GLAM/Newsletter/August 2022/Single
Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos Campaign in Albania and Kosovo in 2022
ปิดโหมดบนเครื่องบิน เปิดอินเทอร์เน็ตมือถือหรือ Wi-Fi ตรวจสอบสัญญาณในพื้นที่ของคุณ ERR_INTERNET_DISCONNECTED ตกลง
Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos Campaign in Albania and Kosovo, 2022
August 1-31, 2022, WoALUG developed the Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos Campaign in Albania and Kosovo. Besides the international participation, WoALUG also organized it locally. Rules for our context were adopted locally, having a one-day edit-a-thon happening on the same day, online and offline, in Tirana and Prishtina.
The edit-a-thon took place on August 27, and people joined in enriching the articles. Edit-a-thon started with introducing the campaign and training people on how to add pictures through the visual and source editors.
Statistics:
10 editors, 46 articles edited
Social Media: wikimediashqip.org, @sqwikimediansug, FB/sqwikimediansUG, ig/sqwikimedians_ug YoutubechannelWikimedians of Albanian Language User Group
Introducing Wikidata to the City of Sydney
A small but enthusiastic group attended an 'Introduction to Wikidata: How the world of Wikimedia links together' at the Darling Square Library on 13 August. It was the first in-person edit-a-thon hosted by the City of Sydney since May 2021.
Participants ranged in age from early 20s to late 70s, all keen to understand the power of Wikidata. There were the usual challenges when getting the participants signed up for Wikipedia accounts, including one whose IP had been blocked.
After the introductory training presented by Toby Hudson, during which the new editors watched then practised adding a reference to a statement, we enjoyed a twenty-minute break on site for tea, coffee and Portuguese tarts or popped out for a breath of fresh air and something more like lunch.
Next, participants created new items for people with entries in the Australian Dictionary of Biography (ADB), adding alternative names, descriptions and as much information as they could from the ADB, using it as a reference.
Nearing the end of the session, Toby demonstrated some visualisations of SPARQL queries, then chose one query suggested by the group to create live – Who was the first librarian?
For Sydneysiders who remain curious to learn about what Wikidata is and how it works, a repeat session will be held on 22 October 2022.
Links
In-person and online activities hosted by Brazil during Wikimania 2022
Wiki Takes Santa Leopoldina
Wiki Takes Santa Leopoldina was an initiative to increase the amount / quality of information about the small city of Santa Leopoldina, settled in Espírito Santo State, available in Wikimedia projects in Portuguese. It was part of the international program of Wikimania 2022 and also of the Brazilian 2022 project called Wiki Loves Espírito Santo, organized by Wiki Movimento Brasil (WMB) in partnership with Secretary of State for Culture (SeCult-ES) and Museu do Colono (Museum of Imigrants).
Between August 11th and 14th 2022, 12 wikimedians from different parts of Brazil "occupied" the city to:
- Digitize part of the collection of Museu do Colono (Museum of Imigrants);
- Take photowalks to document urban and rural historical buildings;
- Map urban and rural historical buildings in OpenStreetMap, linking them to WikiData items;
- Participate in an edit-a-thon about the city.
Museu do Colono hosted the in-person activities. During this event, we documented and geolocated 100% of the listed assets from Santa Leopoldina-ES, including the rural ones. Not even SeCult-ES has pictures of some of them.
Wiki Takes Santa Leopoldina was the first Wiki Takes out of São Paulo State (SP) organized by Wiki Movimento Brasil (WMB) and it was possible due to a Wikimania 2022 Grant. 12 Wikimedians had the opportunity to travel from three different regions (Northeast, Southeast and South) and 6 different States of Brazil (Bahia, Espírito Santo, Paraná, Rio de Janeiro, Santa Catarina and São Paulo) to participate in the Brazilian in-person activity held during Wikimania 2022. The grant provided transportation, accomodation and meals for them; and also meals for another 5 local partners who helped to organize the event. And it also provided coffee and snacks for 45 people who participated in the activities: 12 Wikimedians, 13 employees from the hosting GLAM institution, and 20 employees from SeCult-ES.
We also had some extra outcome:
- More than 100 people around the world attended the wikimania sessions transmitted from Santa Leopoldina during the Wiki Takes event;
- 13 employees from the hosting GLAM institution and 20 employees from the Secretary of State for Culture (SeCult-ES) participated in the activities and some of them are potential newcomers;
- Wikimedians and partners had the opportunity to visit Quilombo Retiro, located near the urban area, and the historical buildings distributed around the rural area;
- 100% of the listed assets from Santa Leopoldina-ES were documented and geolocated, including 31 historical buildings in the historical center of Santa Leopoldina and 10 historical buildings in the rural area;
- 12 quilombolas presented dance/music celebrations that were registered in videos and photos;
- The leader of Quilombo Retiro and the master of the band had their historical testimonial registered in videos and photos.
This event provided WMB with invaluable experience in how to organize quick Wiki events in small cities out of SP and how to immerse our members in this type of events and programmes, considering financial and geographical factors. The experience was both challenging and rewarding.
How to organize a “Wiki Takes a City” event
Wiki Movimento Brasil (WMB) has promoted “Wiki Takes a City” projects since 2019. They involve a series of activities to improve content on the Internet about a chosen location, including edit-a-thons, photowalks, digital mapping and GLAM-Wiki outreach. This type of activity aims to disseminate the open knowledge culture (with special interest in places out of big urban centers) and it is specially designed to fill knowledge gaps and outreach Wikimedia in places where our projects are not well known.
STEP 1. Choose a city: Any city may hold a “Wiki Takes" event, but WMB usually pays attention to:
- Large number of listed assets;
- Few photos and information available on wiki platforms;
- Few Wikipedia articles in the category of that city;
- Presence of cultural peculiarities and/or groups underrepresented on Wiki projects;
- Underrepresented geographic regions.
STEP 2. Contact local partners
- Search for local wikimedians or other people related to open knowledge culture;
- Search for potential GLAM partners among municipal cultural institutions, with special interest in the ones that publicize their collections online (on websites, social networks, etc.).
