We are dedicating our next event, to be held on January 18th, to Wikimedia Foundation's 1Lib1Ref event. "Imagine," they say, "a World where Every Librarian Added One More Reference to Wikipedia." And we say, why limit this to librarians?

Please join us 1-3pm on Friday January 18th, at BU or at BC or online (details here), to contribute a reference to Wikipedia — or to work on a different crowdsourcing project. If you don't know how to contribute, we'll help. Bring a laptop and a willingness to spend some time improving the worldwide cultural record.

Crowd Cafe is a monthly informal gathering for people wishing to contribute to crowdsourced projects. We will provide in-person and online hosting, camaraderie, and light direction help as needed. You, we hope, will provide human power for projects of your choosing.

What crowdsourced projects?

Any projects you like. Wikipedia editing, historical document transcription, annotation of satellite images to aid in disaster relief efforts. We’ve made a list of projects seeking help — there are many — and are adding to it; see link below.

Who can participate?

Anyone with a reasonably recent laptop or desktop computer (tablets and phones tend to be pretty painful to use for these projects), an internet connection, and some time. Barriers to entry vary, but are generally pretty low. We’ll help you get started if you like.

Often, no specialized expertise is required; there are projects to which middle and high schoolers could meaningfully contribute. Other projects benefit from more experience, whether it be the ability to read 19th century American handwriting and decipher common abbreviations, or expertise in a field of research relevant to a Wikipedia article.

Crowd Cafe will take place on the third Friday of every month, 1-3 pm US Eastern time: February 15th, March 15th, April 19th, and May 17th.

You may join us:

• in person — current hosts include BU and BC;
• via a Zoom meeting;
• on Twitter via the #crowdcafe hashtag

More information, including rationale, locations, and a list of crowdsourced projects, is at https://is.gd/crowdcafe.

Cohosted by the digital scholarship groups at Boston University and Boston College.