Join the MIT Libraries for a Public Domain-themed Wikipedia edit-a-thon! January 1st, 2020 is Public Domain Day – the day when works published in 1924 go out of copyright in the United States and enter the public domain, making them available for anyone to reuse and remix. To celebrate, the MIT Libraries annually digitize newly public domain works, and this year have digitized 10 works from 1924 focusing on women in academia. These will join the 100 works from 1923 that we digitized last year. Because they are now out of copyright, we can freely use images and text from these works on Wikipedia and other openly licensed projects.

January 15 is also Wikipedia Day - the day when Wikipedia turns 19 years old! Wikipedia was founded on January 15, 2001, and Wikipedia editors around the world mark the occasion with edit-a-thons and celebrations. Join us to celebrate at MIT by editing Wikipedia articles and contributing text, images and references to the world's largest encyclopedia. We'll give you an introduction to editing Wikipedia and ideas for topics to work on inspired by our public domain works, or bring our own topics. Experienced Wikipedia editors and librarians will be on hand to answer questions and help; new and experienced editors are welcome. We'll have pizza, snacks, and cake into the evening to celebrate Wikipedia's birthday, Public Domain day, and the future of open knowlege. 

Schedule: 

• 4:00-4:15 - get settled, get snacks
• 4:15-4:45 - introduction to the editathon and editing Wikipedia 
• 4:45-5:00 - introduction to the public domain works 
• 5:00-6:45 - editing with pizza and cake! 

Join us to learn how to edit Wikipedia and share your research skills and expertise with the world!