STEP 3. Call for participants
- For Wikimedians: Create an online form and send it through the community communication channels;
- For Local Participants: Publicize the event on social networks, get in touch with the Town Hall, local schools, photography clubs, etc.
STEP 4. Pillars of a “Wiki Takes” promoted by WMB
- Photowalks: Photowalks are crucial for an “Wiki Takes” event and relatively easy to perform. You can start photographing the listed assets located in the municipality and then go to squares, parks, relevant public buildings, as well as documenting peculiar cultural places. The photowalks can also end with a collective celebration/event, in order to strengthen ties among wikimedists and newcomers.
- Mapping the city: OpenStreetMap (OSM) is a geographic database that many free knowledge projects use as base for their maps, including Wikipedia itself. In general, all Brazilian cities have their structure well mapped in OSM. During a “Wiki Takes” event, the main activity is to refine this information, adding missing buildings, maping forest reserves and relating the mapped items in OSM with their respective items in Wikidata.
- Edit-a-Thon aims to create and improve articles directly related to the choosen municipality; create lists of potentially valuable articles to be used as reference in future events; and present Wikimedia projects to local citizens, giving them the opportunity to learn how to edit Wikipedia.
- GLAM initiative: During an “Wiki Takes” event, the GLAM initiative must be objective and efficient. So, the idea is to digitize and upload part of the collection of a small-sized GLAM institution. A low-cost equipment kit is a good solution in these cases, as the proposed by Museu Portátil (Portable Museum) Project. See more information about it in our January Report.
P.S.1: Number of participants: It is important that the team participating in the “Wiki Takes” event includes wikimedians who have expertise in the activities to be held. The number of participants depends on the choosen city, but considering small or medium-sized cities, a minimum team would include:
- 2 experienced participants for guiding the photowalk;
- 1 experienced participant for mapping the buildings and other places of interest;
- 2 experienced participants for teaching during the edit-a-thon;
- 1 experienced participant for digitizing and teaching how to digitize part of the collection of the choosen GLAM partner;
- 1 local GLAM partner.
“Wiki Takes” events held by WMB
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About decolonizing knowledge in Brazil
"Diversity & Decolonization" is one of the five key principles that guide the activities and programs of Wiki Movimento Brasil (WMB) and are described in our Theory of Change. The other ones are:
- Sustainability
- Interconnection & Partnerships
- Social Relevance
- Learning
It means our cultural initiatives consider the main scenario in Brazil, where there are many underrepresented groups and communities and they have no resources for creating content by themselves.
In the end of 2021, Wiki Movimento Brasil started a strategic redefinition process and one of the inescapable understandings is the necessity of increase our actions over the power relations involved in knowledge production and sharing. We must adapt our practices, tecnologies and even our interaction networks to embrace distinct cosmovisions and peripherical realities. We are still in the reflexion / experimentation phase, but we already have some learnings to share.
In 2021, WMB co-organized WikidataCon in partnership with Wikimedia Deutschland which included a process of reimagining Wikidata from the margins in an activation with Latin American and Caribbean Affiliates and Whose Knowledge? project. The preparatory program for WikidataCon was called Transbordados and was designed under the scope to better understand and envision possible paths for the empowered performance of historically marginalized communities in the Wikidata ecosystem. Some of the issues were:
- What is the infrastructure required to structure data according multiple epistemic perspectives? How can we reach it?
- What is the knowledge governance necessary for different identities and cultures to coexist and collaborate on Wikidata?
As digitization is still a huge barrier for cultural institutions when it comes to heritage digital preservation and online visibility, WMB seeks for a basic infraestructure wich enable any cultural institution, regardless of their resources or size, to contribute with Wiki Projects. This concern leads us to Museu Portátil project wich was coordinated by the art historian and curator Carolina Matos in a partnership with Goethe-Institut São Paulo, Instituto Moreira Salles and Wiki Movimento Brasil. At the core of Museu Portátil is a portable digitization kit that includes a smartphone, a set of supports and some basic lighting accessories. The equipment costs around 10 thousand BRL - less than 2 thousand US dollars -, and it is an accessible solution for institutions with low human and/or financial resources. Once the collections are digitized, the equipment can also be shared and used by different institutions in the region.
One of the pilot activities of this low resource digitization and dissemination project was held by Centro de Memória da Santa Casa da Bahia that keeps the UNESCO awarded documental series Livros do Banguê - a set of eleven books with recordings of burial expenses for Africans and their enslaved descendants, as well as deceased indigents between 1742 and 1856. This set of documents is fundamental for the study of African diaspora and slavery because it contains information about birth and deathplace, and sometimes even body marks from the colonial violence. The first book is already available at GLAM-Wiki initiative with Centro de Memória da Santa Casa da Bahia.
As annouced in our last Report, during the closing session of WikiCon Brasil 2022, one decolonial GLAM partnership was signed in-person by Valério Mello (President of WMB) and Diana Souza from the Rede de Historiadoras Negras e Historiadores Negros (Black Historians Network). This GLAM partnership aims to:
- Create a on-wiki Open Digital Repository of the academic production of Black Historians;
- Create Wikipedia articles about Brazilian black personalities and other people who played a leading role in historical events and processes;
- Add many Wikiquotes of Brazilian black researchers and great personalities, books, films and proverbs.
WMB is also structuring some research projects on different decolonial work front, such as:
- Collaborative ontology protocols for uploading indigenous collections, avoiding voluntarism and establishing a model suitable for native populations (inspired by Local Context project);
- Enslaved people information modelling based on the eleven books of Banguê in a partnership with Rede de Historiadoras Negras e de Historiadores Negros, including the identification of the marks burned into the skin of people, relating this information to their enslaver. This work may help to construct, for example, a list of people subjugated and the torture inflicted to them by the enslavers (inpired by the project "Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade" (Enslaved.org)).
The participation of Wiki Movimento Brasil (WMB) in Wikimania 2022 Sessions
- Crisis & GLAM
[link to the session]
What role does open access to cultural heritage play in today’s crises? Join to hear about the experiences and activities of wikimedians responding to crises, and to map out collaborations and practices that can help combat crisis situations facing humans, the environment, and cultural heritage. We have the privilege to hear three speakers talk about their experiences confronting and responding to crises.
