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The Sydney Wikipedian-in-Residence story (Part I): where, why, what
If you are in Sydney and you walk from Hyde Park down the right side of Macquarie Street, you will pass the Barracks, (a UNESCO World Heritage site and convict museum); the former Mint, now containing the Historic Houses Trust (with its associated specialist library); Parliament House (with its Parliamentary Archives); the Sydney Hospital (with its museum that celebrates the work of nurses sent here by Florence Nightingale); the Royal Botanic Gardens (with its herbarium containing a reference library of 1.2 million preserved plants); and the Conservatorium of Music with its music library. If you keep walking, you will reach the Sydney Opera House, but before you do, you will pass the State Library of NSW (SLNSW). A few steps from my desk is an entrance which leads from the library across the park to the Art Gallery of NSW. This is my favourite street and I have walked along it every week for decades. As you can see, the street is very GLAM. This is where my Residency is.
The SLNSW is in the middle of both a massive cataloguing effort to create more than a million electronic catalogue records and a “Digital Excellence” project to digitise 12 million pages. It also has an obligation to create Wikipedia entries for newspapers published in NSW as they are digitised and become searchable via Trove - an online search service at the National Library of Australia which uses crowd-sourced correction of the scanned newspaper text. SLNSW is exploring innovative ways, via a number of projects, to improve online digital engagement with library customers. Their partnership with Wikimedia Australia is part of that. This is the context and the why of my Residency.
The Innovation Manager at SLNSW is leading a team of professional librarians who have volunteered to learn how to edit Wikipedia and part of my role is to work with them. They are becoming capable editors and by the end of this project, we hope that they will be a cohort of competent, confident and enthusiastic Wikimedians who will continue to incorporate information from the library’s amazing collection into the encyclopaedia. Another goal is that the project itself will provide a model for the engagement of libraries from other Australian states with Wikimedia. As well as new articles (such as Douglas Grant) on Indigeneous topics, we are currently working on list articles such as List of non-English-language newspapers in NSW. Articles about some of the unique and significant objects in the library collection are also under construction. This is the what of my Residency.
The project page is here: GLAM/SLNSW. As with the Library’s cataloguing and digital engagement, this story is unfinished. Hence it is:
... to be continued
Preparing and Planning
Wikimedia Finland got involved late in planning the photography competition but we decided to participate anyway. The reasoning was that if we organize it once, it'll be easier in the future. Most of the preliminary work was about gleaning the names and locations of public artworks and determining if they're okay to be photographed. We're also getting some non-Wikipedian experts to evaluate the participating photos. The campaign website will be a good opportunity to talk about the concept of public domain.
I got to see an open data hacking event in progress. It was hosted by Arcada University of Applied Life and our GLAM friend Jessica Parland from Bragens Pressarkiv was there for briefing and tutoring. The event was a competitive one, and outcomes were judged by a panel. Due to the content of Pondus, the event dealt with handling the flow of information in Swedish-language communication in Finland. Most of our Chapter volunteers are native Finnish speakers so getting to see Finland Swedish coders in action was fun.
GLAM Partner News
I've gotten lots of phone calls and emails after the Theme Days at Ateneum. I gave a speech on the nature of open knowledge and an introduction of the work we do, and apparently GLAM professionals like it. A few would like to organize events relating to open knowledge, perhaps following the success of the event at Kiasma. I'll write more about them when the date and location are set. Most of the upcoming events seem to be related the study of history, a field in which there are many active Finnish Wikipedians.
Wikipedia in Kiasma
Now that the museum of contemporary art have a nice list of articles about their artists, they're planning to integrate Wikipedia links into their next exhibition with QR codes. The article list for the exhibit still has a few redlinks but is looking pretty good so far.
Case study in museum newsletter; Akan; Sèvres; Quai Branly
GLAM/Wiki case study in French museum newsletter
Joconde, the French museums database, included in its March 2013 newsletter an opinion column from Rémi Mathis, president of Wikimédia France, in which he explains the central aspects of a partnership between a cultural institution and the Wikimedia projects.
Akan
During March month, several wikimedians take photographies about Akan collection in the Museum of Toulouse, a collection of ethnographic material from Ghana, Togo and Ivory Coast. See the category on Wikimedia Commons.
Sèvres
On March 7, 4 wikimedians went to visit the Manufacture nationale de Sèvres and meet artisans to begin the project of documenting historic know-how of the Manufacture of ceramic. The project includes photographs and videos describing the various trades and achievements of this historic factory.
Quai Branly
On March 28, Adrienne Alix was in the Musée du quai Branly to explain the principes of partnerships between Wikimedia movement and GLAM institutions. The speech was included into a workshop for RIME (international network for ethnographics museums). Several people coming from European ethnographics museum were interested to contact Wikimedia chapters in their countries.
Others
- Rémi Mathis gave a talk at the Louvre-Lens on March 26, at a conference for museum librarians, to explain the importance of the Wikimedia projects for them and why they should release their images free.
- Second workshop with the students of the École du Louvre on March 12.
- The NCO (Uncabal of the West — a group of volunteers based in Brittany) have animated a workshop on Wikipedia at Angers during the Archivists' forum.
