pleased to see that the format for writing results articles was revised and a new event metrics page was created. We were also surprised to see that a joint project with Wikivoyage, which we hadn’t initially envisioned, was launched independently, albeit on a trial basis.

With the conclusion of the Yokohama Editathon, all events for Wikimedia World in Library Fair 2025 have finished. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to the many Wikimedians from Japan and abroad who contributed, the WLF2025 Executive Committee, and the Library Fair & Forum Secretariat for their support. I hope to be able to plan an even broader and deeper event next year.

Postscript: On December 4th, this exhibit won the “Organizing Committee Special Award” in the “Academic Exhibit” category at the Library Fair ＆ Forum.