Éder Porto (Wiki Movimento Brasil) introduces the digital reconstruction work they undertook when a massive fire devastated the building and collections of the National Museum of Brazil in 2018.
Nassima Chahboun (Wiki World Heritage) walks us through the work of WHindanger that promotes and raises awareness of UNESCO World Heritage Sites in danger using participatory creative tactics and Wikimedia projects to create an interactive website.
Hanna Osadchuk (Wikimedia Ukraine) talks about open access to cultural heritage as seen from within the ongoing war.
- Decolonizing the Internet’s Structured Data, join the conversation!
[link to the session]
In October 2021, we invited over 40 participants from around the world for the conversation Decolonizing the Internet’s Structured Data, leading up to WikidataCon, jointly organized by Whose Knowledge?, Wiki Movimento Brasil, and Wikimedia Deutschland. The gathering report is available here: https://whoseknowledge.org/resource/dti-structured-data-report/
That was a much needed opportunity to imagine radical possibilities for structured data across regions and areas of study. Many participants voiced their interest in organizing more collective spaces and advancing more concrete steps towards emancipatory practices. In Wikimania 2022, we want to resume the conversation, and make it broader and deeper, together with the Wikimedia community.
- How to organize a “Wiki Takes a City” event
[link to the session]
A Wiki Takes a City is a series of activities to improve content on the Internet about a chosen location. That includes edit-a-thons, photowalks, digital mapping and GLAM-Wiki outreach. This kind of activity is especially effective to solve knowledge gaps and outreach Wikimedia in places where our projects are not well known.
Wiki Movimento Brasil has promoted “Wiki Takes a City” projects since 2019 and this year we are integrating its activities with Wikimania presentations and watch parties. In this session we presented to other communities how to organize this type of event, based on our previous and current experiences, detailing all the steps needed to implement it, such as how to choose the location, how to get in touch with local partners, outreach to participants and organize the photowalks, edit-a-thons and other activities.
We held the section during one of ours Wiki Takes, in Santa Leopoldina, Espírito Santo. This activity is part of our year-long effort to improve content on Espírito Santo on Wikimedia projects.
- Meet the members that are drafting the Wikimedia Movement Charter
[link to the session]
We have prepared a introduction video about the committee: the video shows the committee members, giving faces to our names and connecting the languages the projects that we are part of. The video will answer some of the basic questions about the charter. After that, there is time for a Q&A.
- Meet the members that are drafting the Wikimedia Movement Charter, Part 2
[link to the session]
We will be recording and introductional video next weekend and would like to work this into a short video of ~5 minutes.
The video will show us working together, giving faces to our names and connecting the languages the projects that we are part of. The video will answer some of the basic questions and most importantly \Why does the movement need a charter\?
- Movement Strategy, Implementation lightning talks!, Part 2
[link to the session]
In this lightning talk session, three speakers from different Wikimedia organizations and groups will present their projects by which they are working on implementing a part of Wikimedia’s Movement Strategy. What are their challenges during implementation, what have they learned and could be shared with others interested in implementing Movement Strategy, and what future goals they have for their work and for Movement Strategy? Each speaker presents their work for 10 min, and can answer questions from the audience for 5 min. The idea is to showcase tangible examples of what Movement Strategy Implementation looks like in practice.
- Understanding DEI in Wiki Loves Monuments and federated campaigns at-large
[link to the session]
Wiki Loves Monuments conducted a diversity, equity and inclusivity (DEI) research to re-evaluate the competition’s concept and strategies of engagement. As part of the process, we spoke to our national WLM organisers to understand the roadblocks faced in organising an inclusive photo competition in their respective countries. As part of this Wikimania 2022 we would like to propose a panel discussion on some of the DEI research findings. We feel that some of the DEI issues, highlighted by the organisers, are pertinent across Wiki Loves photo competitions. This Wikimania session would not only facilitate discussion across Wiki Loves campaigns, but also provide a space for Wikimedians to share and learn from each other’s experience.
- Wiki Loves Espírito Santo, a case study
[link to the session]
Since 2021, Wiki Movimento Brasil User Group has promoted year long projects called “Wiki Loves a State”. In these projects, a series of dissemination activities and resources are developed to improve coverage of the content on the Wikimedia projects about the state chosen. In 2021, we developed Wiki Loves Bahia and this year we are promoting Wiki Loves Espírito Santo with activities focusing on the State of Espírito Santo, one of the smallest states on the country, but bigger than Switzerland and very underrepresented on the Wikimedia projects -- and the internet! This session will expand on what the Wiki Loves Espírito Santo project is and what are its goals, the activities promoted and the results so far. We will also a set of how-to for contributors around the world who might be interested in replicating this kind of activities. We will make the presentation during one of our outreach activities in Espírito Santo, so as to connect local participants to our global community.
- What does decolonizing knowledge look like in Latin America?/br>
[link to the session]
In this workshop, we will explore what “decolonization” might mean in specific contexts, particularly in Latin America. We will briefly share examples of work that each of the chapters has been doing to close technological & digital literacy gaps in different sectors, from education to GLAM. We will invite participants to share their own examples and to collectively reflect on how they can think of decolonizing knowledge in their own context. We will close the session with an activity that makes participants feel powerful actors in crafting and elevating their knowledge.
Throughout this workshop, we will make sure to design engaging activities that participants can interact with, using ice-breakers, collaborative docs and boards, among others.
Summer in WMEE - from collecting professors´ portraits to new potential co-operations
Professors´ portraits to Commons
In spring this year, voices in WMEE community came on a idea to start collecting portraits of the professors´ from Estonian University of Life Sciences (et. EMÜ) and upload the photographs to Commons. This pilot project would have a positive effect on the virtual face of Estonian professors working in field of agriculture and would also help make EMÜ more visible in Wiki as well as in the Internet overall. A goal was set to collect at least half of all the tenure professors at the university currently working.
