Wikimania2013_Speech(20130809)

Wikimania2013 Opening Keynote
saveMLAK - Wiki based relief aid for 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami
by Makoto Okamoto
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0. Introduction5
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by Makoto Okamoto
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Hi, I’m Makoto Okamoto from Japan, the President and Producer of Academic8
Resource Guide, Inc. and the Project Leader of saveMLAK project.9
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It’s a great pleasure for me to have this opportunity to report from Japan to11
you.12
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And I want to say “Thank you” for all of your kind support to Japan after the16
great earthquake and Tsunami in March eleven 2011.17
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by Makoto Okamoto
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Today, I want to tell you about our Wiki-based collaborative relief project. It is21
called saveMLAK. Please see this slide. This is the saveMLAK Wiki.22
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Soon after the March eleven tragedy, we launched the Wiki system to aggregate26
and share detailed information on the damage to cultural institutions, including27
museums, libraries, archives and kominkans. Kominkan is a kind of community center28

by Makoto Okamoto
in Japan.29
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I believe that our experience through the great earthquake and tsunami in31
Japan is useful for everyone, because natural disasters can happen to anyone anywhere.32
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No one is free from the risk of natural disasters like earthquake, tsunami, flood,36
hurricane, cyclone, tornado, epidemic diseases, influenza pandemic and so on.37
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by Makoto Okamoto
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I hope I can offer all of you some knowledge and information obtained through41
our about two years’ experience.42
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1. Beginning of saveMLAK46
1.1. Beginning of saveMLAK – Launch of savelibrary and its reason47
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by Makoto Okamoto
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The very next day of March eleven, I started savelibrary project, the relief51
project for libraries damaged by the earthquake and tsunami.52
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At first, I launched savelibrary wiki using free Wiki platform called @wiki.56
Then I announced on Twitter that57
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by Makoto Okamoto
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“I launched savelibrary Wiki. It is a portal for gathering information on the63
damage and appealing for aid for damaged libraries. Please join and work with us. I64
appreciate your retweet and posting to library mailing lists”.65
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You may wonder why I started such a project just after the disaster when67
confusion was everywhere. At that time, in fact, no one had a grasp on the whole picture68

by Makoto Okamoto
of the damage from the earthquake and tsunami. However, most of us were gradually69
realizing that it was an unpredictable tragedy far beyond our imagination. I asked70
myself what I could and should do. I did not have any ability to save human life directly.71
I’m not a doctor or nurse. I’m just a producer of cultural institutions.72
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What can I do?76
What kind of role can I play?77
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I found the answer in information aid.79
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by Makoto Okamoto
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I once worked as a web producer in Yahoo! JAPAN. About ten years ago, I83
produced Yahoo! Answers, in Japanese, Yahoo! Chiebukuro. So, I had some experience84
in launching and managing a web-based community for mutual cooperation. I realized85
that information aid was the role and task I should assume. That’s why I launched86
savelibrary Wiki.87
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by Makoto Okamoto
1.2. Beginning of saveMLAK – growth of savelibrary project91
Collaborators appeared immediately after launch of savelibrary wiki. My social92
stream of Twitter became full of related tweets like this slide.93
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As the project progressed steadily, similar movements emerged. As I said, I97
launched savelibrary Wiki at noon of March twelve. A person who was working for98
museum launched savemuseum Wiki in the evening of the same day.99
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by Makoto Okamoto
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In addition, savearchives Wiki was launched on the following day103
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and savekominkan Wiki was launched next week.107
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by Makoto Okamoto
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These series of actions were started by those who were influenced by111
savelibrary Wiki project.112
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The savelibrary Wiki was a good example of relief efforts for other kinds of116
cultural institutions. At that point, we, I mean those who were working for relief aid of117
libraries, museums, archives and kominkans, came to know and cooperate with each118