Caesar and the provinces
Wikidata meets Archeology - an intercultural dialogue on the Roman limes
Ides of March. Caesar, the most famous originator of Roman expansion politics was stabbed like 2057 years ago in Rome. And still that line that he and his successors drew through Europe and Northern Africa is causing interest and discussion. Two groups met that sunny Saturday at the library of the German Foreign Office in Berlin: Archeologists and Wikipedians. No worry, nobody got harmed, still it became obvious the gap in between science and citizen science is rather sensible. But across the gap some links of collaboration were built. Within the cooperation of Wikimedia Deutschland and the German Archeological Institute a common interest was identified geo-referenced data, how to collect that data and how to make accessible i.e. understandable for a broader public. This gave the starting signal to a common work in progress. The idea was to create a map that would show through the long period of the Roman empire how its boundaries - the limes - developed. At the same time each archeological site of a fort or frontier tower known to us should be mapped and linked to its Wikipedia article if existing. The task group combined staff from Wikimedia -Render, Wikidata and the Wikipedians engaged in the Limes - project. Collecting data from the German Archeological Institute and existing information in the Wikipedia within 3 moths the limes - map was created. In Berlin it was presented and discussed at the same level as other scientific geo -data collecting - projects, such as Pleiades and Pelagios. The very advantage acknowledged at the spot that once Wikidata will be fully developed it will easily allow the import of further data and help to visualize the development of the Roman empire and giving an entry to more information and deeper knowledge by linking it to the Wikipedia articles. In contrary to other presented databases it combines free knowledge with its ready to use application that is free to edit. The next months will show, how the common efforts will come on a steady track. In a even wider context it as an example how efficient citizen science offers accessible application of scientific data and transforms cultural heritage data into readable information.
Talks
Talks on the future of scholarly communication in the context of libraries or natural history museums - and the role of Wikimedia projects therein - were given at the InetBib conference and at the Naturkundemuseum, both in Berlin.
de.GLAMwiki 2013
For the first time about 20 GLAM-activists from Germany and Austria gathered in Kaufbeuren. They worked their way through a tight agenda of de.GLAMwiki 2013. Main focus was on exchange and networking but what we aimed for was a common strategy of communication. We all agreed that the German Wikipedia-GLAM-Portal needs a brush up. We plan to start a proper GLAM blog under the roof of the pretty well read German Wikimedia blog. Local GLAM initiatives will be backed up with more support from the office in Berlin by the project line: GLAM on tour. But the most crucial insight of these early spring days was: More Wikipedians on the spot are needed in order to satisfy the interest of GLAM institutions both in Austria and Germany that many do look for cooperation. Please share Your experience how to motivate Wikipedians to action in real life. Leave Your comment.
Last but not least in March the kick-off for the cooperation with the Museum of Natural History in Berlin took place. As a pilot to the planned cooperation with that famous GLAM institution a group of well prepared Wikipedians and the staff of the museum planning the exhibition "60 years of DNA" will combine their knowledge and media to a common effort. Read more details next month.
Wrapping up a 6-months pilot project at the Haifa University Academic Library
August 19th, 2012 marked the beginning of a 6-months pilot project with the academic library at the University of Haifa, a pilot that has come to a wrap this March. During these months, our Wikipedian-in-Residence, Liron Dorfman, visited the Library weekly and worked closely with the Library staff, in order to expose various collections at the library and help make the information available on wiki projects.
In accordance with previous GLAM-IL projects, we had several goals in mind -
- Teaching the Library staff to edit Wikipedia and load media files to WikiCommons.
- Writing articles or expanding existing articles related to the Library's collections at the Hebrew Wikipedia.
- Exposing Media files from the Library's collections on WikiCommons under a suitable CC license.
- Inviting the public to learn how to edit Wikipedia and take part in WM-IL projects.
- Fostering a sustainable, long-term relationship with the Library, one that will continue after the end of the pilot.
As always, events and conferences played a key role in achieving the project's goals.
The 9th Jerusalem Conference on the Digitization of Cultural Heritage
On November 14th, 2012, we presented our project, along with other WM-IL GLAM Projects, during the 9th Digital Heritage Conference in Jerusalem. Our panel included lectures by representatives from the Open Knowledge Foundation, Creative Commons Israel and Project Ben-Yehuda, as well as lectures about 4 Israeli GLAM collaborations. All in all the panel was a success, as it not only helped spread the word the word in Israel about GLAM-Wiki, but also led to new GLAM collaborations. A report about the panel, written by Joris Pekel from the OKFN, is available here.
An Editing Workshop for Library Staff & University Employees
On December 11th, 2012, we help the first editing workshop. About 25 library staff and university employees participated in the workshop, which included two parts: a general lecture on how Wikipedia works, followed by a "hands on" practical workshop, in which 5 experienced wikipedians tutored the university staff. 12 new users were opened during the practical workshop and the new wikipedians happily left the event with a promise to continue helping us and telling their friends!
A "Behind the Scenes" Tour
On January 3rd, 2013, we held a "Behind the Scenes" tour at the library. The event was opened to both wikipedians and interested from the general public and aimed to expose both the Hebrew Wikipedia community and the general pubic to the various collections available at the library. About 35 people participated in the tour and a few participants from the general public expressed their interest in learning how to edit. They were all invited to our Edit-a-thon and added to our GLAM-IL mailing list.
For more information about this event in Hebrew, read a report by Ora Zehavi, head of the Media Department at the library.
Fun times at the Library -
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At the scanning center with Keren Barner. -
Tuning in.. :) -
With Ora Zehavi, head of the Media Department. -
At the "Rare Books Collection" room. -
A rare copy of The Book of Daniel. -
At the children's library with Humi.
An Open Workshop & Edit-a-thon
On February 5th, we held a workshop followed by an edit-a-thon, which were opened to the general public. First, newcomers listened to a frontal lecture about how wikipedia operates. The evening continues with 5 experienced editor supporting the newcomers, as they were taking their first steps editing wikipedia, in a joint edit-a-thon. As always, time flew and it seemed that 4 hours have passed in a blink of an eye.
