Alice Kibombo explores how librarians can use structured data

Are you curious about global majority feminist perspectives on internet infrastructure, anti-caste and anti-capitalist approaches to tech, and what a truly multilingual, indigenous, and queer internet could look like? Then this episode is for you!

This time we feature Alice Kibombo, a librarian in Kampala and an active contributor to Wikimedia platforms, in conversation with historian and Wikipedian Kelly Foster. They explore how information organized for machines often reflects existing biases. Alice shares her insights as a librarian, explaining how structured data is pervasive in her daily work, from library catalogs to lists of borrowers. She emphasizes the challenge of language barriers in data input, where software often flags entries in local languages as errors. Alice highlights a critical issue:

I particularly take issue with the ones that do not allow for native spellings of people's names because when you give an anglicized version, this is a completely different entity actually.

Alice also discusses the optimistic outcomes of a grant that trained African librarians on Wikidata, empowering them to better serve their communities. Tune in to understand the challenges and potential for change in decolonizing structured data!