Getting Women's work onto the Internet

A recent post on the National Museum of Women in the Arts was particularly intriguing. The staff and volunteers of the museums library spent a day adding the history and biography of women artists to Wikipedia. They found that when googling a woman artist, they often had a web page, and possibly a blog, but no link to the contributions they had made to the art world.

It's not surprising, since so few women artists are represented in most art museums. And 90% of Wikipedia's editors are men. So the NMWA organized a day of editors writing about women artists. It is a fabulous idea, and one I would like to see replicated many times. They will do other "edit-a-thons" to help build awareness of women artists. If you live in the DC metro area, you can check out the blog site and find a date where you could join them.

“Part of our mission at the library is to facilitate knowledge creation about the history and achievements of women artists worldwide. These significant contributions to Wikipedia’s postings help fulfill those goals while also furthering knowledge about women artists,” Heather Slania said.
She is the director of the Betty Boyd Dettre Library and Research Center at NMWA.

It occurred to me that this would be a great activity for a small group to do together. Research an artist and write a Wikipedia article about them. There are many art quilters who meet in small groups, and they could pick an artist and write about them. It's another way to spread the word about Art Quilters.

Would you be interested in organizing an "edit-a-thon"?