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A welcome note at the library. -
At the lecture, learning about how wikipedia operates. -
At the edit-a-thon. -
At the edit-a-thon. -
At the edit-a-thon.
For more media released in this project, please see the project's category in commons -
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A Rosh Hashanah greeting card from 1927. -
Chemistry class at the Hebrew Reali School, Haifa, 1936. -
A fragment from the Passover Haggadah of the Cairo Genizah. -
The Maccabiah Games opening ceremony, 1935. -
The library at the Multi-Purpose Building, University of Haifa, early 70s.
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Other News in Brief
Continuing our GLAM collaboration with the National Library of Israel, the NLI has been graciously hosting various WM-IL editing workshops. Most of these workshop are in a "Day at the Library" format, where groups begin their day with a two-hour tour at the library. They then have frontal lecture on how wikipedia works, followed by a practical workshop, where they learn basic wiki-syntax and take their first steps editing under the guidance of experienced wikipedians. So far the NLI hosted 7 such workshops, hosting WM-IL workshops for academic courses, teachers & high school students from various schools, a group of archivists and members from the Society for Preservation of Israel Heritage Sites.
- What next -
WM-IL is now working on expanding its GLAM collaborations with both the Israel Museum, Jerusalem and the National Library of Israel. It is also developing new collaborations with both the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and the group of 6 Haifa Museum, which includes the Haifa Museum of Art, the Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art and Israeli National Maritime Museum. More details will follow in the coming months.
Libraries!
In Italy, March has been a great month for the "L" in GLAM. Various issues of common interest between wikipedians and librarians have been discussed in a joint dedicated mailing list. Below a summary of some conversation going on.
Authority control
Wikidata is receiving great attention from librarians, especially in issues regarding authors and books metadata. One of the main discussion in the mailing list is about authority control identifiers: a deep and extremely rich conversation (whose details will not be discussed here) resulted in the proposal of a new property identifier.
Thesaurus
At the Annual Conference of the librarians at the Stelline in Milan (March 14-15, 2013), met some of the protagonists of the Italian project GLAM's libraries. The meeting was an occasion to deepen vaious conversations started online the discussion list bibliotecari@wikimedia.it. The interest of librarians and Wikipedians is the identification of the most effective and fair partnerships between the two worlds, both strongly interested in checking out all the potentials offered by the technologies of Linked Open Data (LOD) to enhance their services and increase their impact among web users. For example, Wikipedians are trying to add coherence and structure at the network of Wikipedia items and articles (eg. Wikidata). On the librarians side, libraries are opening to LOD within their traditional national library services. The National Central Library of Florence (BNCF) has designed a thesaurus containing 46,000, terms organized according to the categories and reports required by ISO thesauri ISO 2788/1986 and ISO 25964/2011 and derived from authoritative sources, including Wikipedia itself. Many terms are related to the equivalent Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) and the Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC). Since 2010, the Thesaurus metadata are exportable in RDF SKOS, to promote interoperability even fields and institutions not library-related (see http://leo.cilea.it/index.php/jlis/article/view/5474). The presence of Frieda Brioschi, Cristian Consonni, Andrea Zanni from Wikimedia Italia and Anna Lucarelli and Elisabetta Vichi from the National Library of Florence was essential to give substance to the possibility of setting up a partnership between Wikipedia and the Thesaurus of BNCF that allows a semantic navigation between Wikipedia entries parallel to the current categories navigation system. Further meetings will serve to clarify the project which will be presented for discussion in Wikipedia, but the project is being presented to the community, reaching consensus.
GLAM Activities in Mexico
Campus Library of ITESM Campus Ciudad de México sponsors photo contest to document Holy Week in the country
With the success of the Day of the Dead photo contest last fall (see blog report), the campus library has decided to sponsor a similar contest this semester, this time to document the observances related to Holy Week in Mexico. The week before Easter is an important religious as well as vacation period in Mexico, and the goal here is to capture images from more areas of the country since students usually travel during that period. As last time, there will be three winners: the author of the best photograph, of the most original photograph and for the most photographs uploaded. Some changes for this time include a minimum number of pixels in width as well a restriction against blurry images (especially for the second and third categories). This is based off of our experience from the prior contest. The photos are in process of being uploaded with a deadline of April 22 at Category:Concurso_de_Fotos_Semana_Santa
First edit-a-thon of Puebla City
- This is a excerpt of "Expanding the Wikimedia mission in Mexico: the Puebla case", post on the Wikimedia blog.
Since the middle of 2012, José Flores has wanted the Wikimedia movement to become active in Puebla, one of the most important cities in Mexico for its cultural and educational development, as well as its singular historical richness. Flores spent several months of planning and exchanging information with Wikimedia Mexico (WM-MX), and they worked to get sponsors and support from several local communities like Hackers & Founders Puebla and Puebla Capital del Diseño. Due to this effort, they were able to host the first Puebla City Wikipedia Edit-a-thon, which occurred on March 24, 2013.
The editathon was held in the HUB Emprendedor, a recently created co-working space for entrepreneurs. On the day of the event, 25 people arrived with laptops in hand, ready to contribute to the Spanish Wikipedia. After an introductory talk by Carmen Alcázar on the philosophy behind the movement and a workshop by Ivan Martínez on wiki syntax, the edit-a-thon began. The proposed themes for editing were the significant dates and places of the city of Puebla. In the end, although there weren’t a large number of new articles created, all participants pressed the “Edit” button and took their first steps in Spanish Wikipedia.