by Makoto Okamoto
other beyond the differences of institutions.119
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1.3. Beginning of saveMLAK – Integration into saveMLAK123
After a few weeks of cooperation among savemuseum, savelibrary,124
savearchives and savekominkan, we naturally came to feel and consider the need to125
integrate these four activities. In fact, we were already keeping in contact with each126
other. For example, it was very common that members of savelibrary helped other Wiki127
activities and vice versa.128
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by Makoto Okamoto
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In response to this gain of momentum, we decided to integrate these four132
separate Wiki systems.133
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From April first to April eleven, the integration of systems and projects was137
completed. We launched “saveMLAK” Wiki and started “saveMLAK” project.138
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by Makoto Okamoto
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During the integration process, we switched to MediaWiki, although each142
project was on @Wiki. In addition, we reorganized the main communication tools143
including mailing list and social hash tag of Twitter.144
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by Makoto Okamoto
2. Activities of saveMLAK148
2.1. Activities of saveMLAK – Contents of saveMLAK Wiki149
So far I talked about the beginning of saveMLAK project after March eleven.150
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Now, let’s move on to the contents of saveMLAK Wiki and collaborative152
activities based on MediaWiki.153
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What kind of contents are in saveMLAK Wiki?157
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by Makoto Okamoto
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This is the front page of saveMLAK Wiki in Japanese.161
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From these links you can access the English and Chinese versions of the front165
page. This Wiki has various contents. One of the main contents is the detailed166
information on damaged cultural institutions. You can view the information by the167
areas and by the types of institutions. I’ll show you later.168

by Makoto Okamoto
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Here are two numbers. First one is the number of the damaged institutions.172
Second one is the total number of institutions in the area affected by the disaster. At173
present, saveMLAK Wiki contains information on approximately one thousand174
damaged institutions and twenty five thousand institutions in total.175
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by Makoto Okamoto
Please see the next slide. This is an example of the detail page of each cultural179
institution. This is the page of “Minami-Sanriku Town Public Library” . This library was180
completely destroyed by tsunami and one librarian died.181
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Each page mainly consists of five parts, including fact sheet, details of damage,185
operation status, relief efforts, and source of information.186
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by Makoto Okamoto
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For example, these lines are address and lat/long of this library. We created190
map display using these data and Google Map API.191
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Most of the descriptions are written manually by real people with the exception193
of some automatic and mechanical processing. This page of “Minami-Sanriku Town194
Public Library” has been edited about forty times by about ten people. Of course, using195
MediaWiki, complete history of revisions has been saved and you can see the differences196
between versions.197
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In addition to these contents, there are four other types of useful pages201
targeted for different types of users of saveMLAK Wiki.202

by Makoto Okamoto
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First, information for the victims of the disaster is offered. For instance, you204
can find libraries that offer them public access.205
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Second, this is the information for supporters who works for the victims and207
affected areas. If you are working for preservation of damaged materials such as books,208
magazines and other valuable materials, you can access reliable information on how to209
rescue and preserve such materials.210
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Third, if you want to work for the victims, you can find various ways of212
contribution, such as donation, registration as pro bono volunteers who provide213
professional services, and so on.214
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Fourth, information for those who work for cultural institutions is also216
provided.217
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Unfortunately, these are all in Japanese. But I think you can read basic219
information through Google translation or other similar services. Please see later.220

by Makoto Okamoto
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2.2. Activities of saveMLAK – Statistics of saveMLAK Wiki224
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Now, I’ll show you some statistics of saveMLAK Wiki.226
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How many pages are published in saveMLAK Wiki?228
How many people are working for the project?229
How many times have the pages been edited by volunteers?230
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Please see this slide.232
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by Makoto Okamoto
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The total page count of saveMLAK Wiki is about thirty thousand. About236
Twenty percent of these pages have been generated by human editing. Remaining pages237
have been generated automatically by programming.238
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The total number of editors is about three hundred. This number is very close240
to the number of the members registered in our mailing list.241
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Approximately three hundred editors have edited saveMLAK Wiki three243
hundred thousand times in these 2 and half years.244
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And I’ll show you some charts.246
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by Makoto Okamoto
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This chart shows the changes in the total page count in these 2 and half years.250
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Please see the next chart.252
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It shows the changes over time in newly published pages.256
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by Makoto Okamoto
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This is the total edit counts by editor. Thirty eight editors have edited more than260
one hundred times.261
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This is the last chart.263
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It shows the change of page views and unique users. Although page view is267

by Makoto Okamoto
gradually decreasing, but number of unique users is still over twenty thousands in268
monthly average.269
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2.3. Activities of saveMLAK – Key to Success of saveMLAK Wiki273
As you can see now, at least in Japan, saveMLAK is one of the most successful274
Wiki-based collaborative projects.275
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This is a surprising thing in Japan, because in Japan, even Japanese277
Wikipedia has some difficulties in expanding collaboration. Japanese Wikipedia has a278
lot of users, but most of them are just readers and viewers. It has only eighty-six279
hundred thousand articles, although more than one hundred million people speak280
Japanese.281

