ARL and the Wikimedia Foundation have been in conversation about collaboration and mission alignment since 2015. Representatives from the two organizations held a summit at the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) conference in 2016 in Columbus, Ohio, and subsequently contributed to several white papers5 exploring additional opportunities to work together. The IFLA summit surfaced the following principal areas of interest:
1. Using linked open data (LOD) to describe and connect resources, to mutually enrich Wikimedia and library discovery sources
2. Establishing learning communities for Wikimedians in libraries, cultural heritage, and research institutions
3. Librarians addressing the gaps in content and the cultural barriers inherent in Wikipedia, and conversely, using Wikimedia projects to help address cultural barriers in traditional library and archival practice
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