Wikipedia workshop at Universidad Veracruzana
Foto: Alberto Ramírez Martinell
On March 3, we have two Wikipedia workshops in the Unidad de Servicios Bibliotecarios y de Información (Unit of Library and Information Services) of the Universidad Veracruzana at Xalapa, Veracruz. The workshops were offered to Literature and Postgraduate students, respectively. Were resolved many doubts and questions about Wikipedia.
First Wikivoyage edit-a-thon
On March 23, we perform the first edit-a-thon of Spanish Wikivoyage at the Centro Cultural de España en México, part of the program of Iberoamerican Wikisprint, a simultaneous event in several cities in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Spain and Mexico, organized by P2P Foundation and open knowledge groups and communities.
Wiki loves Monuments and Sound; Hackathon 2013; Hebrew and Jiddish words
Wiki Loves Sound
Wiki Loves Sound is a new initiative to promote use of sound in Wikimedia projects. This initiative started within the framework of the project Sound of The Netherlands. The goal of this project is to build a library of typical historical and current sounds of the Netherlands. The partners involved are The Netherlands Institute For Sound and Vision, Kennisland and De Auditieve Dienst. The initiative consists of different activities:
- A workshop Field recording was organised on the 30th Of March. The workshop was focussed on the types of sound that have an encyclopaedic value, different techniques to record these sounds and basic editing. The workshop has been documented and the lessons learned will soon be made available in Dutch.
- A sound donation of 2300+ sounds to Wikimedia Commons. The sounds will be converted from WAV to FLAC and mass uploaded with a bot.
- An editathon will be organised on the 20th of April in Utrecht, The Netherlands. The goals of this editathon is to include relevant sound files in Wikipedia pages. Different instruction video's will be produced for this editathon with information on recording, converting, uploading sound files and adding files to wikipedia pages.
Wiki Loves Monuments
A map has been created to keep track of the municipal monuments in The Netherlands. The source of the lists with monuments are the local municipalities. Some of them have these lists published on their website, in other cases these municipalities have to be contacted one by one. For the first time the Dutch Caribbean have been contacted to participate in WLM.
International hackathon
The program of the annual Wikimedia Hackathon is still the works, but that hasn't stopped a large number of visitors to register already. Registration is free of charge but we require you to sign up for proper planning. You can register for the Hackathon using this form. It's also possible to apply for a scholarship, if you register by 20 April.
Integrating the Dictionary of Hebrew and Jiddish words
A first test has been conducted to integrate the dictionary of Hebrew and Jiddish words into Wiktionary. This test consisted of separating proper nouns and common nouns. These separate lists will also be used to determine which translations could be relevant for inclusion on Wikipedia.
GLAM Activities in Spain
Expanding Paralympic GLAM efforts to Spain
From February 19th-28th, LauraHale and I attended the 2013 IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships celebrated at La Molina, Spain, thanks to media accreditation provided by the International Paralympic Committee after encouragement by the Comité Paralímpico Español (Spanish Paralympic Committee, CPE). These efforts were partially funded thanks to the Participation Support program. The main objective was to explore the possibility of developing the Australian Paralympic GLAM history project, which involved a partnership with one of Australia's most important sport library and an important cultural institution, on a global level by creating a case study for expanding this important GLAM work in Spain.
What we did
The daily schedule for the event was generally with the first run starting around 9:30 AM for events with two runs and 11:00am for events with one run. Preparing for each day, prior to the start of competition, we went to the press room located about a 15 minute walk from the hotel and a 10 minute walk from the event venue. While there, we collected the start list for the event, and discussed what news perspective we wanted to take and the skiers we needed pictures of. We also discussed what was happening with the press coordinator for the event. Then we attended the actual skiing, where we took pictures of skiers, talked to people around us, recorded some audio, took notes on what was happening, participated in activities in the press area at the end of the course, live tweeted what was happening and/or interviewed people. If there was a break in races, we headed back to the press room and got the results list for the first race. Following the race, we headed back to the press area where we uploaded pictures. On two separate days, one of us attended the awards ceremony. If there was a large volume of pictures taken, one of us went to the press room early to start processing pictures. We were generally in the press room area for two to four hours following each day of competition where we worked on Wikinews articles, improving relevant Wikipedia content or uploading pictures. On the 28th, we hosted a meetup in Barcelona (since weather in La Molina and access was terrible), and livetweeted it for remote interested people.
Weather was a factor: the cold heavily impacts the ability to do live Wikinews reporting and take pictures for Commons. You cannot take out a laptop and have wifi access where you can remotely update articles for Wikinews. You need to pay more attention to lens usage with a camera. Socializing and conducting on the spot interviews in the cold is more difficult. Additional specialized clothing needs to be acquired, packed in luggage and worn in the cold temperatures. The clothing then needs to be addressed when going inside to report. It is also important to be very aware of the schedule for the event so you do not miss opportunities to share media on Commons for use on Wikipedia and Wikinews, and so the opportunity to cover a topic from a different and original news perspective is not missed on Wikinews. We must thank the communities of both English and Spanish Wikinews for their support reviewing and publishing articles: without this, news might have gone stale at the rapid pace we were producing them.
