QPL's Queensbridge Tech Lab hosted a full house for the Queens Name Explorer Edit-a-Thon event Photo by Natalie Milbrodt

On Saturday, March 16, a standing-room-only crowd—especially notable for one of the first warm days of spring and the day of New York City’s St. Patrick’s Day parade—packed into Queens Public Library's (QPL) Queensbridge Tech Lab, a makerspace in the Long Island City neighborhood of Queens. Drawing them to the space was the Queens Name Explorer Edit-a-Thon, hosted by QPL’s Memory Project, Wikimedia NYC, OpenStreetMap US, and Urban Archive.

Attendees were invited to use the library’s computers or bring their own laptops, with the event created for “the tech-savvy to learn about Queens history and for the history-savvy to hone their open data skills.” The program used data from Urban Archive’s Queens Name Explorer, which aims to document every place in Queens that is named for a person—schools, parks, streets, and more. Many of these historical luminaries have Wikipediia entries, but some don’t, and the day’s assignment included improving existing entries and creating some where none previously existed, with a Google doc provided that listed entries that needed work.

The free event was offered twice, from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 1 to 4 p.m., with attendees registering and setting up Wikimedia accounts in advance. Afternoon participants first heard from QPL’s Assistant Director of Digital Inclusion Jin Hyun Bae, who welcomed the prospective Wikipedia editors and explained that the event was part of a growing tradition. Since 2018, Bae said, QPL has joined in the celebration of Open Data Week, a program that New York City’s Office of Technology and Innovation says explores “public data’s connection to environmental justice, genealogy research, and poverty reduction efforts.”

Bae was followed by Zachary Feder, open data program manager at the Mayor’s Office of Data Analytics, who, in addition to describing open data that New York City residents encounter on a daily basis—letter grades in restaurants, for example—discussed how Wikipedia works and the tenets it’s based on. “It’s encyclopedia fan fiction,” said Feder.

The heart of the program came next, when Richard Knipel, a board member of Wikimedia New York City, showed attendees how to make edits in Wikipedia and then moved around the room helping as needed. Participants dove right in, and one of the first articles improved was that on Robert Rygor, whom the event’s Wikipedia page explained was an “LGBT rights and AIDS activist who grew up in Astoria; first person to protest the exclusion of the LGBT community from the annual New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade on Fifth Avenue.”

With the room still abuzz as attendees chatted and helped one another make edits and find information to add to Wikipedia—not to mention help themselves to the snacks funded by local Council Member Julie Won—more learning was soon underway. OpenStreetMap US board member Harrison Devine introduced another activity: adding to Wikidata, a sister site to Wikipedia that stores data, using OpenStreetMap (OSM), an openly licensed resource that powers sites such as Queens Name Explorer.

First Devine showed the mapping resource, “a geographic database that’s structured with information on each place—its address, whether it has internet access, who operates it,” and other details. In addition to these places, called “nodes,” OSM shows “ways,” said Devine, such as bus lines; “relations” connect ways and nodes. The OSM board member explained that “it’s important to link Wikidata and OpenStreetMap, because Wikidata doesn’t have as much data and if you connect them, Wikidata can pull from OpenStreetMap.” Devine also explained that OSM is built on MapComplete, a resource that allows users to view and edit what a place is named after—apt for the day’s program.

QPL’s Metadata Services Coordinator and Queens Memory Project Director Natalie Milbrodt told LJ that she was very pleased with the turnout, and that “people were completing the assignments on the project page even before the event.” Milbrodt notes that the library has had a positive experience working with open-data projects from outside the institution and “would encourage other libraries to invite them in.” She explains that the library will continue to use the set of names generated for the edit-a-thon as a “punch list” going forward. In an email to attendees after the event, Milbrodt reported that the event resulted in 29 new submissions to the Queens Name Explorer site and 974 new Wikidata items. The remaining tasks will remain open for anyone to complete on the event’s site.

Karly Wildenhaus, senior metadata specialist for New York Public Library, was also in attendance, and offered metadata-related reasons why this work is important to libraries. Many figures are not represented in Library of Congress authority data, she noted. “It’s hard to get people [listed] in there, but easy to get them into Wikimedia. Wikimedia can also pull in more library sources, such as Getty thesauri.” Wildenhaus also explained that Wikidata “teaches Google who the person is so they can surface in search engines,” an equalizer summarized by Jin Hyun Bae’s parting comment: “This is democracy in action.”

NYC Open Data week takes place from March 16–24. Many of the events are virtual and cover topics that are of interest outside of NYC.