The results were most satisfactory. In collaboration with the communication department of the university, we managed to collect more than 2/3 of the photographs of all currently sitting tenure professors at Estonian University of Life Sciences. As the importance of so-called "virtual face" of every educational institution is continuously raising, we hope to set an example of this project to other Estonian universities as well. Big thanks to all of the professors at the Estonian University of Life Sciences for contributing in Wikimedia!
Newest co-operations and Photo contest
Summer is always a time when people in all fields of experience take their time off and try to gather ideas for the soon beginning autumn. Our team in WMEE is therefore no exception! ;) As the start of this month (Sept 2022) our plans in GLAM area cover co-operations with different and very unique museums all over the country. In addition, some of those are planned to take place in October when we again celebrate the Wikipedia Month of Art.
The main collaborations are planned with Estonian Maritime Museum, Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom. The first in the list (Maritime Museum), has a rich collection of artifacts from Estonian seaside parishes and vessels. Whereas the second depicts a period in Estonian history when it was occupied by the Nazi Germany and Soviet Union in the 20th century and holds a wide and specific collections of different items together with written memories and photos from the period of Estonian contemporary history.
Finally, we are also currently arranging a public competition with Estonian National Heritage Board. The theme of the competition is "Lively old city" and it takes place throughout the entire month of September. Everybody are welcomed to join and put their photography skill to the test!
Coins and paintings by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation
Coins and paintings by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation
For several weeks, user Raymond had already been working with the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in Berlin to make a partial stock of available images available to the general public and under Free License. By early July 2022, the foundation had also committed itself to the Open Access Idea and placed numerous photos from the Gemäldegalerie and the Münzkabinett under the CC0 license.
Raymond supported the responsible persons in uploading the first photos of paintings (about 100 so far) and of coins (almost 9200 so far) to Wikimedia Commons. Thanks to Holger Plickert of Wikimedia Deutschland, the contact between the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation and Raymond was established as volunteer support. For the upload of the first convolute, the first task was to establish an understanding of the available and necessary metadata for the paintings and to find the most efficient way for the upload. Repro photos of the paintings were still uploaded to Wikimedia Commons with Pattypan, where mainly user Wuselig did the linking and post-processing on Wikidata.
For uploading the disproportionately large amount of coin images and associated data, Raymond received a hint from Lucy Patterson of the WMDE team (WMDE) about a beta version of OpenRefine that also supports uploading to Wikimedia Commons. Using this tool, he was able to prepare the metadata for the nearly 9200 coin photos and then upload them. Future images from the foundation - and they have been announced - will probably be uploaded directly using OpenRefine, which will significantly reduce the linking work.
-
greeks, … -
…, romans, … -
…, medievals, …
The images uploaded so far are now of course available to all Wikimedia projects and can be incorporated into Wikipedia articles, among other things. Before this happens, however, the coin images in particular still have to be systematically processed: a fine categorization is necessary and in Wikipedia they have to be put into a meaningful context and integrated into the corresponding articles. All knowledgeable interested parties are invited to participate. The images can be found in a common Category on commons, the coin photos are additionally sorted in 20 individual categories by chronological order.
4 Islands Outreach; Digital Clippings; Balinese Wikisource Competition
GLAM outreach to several main islands in Indonesia
After two years of pandemic and stopping all offline activities, GLAM Indonesia kick-off the post-pandemic activities with visitation to four cities: Medan, Yogyakarta, Makassar, and Banjarmasin, in the four main islands of Indonesia: Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and Kalimantan. In addition, the team got to visit old and new partners in around 18 institutions. We plan to invite most of them to the Open GLAM conference in November. We are also planning to socialize the Indonesian GLAM collections to several universities in the months to come.
In those cities, GLAM Indonesia also promoted Wikistories, piloted in the Indonesian Wikipedia, and collaborated with non-Wikimedian communities in those four cities to test and use the new feature and provide feedback to the developer team. As a result, a competition (Wikistories for GLAM) will be held in September-October to produce more GLAM-themed Wikistories in Indonesian Wikipedia (and GLAM-related pictures to Commons).
Digital Clippings for Commons
Following the success of the previous Digital Clipping event held on Public Domain Day 2022 in Indonesia, GLAM Indonesia organized a workshop that was attended by 17 Wikimedians and issued a challenge to make as many clippings from old Indonesian magazines and upload them to Commons (since the magazines themselves are not license-compatible to Commons yet). During the 1-week mini challenge, 13 participants uploaded 775+ photos from 70+ magazine volumes (an average of 60 pictures and five magazine volumes per participant).
The result dramatically enriches the largely unavailable pictures of Indonesian artists from the 60s to 70s. We hope to maintain this type of event again in the future with different sets of magazines.
Proofreading Competition in Balinese Wikisource
The community-organized competition was held for two weeks, and during that time, 14 participants proofread more than 5.000 pages of documents from 24 books, more than 2.000 of which has been validated. The competition is set to take place annually in three different Wikisource communities: Indonesian, Balinese, and Javanese.
Italian institutions ever closer to Wiki Loves Monuments
This year in Italy Wiki Loves Monuments is organized by Wikimedia Italia together with Istituto Italiano dei Castelli (we talked about it on February, here) with the collaboration of FIAF and the patronage of Conferenza delle Regioni e delle Province Autonome, ANCI (National Association of Italian Municipalities), ICOM Italia (International Council of Museums) and Europa Nostra(is recognised as the largest and the most representative heritage network in Europe).
For the first time, the contest in Italy will have a common theme: castles and fortifications.Thanks to the collaboration with Istituto Italiano dei Castelli, a great many of these monuments will be photographable for the first time this year, and the ambitious but not impossible goal is to collect at least one photo of each castle, thanks to everyone's help. Indeed, the Italian edition confirms itself as a valuable collaborative tool for digital documentation of monuments: since 2012, some 8,750 participants have uploaded more than 165,000 photographs to Wikimedia Commons, choosing from more than 17,300 photographable monuments and cultural properties, even more in 2022.
In addition to several public administrations and religious bodies, important Italian cultural istututions have joined this year. Below are some new additions to the Wiki Loves Monuments Italia family (many of them in Calabria):
- Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Reggio Calabria: museum in Reggio Calabria, southern Italy, housing an archaeological collection from sites in Magna Graecia. The most notable of its collections include the two large, well-preserved 5th century BC Riace bronzes, found in the province of Reggio, are thought to be the most significant bronze sculptures from the Greek period and among the few survivors of works by its master sculptors.
