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It will run from August to September 2014 at various venues around Cape Town.
The sole aim of this series will be to update and create Wikipedia pages for as many South African authors as possible, thus allowing South Africa to be a part of creating knowledge and crafting history.
It is becoming apparent that most of the content on Wikipedia pertaining to South Africa, and the continent in general, is curated by people from outside of South Africa and, as such, much of it is outdated or inefficient.
Open Book Festival wants this to change.
Therefore, thirteen editors from the University of Cape Town’s mentorship program and another thirteen volunteers have been chosen to participate in four events to update the South African literature content on Wikipedia.
The series of events are as follows:
• Build up events on 29 August and 5 September: Once the editors are familiar with the Wikipedia entry system, Open Book will host two build up events that will kick-start the edit-a-thon series.
The public will be invited to come and view the live editing process. (Venues are still to be confirmed.)
• Edit-a-thon on 21st September: All the previous events will be a build up to the official Edit-a-thon that will take place during the Open Book Festival. Contributors will upload their pre-approved content simultaneously and people from around the world will also be encouraged via traditional and social media to upload their own content.
While this is happening, there will be a discussion about the content that will be streamed live on a screen inside the Fugard Theatre, one of the main hubs for Open Book Festival events.
All literature enthusiasts are invited to send through information on authors, literature festivals or general South African literature that they would like to have included on the Wikipedia pages.
The content will be fact-checked before it goes live at the Edit-a-thon in September.
This is a huge undertaking and one that cannot be completed in its entirety during the festival, therefore the Open Book team hopes that this Edit-a-thon will start a chain reaction that encourages individuals to upload pages for the authors that interest them.
The primary goal is to increase not only the amount of information available to literary fans around the world, but the quality thereof.
For more information about the Open Book Festival, head on over to the website.
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