Create 2023/What I've learnt about partnerships through The Wikipedia Library: Submissions:2021/Editing seems too hard

WikiConference North America 2023 unfortunately could not accommodate this submission in its program this year.

As the partnerships lead for The Wikipedia Library, I spend my time having conversations with commercial publishers and other organizations that keep essential knowledge behind paywalls. It's my job to persuade them to provide free access to high-quality research material for our most productive editors, so we can increase the reliability of Wikipedia. Partners that I've recently onboarded include Sage Publications, British Newspaper Archives, and the University of Chicago Press.

In this lightning talk, I'll share prospective partners' most common misconceptions about Wikipedia and our movement; the reasons they give for not taking part; and the arguments that convince them to take this step towards sharing their information more openly.

This talk will be useful to anyone who wants to develop content partnerships. You will learn about how we identify and vet partners; our outreach strategies; The Wikipedia Library pitch; and the data and reporting we use.