- Galleria nazionale di Cosenza: a picture gallery consisting of the collection of paintings and works that, since the 1980s, have been acquired to the state's heritage is permanently located in the museum and documents significant moments of Italian art, particularly southern art, from the 16th to the 20th century.
- Museo archeologico lametino: archaeological museum that houses numerous artifacts found at various sites in the Lametine plain through which it is possible to follow the historical dynamics of the area from the Paleolithic to the late medieval age.
- Scolacium (an ancient seaside city in Calabria): the Archaeological Park is located in Roccelletta di Borgia; few remnants remain of the pre-Roman settlement, unlike the Roman and Late Antique layout, of which the main monuments such as the Forum, theater and amphitheater (the only example of a Roman amphitheater found in Calabria) stand out.
- Museo archeologico statale Vito Capialbi: is located in the Swabian Castle of Vibo Valentia. The museum is divided into four main sections: artifacts from sacred buildings, necropolis, private collections, and the Roman-era materials.
- Le Castella: coastal village known mainly for its fortress surrounded by the sea and its coastline consisting of beaches and reefs of various types. Marine flora and fauna are protected by the Capo Rizzuto marine protected area, the largest in Italy.
- Museo archeologico nazionale di Crotone: a museum located in the medieval walled city, corresponding to the acropolis of ancient Kroton.
- Area archeologica di Capo Colonna: a ruined ancient Greek temple dedicated to Hera (Juno) located on Capo Colonna in Calabria,
- Cattolica di Stilo: this Byzantine church in the comune of Stilo is one of the most important examples of Byzantine architecture
- Parco archeologico di Sibari: is located in Cassano all'Ionio, in the hamlet of Sibari, locality Parco del Cavallo, Casa Bianca, in the province of Cosenza. It is the site of one of the richest and most important Greek cities of Magna Graecia. Finds from the excavations are preserved in the National Archaeological Museum of the Sibaritide.
- Museo archeologico nazionale della Sibaritide
- Museo archeologico statale Vincenzo Laviola
- Museo nazionale della montagna, Turin.
- Museo diffuso della Resistenza, della deportazione, della guerra, dei diritti e della libertà
- The National Automobile Museum, Turin
- Museo del carcere Le Nuove, Turin
In addition, two universities join the list: University of Ferrara and University of Padua.
Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos Campaign and Wikivoyage
Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos Campaign in Albania and Kosovo, 2022
August 1-31, 2022, WoALUG developed the Wikipedia Pages Wanting Photos Campaign in Albania and Kosovo. Besides the international participation, WoALUG also organized it locally. Rules for our context were adopted locally, having a one-day edit-a-thon happening on the same day, online and offline, in Tirana and Prishtina.
The edit-a-thon took place on August 27, and people joined in enriching the articles. Edit-a-thon started with introducing the campaign and training people on how to add pictures through the visual and source editors.
Statistics:
- 10 editors, 46 articles edited
Wikivoyage Campaign and Edit-a-thon in Novobërda
In parallel with the WPWP campaign during the month of August, WoALUG held an online Wikivoyage campaign. Besides the online participation, WoALUG organized an edit-a-thon in Novobërda, Kosovo.
The edit-a-thon took place on August 23rd, and we had participation from locals who know the area and were ready to contribute. This offline edit-a-thon was designed to create and improve the content of Kosovo tourist locations in the free tourist guide Wikivoyage by adding information, creating and translating articles, and uploading photos to Wikimedia Commons.
Statistics:
- 4 new articles were created
- 41 existing articles were expanded and improved
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WoALUG welcomes cooperation with all GLAM institutions.
Social media
- We have a public Telegram channel (language used mostly Albanian) if you want to join and discuss Wikimedia projects. You don't need to be a member to be part of this channel.
If you want to see more about our activities you canː
- Like our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter or Instagram.
West Africa in the Van der Kraaij Photo Collection 1972-1987
West Africa in the complete Van der Kraaij Photo Collection 1972-1987
This year Dutch economist and photo donor Fred van der Kraaij more or less completed his donation of now 1407 images of West and North Africa to Wikimedia Commons. In his Introduction he highlighted some events he witnessed, which are shown below. Van der Kraaij views his photographs as notes and historical records and mentioned three themes in his pictorial work: people, their housing and their economic activities. Some of his photographs of the 1976 inauguration of president William Richard Tolbert (1913 – 1980) in Monrovia, Liberia, are included here as well.
Events
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Tolbert inauguration. A crowd celebrates William Richard Tolbert, 20th President of Liberia, Monrovia, Liberia, 1976. -
Tolbert inauguration. Ugandan dictator Idi Amin. -
Ceremonial Grebo War Dances. Women of Half Graway, Liberia, 1978. -
Ceremonial Grebo War Dances. A grimacing man in a decorated cap. -
Ceremonial Grebo War Dances. Women in colourful lappa cloth dresses. -
The Hanging of the Harper Seven, Harper, Liberia, convicted of ritual murders, 16 February 1979. -
State visit of President Carter, Monrovia, Liberia, 3 April 1978. Banner "The residents of Monrovia extend a warm welcome". -
State visit of President Carter, waving from his car. -
State visit of President Carter. Young spectators. -
Visit of Pope John Paul II to Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso 1980. Local archbishop Paul Zoungrana to the right. -
Visit of Pope John Paul II, with Zoungrana. -
Visit of Pope John Paul II. A well dressed crowd.
People, their housing and their economic activities
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People at the shop of Hidar Hammam on the main road, Ganta (Gompa City), Nimba county, Liberia, 1976. -
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A water vendor with his donkey, Mossi Plateau, Burkina Faso, 1981. -
Men drilling a well, Mossi Plateau, Burkina Faso, 1981. -
Men with their zebus on a market, Pouytenga, Burkina Faso, 1981. -
A local smith with tools and a transistor radio, Ziga, Burkina Faso, 1981. -
A Burkina agricultural extension officer with Van der Kraaij, program officer, Plateau-Central Region, Burkina Faso, 1982. -
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Young men transport the cotton harvest, Mogtédo, Burkina Faso, 1981. -
An IVECO truck crosses a steel bridge over the Black Volta/Mouhoun River, Burkina Faso, 1984. -
A Fulani mother with her daughter, Boucle du Mouhoun, Burkina Faso, 1984.
