Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon Helps Close the Information Gaps on Santa Barbara’s History

Have you ever wandered around Santa Barbara and marveled at all the historic plaques on buildings? Or been surprised when you learn that the origins of Earth Day or the Egg McMuffin are rooted right here in our hometown?

Santa Barbara has a long and nuanced history, which, considering “evidence of human habitation [in] the area begins at least 13,000 years ago,” according to Wikipedia, isn’t surprising. But much of that history hasn’t been captured online.

“I think there’s a lot of layered history in Santa Barbara that’s hard to uncover if you’re new in town,” says Dez Alaniz, Director, Presidio Research Center at the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation (SBTHP). There are stories that are lost to time, and others that have been lost in the internet age. Luckily for us, there are librarians. 

For centuries, librarians have snipped, collaged, and collated newspaper clippings, notable publications, or periodicals for future generations. And sometimes those documents are all that’s left of something iconic to our community.

Until now, that is.

“Librarians kept [historical information] for a reason,” Jace Turner, Adult Education & Information Services Librarian at the Santa Barbara Public Library, says, “for people like us, 10, 50, 100 years down the road. Making that information accessible is the next step.”

One way Turner has made that information more accessible is by creating events to gather inquisitive minds together. This year, Turner partnered with SBTHP to create “Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon: Local History Edition.”

The second annual Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon was the first to partner with the SBTHP and centered around local history in and around El Presidio de Santa Bárbara State Historic Park and the Presidio neighborhood. It’s a partnership that Turner says made the event stronger than ever. “I think public libraries are the first place that people look to for information … but in partnering with the [Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation], it’s a whole different experience,” he says.

So, in the middle of summer, a group of strangers — a hodgepodge of professors, filmmakers, retirees, and students — sacrificed precious weekend hours to spend it among the archives, microfilm, and stacks to learn how to write a Wikipedia post centered around Santa Barbara’s history.

“It was a chance to really give back to Wikipedia,” says Andrew Haughin-Scasny, one of the volunteers who signed up to participate in this year’s edit-a-thon.

If you’re thinking the event was just a two-hour jam session where people put their heads down and typed, you’d be wrong. Just like Wikipedia is this sort of living, breathing organism — a kind of “crowdsourced” publication, as Turner referred to it — so too was this group. 

“It was fascinating to have this interaction in person,” says Haughin-Scasny. “Whereas the majority of Wikipedia work is happening with people who probably have seen each other’s faces or known each other’s names,” this event brought together everyday people, armed with just a passion for our region. “It really highlighted the everyday nature of Wikipedia.”

The Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon doesn’t have origins in Santa Barbara. It’s an international event — complete with its own dedicated Wiki stub — that offers interested parties a “how-to” for running the thing yourself. Libraries from all over the world have held these jam sessions focused on topics as wide-ranging as climate change, feminism, and diversity. The thing that distinguishes this from a “research party,” Turner adds, is the “explicit intent to contribute to Wikipedia.”

Everyone knows Wikipedia, but the event was a reminder that not everything captured online offers a complete picture of our shared experience. Because while many locals know the storied history of Sambo’s or the origins of Hidden Valley Ranch, it can be more challenging to have somewhere to point to about our own Chinatown, Jimmy’s Oriental Gardens, or the Filipino Community Association. 

“Wikipedia legitimizes certain people, or adds an accessibility for different paths,” says Casey Haughin-Scasny, an attendee who is focusing her research on crafting a new page on the Alhecama Theatre.

“This [event] is an introduction to thinking about research as a type of activism,” Alaniz explains. “Understanding Wikipedia and how that works is one outcome [of this event], but another one is generally raising awareness — whether folks finish their articles or not — about how many resources there are to dig into. It’s for Wikipedia, but it’s also for us here in town.”

Alaniz and Turner see themselves as stewards of a collection — their job isn’t just to keep this information under lock and key, nor simply digitize it, but create moments that are meaningful and accessible. “Wikipedia is kind of like the excuse for people to come in and see the collections,” explains Alaniz.

And seriously — go see them! The thrill of opening a locked case to pore over decades-old publications or work on a large wooden desk in a sun-dappled room of the SBTHP is worth the trip. Helping preserve the vast and wide-reaching history of our little town is simply the perk. Aside from the clout of having your Wikipedia username front and center for the world to see, these librarian-curated collections can have a profound impact, as Turner tells me firsthand.

Like when a group of concerned citizens learned that Las Aves complex would be reinvented as The Post, the complex across from the Andrée Clark Bird Refuge, they headed to the library, looking to preserve Marge Dunlap’s “It’s Raining” fountain. In a filing cabinet on the second floor, Turner and his group discovered articles in the Public Library’s Biography Files that they presented to the City Council to prove its historical significance. To this day, the fountain remains.

“This [event] is the gateway to getting your research activism on — whether that’s on Wikipedia or City Hall Council,” says Alaniz.