Welcome back to our Spotlight series, in which we interview individuals who are contributing in various ways to open and accessible knowledge. It has been a while since our last Spotlight with Ben Watson, UCL’s Head of Digital Accessibility, but we think this will be worth the wait.

For this instalment, we spoke to Joanna Baines, Academic Liaison Librarian/Archivist within Special Collections at UCL. Jo is an enthusiastic supporter of open and accessible knowledge, a theme which has weaved its way through her career and continues to shape how she approaches her work. It has led her down a variety of unexpected paths, one of the most exciting bringing her to the world of Wikimedia and resulting in the title of joint UK Wikimedian of the Year for 2025. If you’re intrigued and want to find out more, read on for the highlights of Jo’s conversation with the Office of Open Science and Scholarship!

Current role

When Jo started at UCL four years ago, her role was entirely new, created as part of the development of UCL’s East campus. Whilst the primary purpose of her role is to deliver teaching and engagement with UCL’s Special Collections, it involves a variety of tasks and responsibilities which means each week looks very different. Stepping into this newly formed role as part of a growing, innovative-thinking campus has allowed Jo an amount of freedom and flexibility in trying new approaches and embarking upon different projects. This, combined with Jo’s proactiveness in widening access to knowledge, led her to become a volunteer with Wikimedia UK in 2022.

Starting as a Wikimedian

During her first year at UCL, Jo attended the DCDC (Discovering Collections, Discovering Communities) conference where she joined an introductory training session about Wikimedia UK, the charity responsible for Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. This prompted Jo to consider how Wikipedia could be harnessed within UCL, particularly regarding UCL’s Special Collections. Out of this, she began developing projects with UCL East’s Public History MA students editing Wikipedia and engaging with collections, and she was subsequently invited to become an official trainer for Wikimedia UK which cemented her role as a fully-fledged Wikimedian.

What exactly is a Wikimedian?

We’re going to pause and ask this question, since we were unsure, and there might be a few of you who are wondering the same. Jo explained that anyone can create an account on any of the Wikimedia projects such as Wikimedia Commons, Wikipedia or Wikidata, then contribute or edit, and in doing so, you are a Wikimedian. Then, there are different roles which you can undertake, including training others (like Jo), proofreading, or even ensuring Wikimedia’s policies are being adhered to. You may not know that behind Wikipedia are thousands of volunteers creating and reviewing all the content created!

On the webpages of the Wikimedia Foundation, their mission is outlined as follows:

‘To empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally.’

This mission is only possible with the combined efforts of volunteer Wikimedians from around the world, who have a wide range of knowledge, skills and interests.

Joint Wikimedian of the Year 2025

Empowering and engaging people to get involved with this global movement has been a significant aspect of Jo’s contribution to Wikimedia. As she put it, it’s about ‘encouraging people to get stuck in… you don’t need to have every bit of this knowledge to make a difference’. Her advocacy work is certainly one of the reasons Jo was named joint UK Wikimedian of the Year last year, alongside experienced Wikimedian Andy Mabbett. As well as organising training sessions for staff and students at UCL, Jo has organised catchups and editathons for those already initiated. Alongside this, she has approached different ways to promote awareness, access and use of UCL’s Special Collections through Wikimedia.

One of these was a Wikidata project in collaboration with the Department of Information Studies which brought together UCL staff and students to explore a selection of digitised student periodicals and investigate how to put information from the items on Wikidata. This culminated in a workshop event to showcase the project which explored questions such as ‘How can we make digitised heritage material more accessible to wider audiences?’

Wikimedia is certainly a valuable tool in this goal, since Jo explained how featuring links to institutional special collections on Wikipedia ‘adds another layer and can get things out there more globally in a way that marketing can’t’.

The ways in which Jo has engaged with Wikimedia, harnessing and contributing to this global movement and encouraging others to do the same, makes her very deserving of the title of joint Wikimedian of the Year 2025 – we are very impressed!

Successes and Challenges

Of course, behind this award, there have been successes and challenges, and Jo cited the student periodicals Wikidata project as one of her significant successes as a Wikimedian. In particular, the way it allowed her to ‘act as the linchpin between – you need something to play with, we have the stuff, let’s make this happen’ has been a significant part of her work in this area.

As for challenges, Jo has found it tricky to establish follow-ups with those who have attended initial training sessions, or to build a wider Wikimedia community across UCL, which are both areas she would like to focus on in the coming year.

Motivations and Aspirations

Involvement with Wikimedia is not formally part of Jo’s job and is entirely voluntary. So, what has motivated her to invest her time in this open knowledge movement?

Despite studying English and History as an undergraduate at the University of Sussex, Jo was unaware of the Special Collections there until she began working at the library after she graduated. Recognising how useful these collections would have been to her studies, she was not only inspired to work as a librarian within special collections (confirmed by a visit to the V&A Art Library early on in her career), but to ensure these collections are promoted and made accessible for different audiences.

As someone who cares about people and wants them to feel comfortable with the material held in libraries, Jo has gravitated towards ensuring knowledge is open and accessible. She shared an analogy about this which we enjoyed – ‘if we didn’t have people visiting special collections, we’d be like the dragon in the Hobbit sitting on the giant pile of gold’ – which of course can also be applied more widely to the knowledge created, collected and held within academic institutions.

When it comes to aspirations, Jo enjoys her work with Wikimedia and wants to continue this, hoping to build more community around it at UCL this year through themed editathons, more events at East campus and more regular sessions in general, although this will require the support of others to ensure it is sustainable.

Artistic inspiration and dinner guests

To wrap up our chat, we asked Jo if there are any music or writing which she’d been enjoying recently.

One of her favourite musicians is Fyfe Dangerfield, who founded the band ‘Guillemots’. On his website, he has a daily randomised playlist called ‘The Stream’, made up of short recordings, voice notes and unreleased music from over 130 hours of work, which she is particularly enjoying. She has also been listening to lo-fi piano versions of the Stardew Valley soundtrack by Noah Ivory.

As for reading material, she’s embarked upon the substantial ‘Middlemarch’ by George Eliot, which is taking up a lot of her reading time, breaking this up with the wonderful poetry of Mary Oliver, Alice Notley and Louise Glück.

And her ideal dinner guests? Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women who wrote many works on women’s role in the world, Rosey Pool, an activist who was an advocate for African American writing, and L.M. Montgomery, author of Anne of Green Gables who also had a very interesting life. An excellent and intimate group of feminist writers and activists.

Keep an eye out for future events

Although there are no upcoming Wikimedia sessions or events in the calendar yet, with UCL celebrating its bicentenary, there will definitely be something Wiki-related about UCL’s history this year. So, stay updated and get involved!

Keep an eye on the work-in-progress University College London Wikipedia site, connect with the informal community channel on Teams, and reach out to Jo via email if you want to find out more.

 

The UCL Office for Open Science and Scholarship invites you to contribute to the open science and scholarship movement. Stay connected for updates, events, and opportunities.

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