A Wikipedian at Large
End of the West Coast Project
The ten-week West Coast Wikipedian at Large project, sponsored by Development West Coast, has drawn to a close. It generated unusual levels of interest for a Wikimedia project, being covered three times on television, including a film crew interviewing Giantflightlessbirds in the bowels of the Hokitika Museum. To summarise the final report, the West Coast team of 11 widely-dispersed volunteers made 974 edits to 193 articles, adding 73,800 words and 653 citations. They created 25 articles from scratch, five appearing in Did You Know, and one being among the most viewed of August 2022). Over 1100 images were uploaded as part of the project, most of them original photos taken on site during field trips to to Punakaiki, Lake Brunner, Haast, and Karamea. Most importantly, the project was an opportunity to connect with the people living in remote corners of the West Coast, who supplied information, rare print materials, and photos.
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Westland petrel / tāiko -
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Gouland Downs on the Heaphy Track -
Fishing on Lake Brunner
No Numpties
Giantflightlessbirds is attending the Wikimedia Summit in Berlin as the New Zealand delegate, and was awarded a Paul Reynolds Scholarship by the library professionals body LIANZA to spend all of September in Europe. He'll be meeting with Wikipedians in Berlin, Prague, Utrecht, and Stockholm, focussed especially on GLAM projects using OpenRefine to upload to Commons. Case studies, tools, and ideas will be taken back to New Zealand and shared in workshops, conference presentations, and journal articles.
The Reynolds scholarship is also known as the "No Numpties" award (numpty is the Scots word for a fool). Reynolds was a tech commentator and supporter of open knowledge initiatives in the GLAM sector who died in 2010; bequests and gifts were used to set up the award to encourage New Zealanders to learn digital skills overseas.
The summary of GLAM editing contest and the end of residency at the National Museum in Cracow; Cooperation with Wawel Royal Castle; Hack(art)hon for Zachęta
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Banner of editing contest
The summary of GLAM editing contest and the end of residency at the National Museum in Cracow
The editing contest dedicated to museum’s collection of artworks called GLAM Month with the National Museum in Cracow has started on 30th of July during the edit-a-thon that took place in the museum.
The first articles were created and developed at the event, and the contest was run for a whole August. At the end 70 articles on the museum's collection were created and developed by 15 participants. The results highly exceeded our assumptions, as we set the goal on 50 articles.
The success of contest was possible thanks to great involvement of volunteer Jamnik z Tarnowa who coordinates the event and last but not least thanks to our community. A few articles on the Museum's collection have been already published on Wikipeda main page in a section did you know (see the printscreen).
In August the first part of the residency at the National Museum in Cracow has ended, so it was time to prepare the report summing up the 3 months long residency and make plans for the future. The report will be ready in September, but we already know that by the end of the residency around 450 Wikipedia pages have used images released to Wikimedia Commons within partnership and that over 250 images have been viewed 480 000 times.
Cooperation with Wawel Royal Castle
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In May this year the museum professionals at Wawel Royal Castle were equipped with skills of editing Wikipedia during the training led by Wikipedian Durski and was supported by EwkaC.
The goal was to develop the series of articles connected with the new opening of the Crown Treasury, the part of the Castle that was used from the 15th century for storing the Polish coronation insignia and Crown Jewels. The Wawel Royal Castle, where the museum is located, for centuries had been the residence of the kings of Poland and the symbol of Polish statehood.
As a result, not only were the first articles developed, but also a significant awareness of open knowledge was raised and licensing policy has been changed. The first, unique objects from Wawel’s collection were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons and they illustrate the new articles connected with the re-opening of the Crown Treasury”.
Hack(art)hon for Zachęta
Wikimedia Poland is a partner of Hack(art)hon oragnized by Centrum Cyfrowe Foundation for Zachęta - National Gallery of Art! The only such event on a nationwide scale.
The main goal of this week-long creative sprint that will start on 19th of September, is to prepare a prototype of one of two potential online tools based on online collections:
- An online tool aimed at teachers, using the Zachęta’s collection to foster interest in art in students outside of the school curriculum. It should help encourage students to explore digital artifacts on their own, discover new art forms and engage with them in creative ways.
- An online tool for users of the site (with a particular focus on people with disabilities) that will facilitate friendly and easy exploration of the collection of contemporary digital art assembled by Zachęta in a way that meets the specific needs of people with disabilities, including using solutions such as audiodescription, alternative descriptions or translation of films into Polish Sign Language.
All Wikimedians are invited to apply till 8th of September and join the international and interdisciplinary teams.
The 3 best projects will be awarded prizes totaling €10,000!
Click and learn more: hackarthon.pl
Linking Portuguese culture to Wikidata
Linking Portuguese culture to Wikidata
The efforts to connect Portuguese culture to Wikidata have sped up as ROSSIO Infrastructure makes its way into Wikidata. By aggregating content from multiple sources, from museums to other cultural institutions, ROSSIO Infrastructure provides open access to unique and diversified digital content in social sciences, arts, and humanities - in Portuguese and focusing on Portugal.
The brand-new platform has kickstarted the connection with Wikidata by adding Wikidata URIs to some entities on their ROSSIO's Agents Vocabulary (see D. Maria II National Theatre's record). As a further step towards building the bridge between both platforms, ROSSIO's URIs have been proposed as an external identifier on Wikidata. As ROSSIO grows, additional data will be added to Wikidata, connecting Portuguese heritage to the wonderful world of linked open data.
This work is underway as part of the Wikimedian residency held at NOVA FCSH in partnership with Wikimedia Portugal.