by Makoto Okamoto
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Actually, according to the statistical data on the numbers of articles by285
languages, the number of Japanese articles is ranked tenth, as you can see in this chart.286
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How could saveMLAK gain powerful support in such a situation?288
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Why do we have more than three hundred editors?290
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And why did they take part in editing saveMLAK Wiki?292
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2.3.1. Activities of saveMLAK – Key to Success of saveMLAK Wiki - Dealing with fear294
As a matter of fact, at first, about ninety percent of our editors did not have any295

by Makoto Okamoto
experience in editing Wikipedia or any other Wiki platforms. For most of us, except for a296
few people, saveMLAK and its preceding Wikis such as savelibrary were the first297
experience in involvement in and editing of Wiki.298
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We have found that beginners of Wiki system often feel fear in three aspects:302
first, fear about the Wiki system, second, fear about the descriptive rule of Wiki, and303
third, fear about co-editing on Wiki.304
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I’ll explain more in detail.306
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by Makoto Okamoto
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Fear about the Wiki system is unavoidable. Obviously, the Wiki system is a310
little more complicated than other web tools like Blogs, Twitter, Facebook and other311
social media. It would not surprise me if a beginner of Wiki system could not create a312
new article or rename an old article.313
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Second, the Wiki system has many rules in two senses. There are so many317

by Makoto Okamoto
system-based global rules like “Markup”, “History” and so on. Moreover, there are also318
domestic descriptive rules in each Wiki. Even saveMLAK Wiki has domestic editing319
rules and formats, as I said before.320
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Third, even today, we are not familiar with web-based collaborative works.324
When we collaborate with others on Wiki system, sometimes we experience325
discommunication like edit conflict. It is a very ordinary accident for experienced Wiki326
editors, but beginners do not think so.327
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by Makoto Okamoto
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2.3.2. Activities of saveMLAK – Key to Success of saveMLAK Wiki - Mindset331
To deal with these three types of fear commonly experienced by those who have332
just started using the Wiki system, we always encourage them in three approaches.333
Actually, these approaches are very simple and easy but some patience and tolerance334
will be required. I think this is the key element of my speech.335
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by Makoto Okamoto
First, we always recommend beginners to ask other members using Twitter,339
the mailing list, and other means when they have questions. Posting on Twitter with340
hash tag “#saveMLAK” is most recommended.341
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And we never say “Please check help and other guide pages”. Everyone has the343
first time. Everyone is a beginner at first. Also, we always forget things. We cannot344
remember everything because it is human nature. Just asking someone is the best way345
to learn and remember.346
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This is our philosophy.348
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That’s why we recommend them to just ask others without any apologies.350
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Second, we created simple rules and formats. In saveMLAK Wiki, we have352
defined only four main human editing fields, including details of damage, operation353
status, relief efforts, and source of information. The structure of article is very simple.354
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In addition, we do not require editors to always use “Markup”. Wiki system has356

by Makoto Okamoto
a lot of potential. One of such potential is co-editing. If someone does not complete the357
whole description, others can fill in the missing parts. Editing the whole article is not358
the responsibility of a single person.359
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At the same time, we always try to show an understanding attitude toward361
beginners’ failures. If someone makes a mistake when trying to edit an article, it is not a362
big deal because others can re-edit the article and correct the mistakes. This is what a363
Wiki system is for. In fact, having an experience in editing Wiki is more important than364
avoiding mistakes. Mistakes can be recovered, but we cannot recover beginners’365
willingness if we get angry at their mistakes.366
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Third, many people are not familiar with web-based collaborative works. They368
fear troubles with other collaborators and hesitate to re-edit and modify the texts369
written by other people. They become obsessed with concerns like “They might get370
angry with me if I edit their documentation”.371
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However, contents of saveMLAK and any other Wikis can be refined when373
edited from various perspectives. This is also one of the characteristic features of the374

by Makoto Okamoto
Wiki system. To deal with their fear, we always recommend them to edit the texts375
written by others and make sure that no one will get angry with them. We tell them376
that if they make a mistake when they edit, we can roll back to the previous version377
based on the page history.378
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These are our mindset for Wiki-based collaboration. However, this mindset is380
not the solution to all problems. We sometimes need more practical solutions.381
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2.3.3. Activities of saveMLAK – Key to Success of saveMLAK Wiki - Event383
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One solution is Wiki festival. Wiki festival is a kind of event where we get387
together. From April of year 2011 to September of year 2012, we have had eleven Wiki388