While in La Molina, there were several important conversations held for a period of five or more minutes specifically discussing the Winter Paralympic sport efforts on Wikimedia projects. They include a conversation with a New Zealand Paralympic Committee coach where we talked about the interview with Adam Hall in Colorado and how the coach had read some of the Australian reporting from London Paralympics. Thanks to a chance encounter we took advantage of, we also had a conversation with IPC President Sir Philip Craven (none other!) where we briefly mentioned Australian project, a desire to expand these GLAM efforts to Spain, and how Wikipedia articles in this topic area are reliable because of the rigorous sourcing taking place. Other notable conversations held were with CPE Chef-de-mission where we talked about work done in Australia and desire to replicate it in Spain, a conversation with a USA Paralympic skier where we talked about interviewing people in Colorado and how Wikimedians interviewing people is great experience for everyone to gain more relevant experience in area of expertise, a conversation with es:Irene Villa following the interview where we discussed Wikipedia, the value of using Wikipedia and Wikinews to promote disability and women's sport, a conversation with a French photographer about the work done in London, copyright issues on Commons, and the value of Wikipedia classification articles in understanding Paralympic sport, and continuous interaction with CPE officials.
Impact
Thanks to being able to participate in this event, we were able to increase the quality of content as follows:
- 20 English Wikinews articles published about the 2013 IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships.
- 3 Spanish Wikinews articles published.[1][2][3]
- Articles created or updated on English and Spanish Wikipedia about every notable Spanish competitor at the 2013 IPC Alpine World Championships.
- 16 English Wikipedia articles created about Spanish Paralympic sport and Spanish disability skiers.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]
- 10 Spanish Wikipedia articles created about the Paralympic movement in general, para-alpine skiing and Spanish disability skiers.
- 10 English Wikipedia DYKs between 16 and 28 February.[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29]
- Several articles about Para-alpine skiing classification on English Wikipedia elevated to Good Articles.
- On Spanish Wikipedia, created a number of articles focusing on general Paralympic sport, para-alpine skiing and Spanish disability skiers. Articles created include es:Esquí alpino paralímpico, es:Clasificaciones paralímpicas de esquí alpino, es:B2 (clasificación), es:LW1, es:Ludwig Guttmann, es:Jon Santacana, es:Gabriel Gorce, es:Miguel Galindo Garcés, es:Úrsula Pueyo, and es:Nathalie Carpanedo. Every notable Spanish competitor at the event now has a Spanish language Wikipedia article. es:Clasificaciones paralímpicas de esquí alpino is being prepped for future nomination as a Good Article.
- 477 pieces of media were uploaded to Commons related to the IPC Alpine World Championships. This includes at least five audio files and ten video files. It includes pictures or video of 101 different para-alpine skiers from at least 15 different countries. It is highly probable that many of the skiers photographed will be competing at the 2014 Sochi Paralympics. This creates a ready to use selection of freely licenced media that will not be easily available at the Games themselves.[30][31]
- Pictures of 24 skiers taken at La Molina were used on 11 different language Wikipedias including English, Spanish, Basque, Catalan, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish and Swedish. The skiers represented come from several different countries including Austria, Canada, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland, Slovakia and the United States. The average skier photographed at the event has 5.8 pictures of them on Commons.
- Two interviews conducted for English Wikinews, including one with a high profile Spanish personality (Irene Villa) who participates in the sport.
- IPC Alpine engaging reporters on Twitter.
- Experience gained on English and Spanish Wikinews for doing bilingual interviews by a member of the Spanish speaking community.
- Multiple conversations held with various people about Wikimedia volunteer efforts to improve Winter Paralympic content. This included people inside the IPC, the CPE, media, skiers and locals in La Molina.
- Produced more Wikinews and Wikipedia content, and shared more pictures than traditional media, which excludes Olympic specific news sites and NPCs.
- Wikinews coverage of some skiers was the only media coverage they received during and for their participation in the competition. Examples include Ralph Green and Christopher Devlin-Young of the United States, Mitchell Gourley of Australia, Corey Peters of New Zealand, and Laura Valeanu of Romania.
- Videos of several skiers were included on relevant classification article on English Wikipedia in order to better illustrate what these classifications mean in practice. These can be found on en:LW2 (classification), en:LW6/8, en:LW9, en:LW11, en:LW12, en:B2 (classification), and en:B3 (classification).
All in all, it was a stressful, wonderful, worth-every-minute-of-it experience, and we hope it leads to more collaborative opportunities with the Spanish Paralympic Committee and other GLAMs in Spain including sport specific museums!
2 new Wikipedians in Residence in Catalonia
During March, 2 new Wikipedians in Residence where announced in Catalonia. The first one, a boy at the History Museum in Catalonia and the second one at the Jaume Morera Art Museum in Lleida.
History Museum of Catalonia
Galazan, a historian and member of Amical Viquipèdia, is the brand new Wikipedian in Residence at the History Museum of Catalonia, the reference to know our closer Catalan history. Galazan, 29, has a degree in History from the University of Barcelona and is currently studying a Master in Cultural and Natural Heritage management. He frequently edits on Catalan Wikipedia since September 2005, centered in various subjects of social sciences, particularly on his professional insurance. As a Wikipedian in Residence his goal is to "train" museum staff to edit the famous online encyclopedia. In this way the museum professionals will be able to improve content providing them with high quality references.
The task of the resident will be establishing a relationship between the History Museum of Catalonia and the Catalan Wikipedia community through a range of activities, both internal and open to the public. One of the most important will be to expand and improve the quality of the encyclopedia articles related to our War of Succession and 1714. He plans to do some workshops with museum staff to teach them how to edit Wikipedia and solve typical newbie issues. In addition, the museum hosts and manages a network of Catalan Monuments. Other contents of the museum as highlights of its collection and its photographic collections are also some of the goals of the project. We will keep you informed!
Museu d'Art Jaume Morera
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ESM, an Art historian and member of Amical Viquipèdia, is now be the Wikipedian in Residence at the Jaume Morera Art Museum in Lleida, a little museum of XIXth century Catalan paintings. ESM frequently edits on Catalan Wikipedia since September 2011, and she is specialized in art topics. She has co-led the Viquimodernisme project, with user Kippelboy, where a research group on contemporary design and art history — Universitat de Barcelona’s GRACMON — and around 100 art history students at the same university have made a combined effort to improve Catalan Wikipedia's content related to their area of expertise, Catalan modernism.