Contemporary Art Edit-a-thon and Wikipedian in residence at the Historical Archive of Negotin
Wikipedian in residence at the Historical Archive of Negotin
In cooperation with the Historical Archive of Negotin, we realized the Wikipedian in residence project during August. Thanks to this project, we were dedicated to digitizing historically important writings and documents supporting information about famous people of Negotin and important historical events. During this project 15 new articles were written, 10 were improved, and 88 were illustrated. 200 files have been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons, of which 3 are digitized books with 426 pages.
Contemporary Art Edit-a-thon
Wikimedia Serbia organized an online edit-a-thon with the aim of creating new and supplementing existing articles on contemporary art, art trends, artists and famous works of art, as well as manifestations from the sphere of contemporary art. During this , 6 editors wrote 47 articles. Among the written articles are biographical articles of important contemporary artists, artistic trends, biennials, books and performances.
Gallery
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First visit to Negotin of Josip Broz Tito -
Mokranjac Family -
Bombing of Belgrade in 1941 -
Parade in Negotin on the Youth Day -
Labor action, Works on the amelioration of the Negot lowland -
Telegraphic dispatch about the murder of Prince Mihailo Obrenović
100 000 Bildminnen; Uniforms, images from New Sweden, colonial officers, the map book of Fryderyk Getkant, and more!; Swedish general election 2022
100 000 Bildminnen
The work on the project 100 000 Photo Memories continues. In August, the focus was on communication with the Nordic Museum staff around what will be needed to make the project successful and interesting to the Wikimedia community. What sorts of images will be received with enthusiasm? How should the metadata be prepared? In order to help them better understand the Wikimedia platforms, the project group at the museum participated in a training, organized by Wikimedia Sverige, focused on the ins and outs of Wikimedia Commons, as well as the basics of OpenRefine and the possibilities it offers. Talking OpenRefine to GLAM staff is, in our experience, always interesting and rewarding. It's a powerful tool that many Wikimedians use primarily for editing Wikidata, but it's great for general data cleaning and enrichment – something that GLAMs often have a need for.
Uniforms, images from New Sweden, colonial officers, the map book of Fryderyk Getkant, and more!
In August the "GLAMWiki-team" at the Swedish National Archives got going again after the summer holidays! We have continued sharing files from our archival holdings on Wikimedia Commons (and Wikidata and on various Wikipedias). We have also updated many files uploaded by Wikimedians long ago but where we now have freely available version in higher resolution and have made the existing Commons category for images from Codex Bergshammar a sub-category of our main images category as the codex is part of our archival holdings.
Thematically we have continued working with maps (eg. uploading the complete map book of Fryderyk Getkant) and Sweden's heritage as a colonising state (various images of and from New Sweden and portraits of Swedish officers in the service of King Leopold in Congo). We've also uploaded two original document peace treaties where we chose to do so as PDF rather than individual images. Happy to receive feedback from the Commons and Wikisource communities whether that was a good choice!? To round off we've also uploaded the prison release form of one of Sweden's most notorious murderers.
Technologically we have made our first (small) batch uploads using Pattypan and OpenRefine including uploading Jacob Gillberg's drawings of uniforms for the Swedish army.
On the request of Wikimedian Tanzania we also uploaded an image of the town charter of Jönköping. He then created both a Swedish language article about the charter and published the transcription provided by us on Wikisource.
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Ink drawing of a uniform for Kungliga Livgardet, soldier with rifle. -
Native American family, likely members of the Susquehannock people. -
Arvid Mauritz Wester, a Swedish officer in the service of King Leopold in the Congo. -
The cover of Fryderyk Getkant's map book Topographica Practica. -
Map of the territories of the Kemi Sámi, once ruled by Sweden. -
Cropped image of the town charter of Jönköping, dated 1284. -
A page in Codex Bergshammar. It contains heraldic shields of royal and noble families in Europe. -
The last report written by Raoul Wallenberg. -
The 1679 peace treaty of Fontainebleau. -
Release form of Per Nilsson aka "the Yngsjö Murderer".
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Swedish general election 2022
General elections will be held in Sweden on 11 September to elect the 349 members of the Riksdag and we have called for pictures of election workers and members of parliament running for election who have no picture on their Wikipedia article. We have been in contact with all parties and currently two parties have uploaded images to the category Swedish general election, 2022. The image Swedish Opinion Polling, 30 Day Moving Average, 2018-2022 has many views and is available on several pages. The image is updated under the same file name which works well as the articles are updated with the latest poll. Excitement is building now as the election is predicted to be very close.
Culturally diversifying Wikipedia
Khalili Foundation
The Khalili Collections/ Wikimedia UK partnership has been running since February 2020. That work is being placed under the umbrella of the Khalili Foundation, a charitable foundation that promotes inter-faith and inter-cultural understanding. This makes little practical difference to the work done on-wiki, which will still center on using image uploads and publications from the Khalili Collections to improve articles relating to Islam, Japanese art, and enamels. The slightly expanded scope allows for work that promotes cultural diversity on Wikipedia, beginning with visual art. This work can involve engaging with and advising other collections apart from the Khalili Collections.
A session proposal was accepted for the WikiArabia 2022 conference and so I will be attending the English stream of that conference in late October.
The bulk of the work this past month was in building project pages for a global visual arts task force; a kind of Women In Red for art and artists outside the Western canon. Using the list compiled by the Ahmed & Poulter research, I identified 129 biographies of visual artists from outside Western culture which were not tagged with WikiProject Visual Arts, and added them to the WikiProject.
There were no new articles or image uploads this month.
I have created a Wikidata query to track translations of articles from this project into other language versions of Wikipedia. This is easy to adapt for other projects: just change the list of Wikidata Q-numbers in the fourth line of the query.
Wikimuseos & editing clubs in Uruguay
Wikimuseos: training museum professionals on Wikimedia projects in Uruguay
Alongside with the Red de Museos de Canelones, Wikimedistas de Uruguay organized a set of workshops to train museum professionals in Uruguay on how Wikimedia projects can help with the digital transformation of museums. It was a set of 4 workshops that run from end of July to mid-August. We were able to do these workshops because during May we participated in the International Museum Day and connected with the Red de Museos de Canelones, as we shared in the May newsletter.