by Makoto Okamoto
festivals.389
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The events are held globally at the same time and we set up some real sites in391
Tokyo and other cities. Everyone have two options. One is participation from home via392
internet. The other is participation at the real sites. In Wiki festivals, we get together393
and work together, usually in accordance with the selected topics such as “enhancement”394
of the pages for museums, libraries, archives or kominkans.395
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In Wiki festivals, we have tutorial sessions by well-experienced editors, which397
are broadcast live via USTREAM. In the sessions, beginners ask experts questions and398
experts answer. The festivals also provide opportunities for off-line collaboration.399
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by Makoto Okamoto
Statistics show the obvious effects of Wiki festivals. At each Wiki festival,403
saveMLAK Wiki was edited an average of one thousand two hundred times by an404
average of about thirty people. Clearly, Wiki festivals increased the commitment to405
editing saveMLAK Wiki. I think this type of gathering event can be a good example for406
your Wikipedia and other web-based collaborative communities.407
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3. Other Activities of saveMLAK – Intermediary Support411
I would like to add one more thing before ending. Our saveMLAK activities are412
not limited to web-based Wiki collaboration. We have also provided intermediary413
support between other supporters and the victims. I’ll show you the examples.414
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by Makoto Okamoto
3.1. Other Activities of saveMLAK – Intermediary Support – Minami-Sanriku416
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As I mentioned before, Minami-Sanriku Town Public Library was completely420
destroyed by tsunami. But people need a library. People need public access. People need421
institutions that guarantee the right to know. After a half year from the tragedy, we422
started working with people of Minami-Sanriku to rebuild a library.423
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by Makoto Okamoto
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After so many problems and struggles, at the beginning of this year, the library427
finally moved from the temporary building to the permanent building. In this428
reconstruction project, members of saveMLAK played an intermediary role to429
coordinate other supporters and people of Minami-Sanriku Town.430
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3.2. Other Activities of saveMLAK – Intermediary Support – Natori432
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This is another example. This is the new Natori City Public Library. Natori City,436
located in the south of Sendai City, was attacked by the great tsunami and about one437
thousand citizens died. The building of the library was not affected by tsunami, but438
seriously damaged by the earthquake.439

by Makoto Okamoto
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As well as people in Minami-Sanriku, people in Natori City also need a library443
and the things it offers. Again, members of saveMLAK played an intermediary part in444
the library reconstruction project. We introduced the library to the funder and the445
university which provided the good construction method. As a result, in these two years,446
Natori City built two libraries as you can see in these photos.447
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3.3. Other Activities of saveMLAK – Intermediary Support – Significance449
These are only a few examples. We still have a lot more experience in similar450
intermediary support.451
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Why did I mention these cases?453

by Makoto Okamoto
What is the meaning of these examples?454
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These approaches originated from Wiki-based collaboration. Efforts to launch458
and maintain saveMLAK Wiki have made our friendship and trust strong. That’s why459
this kind of relief activities became possible. I think I can even say that these are the460
model cases of O2O, Online to Offline.461
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by Makoto Okamoto
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4. Conclusion and Acknowledgement465
So far, I talked about our saveMLAK project for relief aid after the great466
earthquake and tsunami that occurred in 2011467
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We launched saveMLAK Wiki using MediaWiki to aggregate and share471
information on the damage to cultural institutions, including museums, libraries,472
archives and kominkans.473
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This project shows us surprising outcomes of web-based collaboration using475
Wiki system. However, it is not an easy experience. We learned many lessons. Today, I’m476
here to share our lessons for further enhancement of your Wiki communities. I hope our477

by Makoto Okamoto
experience will bring you some new insight and findings.478
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Finally I want to express my thanks to all members of saveMLAK, especially,482
Dr. Yuka Egusa and Dr. Masao Takaku. They are here today.483
Yuka and Masao, please stand up. They are engineer and also researcher of484
information system.485
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by Makoto Okamoto
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And look at them, please. We brought some goods and items of saveMLAK from489
Japan. We are asking for donations for supporting our activity. After this session, coffee490
break will be held. Then please visit us.491
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I also have to return my thanks to Wikipedians in Japan. Some of them have495
been constantly helping us since the launch of saveMLAK Wiki. Thank you, Mr. Kris496
Cheng and other local host members. Your coordination is very excellent.497
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by Makoto Okamoto
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To close my speech, I would like to say “Thank you” again for all your kind501
supports to Japan after the great earthquake and tsunami in March eleven 2011. Still502
we are struggling with so many problems. But I believe we can get over every problem503
by always keeping the spirit of Wiki collaboration in mind.504
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Thank you.506
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