Wikipedia, which turns 18 this week, is now viewed 6,000 times every second and more than 200,000 editors contribute every month.

Before Wikipedia came along, information cataloging and dissemination used to be a matter of rigorous scholarship. Encyclopedia editors were revered and respected academics, mostly from privileged backgrounds, who focused on the “official canon” of what was known and needed to be preserved.

Wikipedia has changed all that, but it’s also been criticized for a lack of diversity in its subject matter and those deemed worthy of inclusion. So students at University of Southern California recently gathered in the library for a Wikipedia Edit-a-thon for Diversity and Inclusion(Opens in a new window), where they learned how to edit and get involved.

We spoke with one of the event’s organizers, Elizabeth Galoozis(Opens in a new window), Associate University Librarian and Head of Information Literacy at USC. Galoozis has a Masters of Science in Library Science from Boston’s Simmons University and moved west to join USC in 2014 after stints at many academic libraries, including MIT and Bentley University, also in Massachusetts. Here are edited and condensed excerpts from our email conversation.

How engaged was the library in Wikipedia before you started this event?
The libraries hosted(Opens in a new window) a Wikipedia edit-a-thon three years ago to coincide with Women’s History Month. I was not involved in planning that event, but I participated. It was actually my first time editing Wikipedia. I also collaborated with a writing professor here, Dr. Vanessa Griffith Osborne(Opens in a new window), to support her students in an assignment where they edited Wikipedia and reflected on their experience. Both of these were aimed at remedying the representation gap on Wikipedia.

In a 2014 academic paper(Opens in a new window), you discuss issues of power, withholding access, varying levels of privilege—or lack of—which allow or bar readers to sources.
Librarians have been facilitating access to, and helping people evaluate, information not “of” the library since the beginning of libraries. Sometimes we’re not providing access to the information, but we are providing the wireless or the help in evaluating the information. While they’re at USC, students have access to a huge amount of online subscription resources—we’re using some of them today to provide the background for editing articles. But those are only available to those with USC email addresses.

Your role as a librarian is to connect them to sources and educate them in how to use them?
Part of academic librarians’ job is to help students learn how to look at any kind of information critically, because most of them are not going on to academia and access to subscription peer-reviewed journals.

So similar to Wikipedia in a way?
Right. Wikipedia’s mission is to be an open-access source of information—a democratizing force, in the same way that public libraries are meant to be.

What’s the main purpose of your edit-a-thon? Training students to edit Wikipedia?
I would say there are two main purposes today: (1) Make a small dent in the underrepresentation of people and cultures on Wikipedia that are not white American men and (2) for students to see themselves as contributors to an ongoing conversation. There’s something very visible and tangible about instantly publishing your research that other people will look at for information.

Is there a list of suggested topics to hand?
We’re providing a list of stubs—articles that already have a little information—because it’s easier to add to those than to come up with a subject that has no article, and you have to make a certain number of edits before you can write an original article.

The American Library Association published a report, and publicizes editathons, to encourage library professionals to engage with Wikipedia, saying: ‘Libraries need not see Wikipedia as competition; rather, failing to leverage its omnipresence in the online world constitutes a missed opportunity.’ Do you see this movement as ‘professionalizing’ (in a good way) Wikipedia?
I don’t think we’re professionalizing Wikipedia any more than anyone else who contributes is. With this event, we are doing what librarians often do: facilitating and focusing resources and people in order to accomplish a goal. I don’t think Wikipedia is competition to contemporary libraries any more than Twitter or IMDb.

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It all contributes to the information available.
Part of information literacy is recognizing what kinds of information sources are appropriate for different tasks.

How are you helping students deal with controversy on the site, like error-filled posts?
Like any publisher or piece of information, Wikipedia is ultimately created by human beings with biases and preferences, and with varying access to information, internet access, and time to put in to learning how to edit, and writing and editing articles. There are also entries that are the constant source of controversy and argument. In a way, controversy is more obvious and visible on Wikipedia because you can see the edits and the back and forth on the talk page.

That’s a good point; we can see the debate unfold.
It’s more and more difficult to ascertain if information is accurate or credible, as technology advances and it’s easier to manipulate and distort information. I really try to encourage students to read widely and not rely on one source of information about anything.

Finally, what do you hope to achieve from today in a practical sense?
I’m hoping that everyone who participates today feels empowered as a creator of information, and that we make even a small amount of progress in diversifying Wikipedia.

If you’re interested in learning how to become a contributor to Wikipedia set up an account here(Opens in a new window) and read how to get started(Opens in a new window).