She will be centered to improve the presence of list of Lleida local artists, building a mid-term a relationship between the museum and the local community of editors. She will work also with other institutions like the Lleida University and with the public library, in order to boost the network of local GLAMs and promoting that they start to work closer together, with Wikipedia and its sister projects as the working area.
Edit-a-thon at the Maritime Museum in Barcelona
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On March 16 we did an edit-a-thon at the Barcelona Royal Shipyards. Since a recent research, new discoveries have been done on this huge civil building of the gothic period. 20 people attended, with a big percentage of newbies, in order to update the information on several Wikipedias (Catalan, English, French, Italian and Spanish). We also celebrated Catalan Wikipedia's 12th anniversary.
Wikipedia workshop at Valladolid Science Museum
After the first contact in order to make Valladolid Science Museum a QRpedia museum, we continued our collaboration with a Wikipedia workshop in the auditorium of the Museum.
Forty people attended to the event, where they were introduced about Wikipedia's community, different roles of Wikipedians and, the most important, how to edit and start an article in the encyclopedia.
Wikipedia workshop at Puigcerdà local library
Following our collaboration with the Public libraries network of Catalonia on march 18 we did a Wikipedia workshop on the little mountain town of Puigcerdà, which is placed 10 km away from the French border. 20 people attended.
Fashion edit-a-thon; cooperating with the Working life museums
Fashion Edit-a-thon
In March Wikimedia Sverige, in cooperation with Europeana, the Nordiska museet, Europeana Fashion and the Centre for Fashion Studies at Stockholm University organized a fashion edit-a-thon at the Nordiska museet. This was the biggest edit-a-thon in Sweden to date with 47 registered participants, with 64 percent being women and, according to both our survey and our personal impressions during the event, the event was very popular amongst the participants!
As part of the preparations we had a workshop with some of the students from Stockholm University, and also two museums, the Nordiska museet and the MoMu Fashion Museum in Antwerp, donated pictures to Wikimedia Commons that we could use at the edit-a-thon. WMSE assisted them both with the technical practicalities.
This is the first of a series of fashion edit-a-thons that will take place all over Europe in the coming two years, all coordinated by Europeana Fashion.
Database of Public Art in Sweden
The work on the free database of public art in Sweden continues with a total of 20 municipalities contacted. Out of these eight have released their data or some subset thereof. Most of the remaining municipalities are either reviewing their available data or investigating any technical or policy challenges related to a data release. In addition to the municipalities the National Public Art Council Sweden (Statens konstråd) has also released their data of artworks acquired from 1997-2012.
Working life museum fair
As part of the collaboration with the The Working Life Museums Co-operation Council Axel Pettersson gave two presentations at the Working life museum fair in Norrköping March 15. A total of 25 eager and interested museum volunteers listened and learned about why working with Wikipedia and Wikimedia is a good idea. Next stop is the museum days in may and after that a series of workshop during the summer and fall.
Small museums
Wikipedians' interest for (almost) hidden treasures
Small museums in two Swiss cities
Up to ten Wikipedians regularly attend the Wikipedia meetup in Zurich. Sometimes a museum visit in the afternoon preludes the usual dinners and talking fun all evening long. The three museums visited so far have in common that they are small and mostly unknown. They aren't open every day but interested visitors are usually allowed in on Saturdays, when the Wikipedians hold their meetups. Instead of descriptions, custodians are on hand to explain and answer questions related to the collections.
The first visit of this kind, in March 2012, has taken the Wikipedians to the computer museum ENTER in Solothurn. A Commons category now documents many of the old computers the museum puts on display.
In September 2012 the Police Museum of the City of Zurich offered a free guided tour. This secluded museum hides next to a parking structure and its rooms could be transformed into a large emergency shelter if needed. Currently, they are full of uniforms, weapons, vehicles and outdated communication devices. Most objects date from the 20th century, some from the 19th century. One retired policeman served as experienced guide and told stories related to the maintenance of public order and crime investigations.
Just recently, on 23 March, the group met again in Solothurn where a small museum remembers the Polish general Tadeusz Kościuszko. His last residence (1815-1817) has been converted into a museum in 1936. It puts Kościuszko's saddle, a plausible reconstruction of his bedroom, his urn, and many paintings on display. Visitors learn that this national liberation hero has also been an artist. The museum's longtime custodian, himself a native from Poland, is an active member of the local Kościuszko Society and looking for ways to preserve the hidden collection he was able to enrich with an exclusive piece, Kościuszko's authentic pistol.
BTW: The next meetup in May will again feature a visit to a small museum, in Gersau, on the shores of Lake Lucerne.
GLAM Activities in Taiwan
Review of GLAM Situation in Taiwan
Although there are many culture institutions in Taiwan, the dynamic of GLAM-related Wikimedia activities are much lower compared to other active countries. The main reason of the inactive situation is because that the practice of sharing is not common in the local. Some minor reasons like most of the culture institutions are government owned in Taiwan, the staffs are public servants, they won't do anything that is not related to their work to risk their career. So new ways of promotion like donating media on WikiCommons will be discouraged.
