User:ACrockford/NLS Training

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This page has been created for the use of staff at the National Library of Scotland who are being introduced to Wikipedia editing for the first time as part of a training session run by the Wikimedian-in-Residence (July-March 2013). It is designed to supplement training by listing possible articles for improvement or creation which relate to easily accessible NLS sources, and is not a help page or training page itself.

Additional helpful information can also be found on the National Library of Scotland project page. Once training has finished, if you could add a link to pages you have created or edited either during the training session or as a result of it to Wikipedia:GLAM/NLS/New Contributions, it will help us keep track of the NLS's contributions to Wikimedia. If you have added significant information to an article from the sources mentioned, please delete that article as it will no longer be useful for future training sessions. You may also add your own suggestions - remember that this is not a list of requested articles relating to Scotland; that is available on the WikiProject Scotland requested articles page.

If you have sources in mind which you can easily access and cite, you are welcome to use those as part of your training session provided the resources are reputable, independent sources. Stub articles are arranged into thematic categories; you can browse those different categories in the Stub category container. Examples of stubs relating to Scottish history, culture, people, etc can be found in the following categories:

Primary and Secondary sources[edit]

Please note! While we encourage you to make excellent use of the unique sources that the NLS has in its collections, and use them to improve articles, all articles should be mainly based on reliable, published secondary sources. According to Wikipedia's sources policy, any interpretation of primary source material requires a reliable secondary source for that interpretation. The primary sources mentioned below should only be used to make straightforward, descriptive statements of facts that can be verified by any educated person with access to the source but without further, specialized knowledge.

We encourage you to make use of access to the Library's licensed collections or any other online sources you may have access to online (i.e. Google Books preview, Amazon's 'Look Inside' feature) in order to provide context or interpretation of sources. These resources can provide a fascinating, colourful insight into the article, but there should be additional sources as well.

Contributing[edit]

Once you have had been introduced to basic Wiki formatting, as well as the structure, policies, and guidelines that apply to all Wikimedia projects, you can practice your new skills by making some contributions to existing shorter articles or stub articles. Below are a list of possible articles which you may be interested in editing, as well as links to relevant NLS Digital Collections which you may be able to use as resources.

Medical History of British India[edit]

You may find resources to improve or enhance the following articles in the Medical History of British India Digital Collection at the NLS

The article for Famines, Epidemics, and Public Health in the British Raj has been tagged as requiring links to other Wikipedia articles, and would also benefit from expansion and a stronger layout; this may require the creation of different articles, for example one on Disease in British India and one on Practice of Medicine in British India.

Leprosy in India is a relatively brief article with little specific historical information

The Prostitution in Colonial India article contains a brief subsection on the impact of the Contagious Diseases Act but little specific information relating to medical history beyond this.

Broadsides[edit]

The article on Street literature which focuses on broadsides is basically a stub (though not marked as one), and while it contains an external link to the Library's digital collection, it could benefit massively from some expansion and improvement, perhaps from some of the information in the Resources section or some of the linked sources?

The article on Jamie Macpherson could perhaps benefit from descriptions included in the broadside ballad The Last Words of James Mackpherson Murderer

The article on John Clerk, Lord Eldin mentions an accident in which a floor in Eldin's house collapsed, which is covered in several broadsides in the collection

There currently seems to be no article for the Great Fire of Edinburgh (aka Great Fire of 1824), though it is mentioned; there is a broadside in the collection entitled To the Public. Mode of Extinguishing Fire from an Edinburgh medical student that was written in response to this event - with adequate additional research this could be a fascinating article and the broadside sheet could provide some fascinating details

The Burke and Hare article might be improved using some of the contemporary reactions etc. from the broadsides collection, as could the article on Resurrectionists in the United Kingdom

Guid Cause[edit]

The article on Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom carries no specific mention of suffragette activities or the movement for women's suffrage in Scotland in particular; there is also no separate article about the women's suffrage movement in Scotland. Either or both could be created by more ambitious editors with knowledge of the collection and secondary research on the topic. If creating a new article for Women's suffrage in Scotland (or even if just creating a subsection in the existing UK article), it would be a good idea to share the draft article with the WikiProject:Scotland community and the WikiProject:Women's History community to get more input from other editors.

Blighty and Sea Pie[edit]

The article on Blighty magazine is a stub and there is much room for expansion by new contributors who know more about it or who know the materials in the Blighty and Sea Pie collection, and there is no article about Sea-Pie magazine; consider whether there might be a place for a larger article about magazines and print culture during World War I more generally?

Pencils of Light[edit]

The article on the Edinburgh Calotype Club is a stub, and could be expanded using the information in the Pencils of Light digital resource as well as the various supplementary sources that it links to and any additional sources. Be wary of adding images from the collection at this time until NLS policy is confirmed; you may also contact the curators of the collection and the Library's Intellectual Property Rights Officer to check whether the release of selected content is possible.

Eminent Scotsmen[edit]

You may wish to compare the less commonly known entries in the Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen collection to the Wikipedia entries on the same, to see whether you can help expand or enhance the Wikipedia articles on those figures. Examples include:

General[edit]

The article for John Kirk (explorer) is filled with an extensive bibliography and little else; sources from the Kirk Papers

The article on Scotticisms could be expanded using some of the sources and information in the Northern Lights: The Scottish Enlightenment resource; at the moment it is primarily a list with little information about the history and tensions of 'Scotticisms'. This could be brought out based on sources as well as research done for the collection and elsewhere.

The Select Society article is also little more than a stub, and contains no information about the Edinburgh Society for the encouragement of arts, sciences, manufactures and agriculture, which also does not appear to have its own page. There are several sources about both Societies available in the Northern Lights section on Clubs and Societies. The Edinburgh Cape Club could be improved, and some clearer information about the history of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh might be added to the Royal Society of Edinburgh article.

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