Organizing a student-driven Wikipedia Edit-a-thon

In recent years, academic libraries have sponsored Wikipedia Edit-a-Thons to help increase the number and quality of pages about women while also presenting an opportunity for undergraduates to conduct and create meaningful research. At a large, research university, one student engagement & outreach intern planned and hosted a Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon, in collaboration with our Special Collections, the Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Department (WGSS), and student clubs. The goal of this event was to create and edit pages, support people and groups whose voices are currently not represented in Wikipedia pages, and provide an exciting opportunity for undergraduate students to make their mark on Wikipedia. This poster would present the work of the student engagement & outreach intern in their planning and hosting of the event, along with the impact of the Edit-a-thon, both locally and nationally. We will share the process of planning such an event, and the best practices for collaborating with stakeholders outside of the library, who are invested in increasing awareness of these women but might not know about the possibilities with an Edit-a-thon. This poster will share resources and ideas for viewers to take back to their own institutions to further the mission of Edit-a-thons: to support meaningful research and increase the authorship and types of people represented in Wikipedia.