However, there are some GLAM-related cases last year. Once as a staff in Heritage Hall of Physic, National Taiwan University, Taiwanese Wikipedian Supaplex used the materials that were left by the former staffs to compose the article about the museum (NTU Heritage Hall of Physic) on Chinese Wikipedia. He also took pictures of the exhibits. He uploaded 55 files in commons in the category (NTU_Heritage_Hall_of_Physics). The museum article was choose as DYK article in Chinese Wikipedia. Supaplex used The Children's Museum of Indianapolis case as the model, because it can be done by only one person, with patient and time.
Last September, Supaplex tutored some students to write articles about National Taiwan University, which include GLAM articles in the campus (Practice for Using Cultural Assets of the Campus, National Taiwan University). In one semester, students create 5 new GLAM articles of National Taiwan University, and improved a heritage site.
Maybe a bit but not that relate, last October Mia Ridge was invited by Ilya Lee, a key person in Taiwan's National Archive Project. The National Archive project had ran for ten years but is been closed last year. Unfortunately, the media that was digitalized by National Archive isn't open-licensed. The project had claimed to have rich content, but won't do any good to improved Wikipedia. In the recent open data movement in Taiwan, there are few people discuss about these stuffs in National Archive Project. Ilya Lee is fond of the idea to open cultural data, but it is hard work not only for him also for who is interested in culture, to persuade people to open-license these materials, and enriched the GLAM-related articles in Wikipedia.
Recruit Volunteers for Wiki Loves Monuments in Taiwan
After holding the Wikimedia 2007, the weak community in Taiwan collapsed due to over-tension. Until 2010, face-to-face meetups were revived, but the faces in the community is not the same as usual, many active community members back in 2007 no longer maintain Wikimedia matters. There is a gap between the new and old community members. Although the community in Taiwan is now still growing, and for this historical back-fire issue, it is not big enough to hold a National level campaign.
Thanks for Creative Commons Taiwan for helping to spread the words, now there are many people want to help. In April 13, there will be a working group meeting to be held in Taipei for Wiki Loves Monuments in Taiwan. The core team members will be composed. Best wishes for recruiting the core team for Wiki Loves Monuments in Taiwan, and good luck for the campaign to success.
Workshops: scientists and photographs
British Library sessions
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March was very busy at the British Library, with eight sessions through the month, including editing workshops, public talks, and a day-long session working with a set of historic photographs.
There were four "introduction to Wikipedia" workshops, one on 4 March at the British Library (12 people), one on 13 March at Senate House Library (12 people), one on 20 March at the University of Southampton (16 people), and finally another on 17 March at the British Library (6 people). The Senate House and Southampton events may lead to more events - both are talking about the possibility of hosting editathons with a local focus in the future.
At Cambridge on 6 March, Andrew Gray gave a talk on "Dissecting Wikipedia" (slides), looking at the large amount of research carried out on and around Wikipedia. On the following day, he spoke on a panel at the UK Archives Discovery Forum, talking about what Wikimedia projects had to offer to the archive sector.
On 8 March, the University Library in Cambridge hosted a workshop for the Darwin Correspondence Project; it sought to use the research done while editing Charles Darwin's papers to help improve Wikipedia articles on under-represented nineteenth-century female scientists. Several articles, such as Emily Jane Pfeiffer, were created from scratch, while many others were expanded to include more information about their scientific careers, including some quotations from their correspondence with Darwin.
Finally, on 18 March, the British Library held a workshop to help prepare several thousand digital images from the Canadian Copyright Collection of Photographs. These were successfully processed, and are now being uploaded to Wikimedia Commons.
GLAM-Wiki
Main page: wmuk:GLAM-WIKI 2013
We have been finalising plans for the GLAM-Wiki 2013 conference, which will be held in London from 12-14 April. For more information, see wmuk:GLAM-WIKI 2013, or register here.
The conference will run over three days - the first day will focus on talks and reports of partnerships to date, while the second day will be a more practically-oriented series of workshops and panel discussions, both for individuals from the cultural sector interested in learning more about working with the Wikimedia community, and for a more experienced audience wanting to look at some of the new tools being developed to help with collaborations. The third day will be an unconference/hackathon, organised by THATCamp London.
Natural History Museum and Science Museum Wikimedian in Residence
John Cummings will be working at the Natural History Museum and Science Museum in London as the Wikimedian in Residence for the next 3 months.
He aims to train volunteers and staff members how to contribute to Wikimedia projects whilst avoiding conflict of interest and educate people about the possibilities of open knowledge projects.
"There is such a wealth of knowledge here on a wide range of subjects, it would be wonderful if that was available to the wide audience that Wikipedia has."
John aims to find new ways of giving people information whilst in the museum. In addition he will look at possible work that could be done in the future between the museums and open knowledge projects.
“There are many people visiting the museums speak languages other than English, I would love for these people to have information available in their own language, I think Wikipedia is a wonderful way of accomplishing this. I am developing tools built on top of Wikipedia and QRpedia that allow for pictorial and multi-lingual navigation of content to give all visitors access to in depth information about the objects and concepts explored in the museum."
One of the main objectives of the residency is to find ways allow people to see and give people a better understanding of the collections and processes of the museums. The Natural History Museum has over 70 million items in it's collection, has a library and archives and has a large life sciences department studying biodiversity. The Science Museum has hundreds of thousands of objects and a large library and archive. As an example is Blythe House, the Science Museum's medium object store has over 200,000 artefacts stored in 90 rooms.
There will be free tour of Blythe House at 2pm this Thursday (11th of April) as part of GLAMwiki (deadline is Tuesday 9th of April for booking a place), more information is available here.
To find out more go to the project page or contact wikimedian@nhm.ac.uk
Chemical Heritage Foundation resident sought; editathons in D.C. and New York
Chemical Heritage Foundation seeks Wikipedian in Residence
- See job posting.
The Chemical Heritage Foundation—a non-profit repository in Philadelphia, USA with collections relating to the history and heritage of chemistry, chemical engineering, and related sciences and technologies—put out a job posting this month for a Wikipedian in Residence. The Wikipedian in Residence will work as a community coordinator and strengthen the relationship between CHF and the Wikipedian community through a range of activities, similar to past GLAM-Wiki residencies. This is a full-time, temporary position with a small stipend with an immediate opening.
The Wikipedian in Residence's potential activities includes organizing on-site events for the local Wikipedian community, adding digital content from CHF's holdings to Wikimedia Commons and Wikisource, encouraging increased content or quality of Wikipedia articles using CHF resources, teaching Wikipedia skills to the CHF staff or researcher community, and documenting their experiences in blogs, social media, or elsewhere. As of April 6, applicants are still being sought.
Women in the Arts 2013
On March 29, 2013, Sara Snyder held another editathon at the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art in honor of Women's History Month. This year, there were attendees from the National Museum of Women in the Arts and National Gallery of Art. Results were posted w:Wikipedia:Meetup/DC/Women in the Arts2013.
Brooklyn Public Library editathon
Editathon at the Historical Society of Washington, D.C.
Approximately 30 Wikipedians and new editors attended the first ever GLAM-Wiki event hosted by the Historical Society of Washington on March 23. The theme of the editathon was the history of Washington, D.C., which the Historical Society has a large collection of material and several exhibits on. The event was co-sponsored by the Washingtoniana/Black Studies Division of the Martin Luther King, and the George Washington University Libraries (which will be hosting their own D.C. history editathon on April 20). The day's also activities included an introduction to editing from local Wikipedian Jim Hayes, a catered lunch, and a tour of the exhibit Window to Washington: The Kiplinger Collection at HSW by museum staff member and Wikipedian Adam Lewis. Many articles were improved or expanded, including at least two new articles: Snows Court and The Wylie Mansion.
News in brief
- On March 23–24, twenty U.S. GLAM professionals met at U.C. Berkeley for the US OpenGLAM Launch to learn about and become evangelists for openness in the cultural sector. The event was the led by Sarah Stierch, former US OpenGLAM Coordinator, and was sponsored by the OCLC, the Open Knowledge Foundation, and the University of California, Berkeley School of Information. For more, see the recap blog post by Ed Rodley.
Topic Pages; Open Access on Wikispecies
PLOS Computational Biology Topic Pages
This month saw the publication of two "Topic Page" articles in the journal PLOS Computational Biology that live on as articles on the English Wikipedia: Evolving digital ecological networks as well as Viral phylodynamics. The journal now features banner ads for the series, and a blog post gave an overview of the four articles published this way so far. A number of others are being drafted, and suggestions for further topics are welcome.
Open Access materials on Wikispecies
Of the over 80,000 uses of files from the Commons category Open access (publishing) across Wikimedia projects, more than 1000 now occur on Wikispecies. The German and French Wikipedias had reached that milestone some weeks earlier but have since been overtaken by Wikispecies by that measure.
Open Access Media Importer
Gallery
The following files represent a selection of what has been uploaded by the Open Access Media Importer this month. If you can think of wiki pages where these files could be useful, please put them in there or let us know.
Open Access File of the Day
The following files have been featured as Open Access File of the Day this month:
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March 31: Sir Edwin Southern, inventor of the Southern blot. -
March 30: The life cycle of the parasitic nematode Onchocerca volvulus, which causes river blindness. -
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March 28:T Cell differentiation -
March 27: increasing reelin changes the morphology of migrating neurons -
March 26: cone of female Ephedra californica -
March 25: Life restoration of Iguanacolossus fortis. -
March 24: Lily Shoals elimia -
March 23: The beetle Phrypeus rickseckeri. -
March 22: Pieter Bleeker (b. 1819), Dutch ichthyologist -
March 21: Images of love darts made by scanning electron microscopy -
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March 19: The song of the owl Otus jolandae
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March 18: The moth Panthea acronyctoides. -
March 17: Bone scintigraphy of a patient with psoriatic arthritis in the left elbow. -
March 16: The Termitotrox cupido holotype. -
March 15: Cercopithecus lomamiensis. -
March 14: Phylogenetic tree for Heterobranchia -
March 13: Endocarditis ultrasound -
March 12: Malayatelura rubbing an ant worker
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March 11: The fern Dryopteris macropholis. -
March 10: Escherichia coli life cycle. -
March 9: A Pantopsalis listeri harvestman. -
March 8: Single beating cell at day 5 after VCAM-1 sorting
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March 7: The result of a tonsillectomy. -
March 6: A Prostylotermes termite. -
March 5: Fruitbodies of Boletopsis nothofagi -
March 4: Astronaut Charles Duke with a hammer on the moon
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March 3: A Soay sheep. -
March 2: In progeria patients, the cell nucleus has dramatically aberrant morphology (bottom, right) rather than the uniform shape typically found in healthy individuals (top, right). -
March 1: The snail Opisthostoma everettii.
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April's GLAM events
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| 8 Introduction to Wikipedia workshop at the British Library
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10 The Digikult conference and an adjacent hackaton, Gothenburg, Sweden
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11 The Digikult conference and an adjacent hackaton, Gothenburg, Sweden
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12 GLAM-WIKI 2013, London, UK
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13 GLAM-WIKI 2013, London, UK
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20 "All Things GW" editathon at the George Washington University Archives
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28 GLAM Boot Camp US Day 3
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| 29 GLAM-Wiki US Consortium Advisory Group Meeting, National Archives
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