In total, we trained around 25 museum professionals. We ended the last conversation with a panel that included Giovanna Fontelle (WMF), Douglas McCarthy & Andrea Wallace from the Open GLAM survey, Medhavi Gandhi from The Heritage Lab, and Ana Laura Cirio from the Centro de Fotografía de Montevideo. Overall, participants were very satisfied with the workshops and wanted to learn more about how they can use Wikimedia projects in their context.
The results of the survey we did after finishing all the workshops shows overall a great level of satisfaction with the course, a desire to learn more (over 75% of respondents expressed their interest in learning more) and possible paths of action as to next rounds of trainings. As an example, open data for GLAM institutions and FOSS tools for GLAM institutions were the top two options selected in the survey.
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Overall satisfaction with Wikimuseos -
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Change in perceptions about Wikimedia projects after the course
Documenting labor union's history with the Documentation Center of PIT-CNT, Uruguay's largest labor union
From August to September, we have been holding "editing clubs" to improve the content about labor unions history in Uruguay, in partnership with the Documentation Center of the Instituto Cuesta Duarte of the PIT-CNT, the largest national labor union of Uruguay. Recently the PIT-CNT media published an extensive interview with the archivist responsible of the Documentation Center about the activities we're currently developing.
This is the first pilot of an editing club and we're eager to learn more about what went well and what didn't once it's finished in September.
Wikimania, Meetups and More
Wikimania sessions
There were a number of Wikimania 2022 sessions related to GLAM activities in the United States, and other locales. In particular:
- wikimania:2022:Submissions/Writing Women into Wiki History: Experiences and Best Practices
- wikimania:2022:Submissions/WREN: Reviewing A Year of Wikimedians in Residence Activity
Wiki World's Fair NYC 2022
Wikimedia NYC held a meetup, Wiki World's Fair.
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Wikimania 2022 Pittsburgh
Ohio Wikimedians User Group held a meetup, Wikimania 2022/Pittsburgh Meetup
More information about the "View it!" project that was presented at the event can be found at this month's Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons report.
San Diego/August 2022
San Diego Wikimedians User Group held a meetup, San Diego/August 2022
Women in Virginia History
Wikimedia DC held a workshop, Women in Virginia History
Peale Museum Edit-a-thon
Wikimedia DC held a workshop, Peale Museum Edit-a-thon
North Carolina Wikipedians
North Carolina Wikipedians were covered in the Charlotte Observer, "In age of misinformation, small group of NC residents keeps Wikipedia (mostly) correct".
Depths of Wikipedia
Depths of Wikipedia and Wikimedia NYC got some coverage on ABC news, "The bizarre and wonderful Depths of Wikipedia"
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Annie Rauwerda -
Depths of Wikipedia live event in New York City
Crisis & GLAM
AvoinGLAM hosted the panel discussion Crisis & GLAM at Wikimania, moderated by Patricia Diaz Rubio from Wikimedia Chile and Susanna Ånäs from AvoinGLAM with the question: What role does open access to cultural heritage play in today’s crises? The goal is to start mapping out collaborations and practices that can help combat crisis situations facing humans, the environment, and cultural heritage. We heard from Éder Porto, Nassima Chahboun, Hanna Osadchuk and Viacheslav Mamon about their experiences in responding to crises.
Patricia lead us to the discussion by telling about her own studies and interest in the narratives and memory construction around disasters, such as earthquakes that happen often in Chile.
Éder Porto, Wiki Movimento Brasil
Éder Porto continued by reminding that there is a deadline. In the global context, it is possible to act on local disasters using common digital strategies and eventually make global impact. The Brazilian community faced a devastating loss of cultural heritage in 2018, when the Museu Nacional's entire collection burned down. Wikimedians from Brazil and around the world came together to salvage what survived of the collection in digital format, and collected that in the National Museum Cross-Wiki Project. Éder highlighted again the importance of documentation. In their recent paper The Technical Infrastructure of Cultural Initiatives on Wikimedia: Three Case Studies From Brazil, Éder together with the other writers, envision the optimal infrastructure for Wikimedia to serve the preservation of cultural heritage.
Nassima Chahboun, Wiki World Heritage
In the work of Wiki World Heritage and in the WHindanger project, Nassima and her colleagues document Unesco world heritage sites that are inscribed in the endangered sites list. Their motivation is to change perception of these sites and countries such as Afghanistan, Yemen or Libya, that are usually seen though the prism of politics rather than through the diversity and richness of their cultures. With their documentation work they are helping heritage professionals in anticipation for future disasters. They are also reconnecting locals with their cultural heritage, especially youth, when they participate in the documentation processes and write articles about the sites.
Hanna Osadchuk, Wikimedia Ukraine & Viacheslav Mamon, Kharkiv State Scientific Library
Hanna reminded us about the rich cultural heritage of Ukraine and the numerous cultural institutions that are currently not functioning and that are under existential threat. Part of the Wikimedia community has managed to continue working in the challenging conditions. The Wiki Loves Monuments contest has turned into documentation of the destruction of cultural heritage sites. Hanna regretted that Open Access policies in museums or freedom of panorama legislation would have helped preserve the digital surrogates of many cultural heritage items that are now threatened. She noted that also symbolic support matters a lot, especially using Ukrainian forms of place names, such as Kyiv instead of Kiev and Odesa instead of Odessa.
Hanna's fellow wikimedian and professional librarian Viacheslav Mamon continued by recounting his experiences contributing to Wikimedia projects from a bomb shelter in Kharkiv during the time it has been under constant shelling. He plans to work on digitizing rare books, magazines and archival documents and uploading them to Wikimedia projects when it becomes possible.
What will happen next?
At the event, we proposed to set up a Telegram channel for taking these activities further. We have needed some more discussions before we can decide the most sustainable way forward. The next activity will be an interactive session on Crisis & GLAM at the European GLAM coordinators' meeting in Prague, that will be coordinated by Giovanna Fontenelle. We aim to come up with a practical call-to-action based on that.
Documentation
Blog posts
Diaz-Rubio, Patricia (12 August 2022). "Crisis & GLAM: an invitation to re-think open culture impact in threatened territories and communities". Medium.
Petrushko, Vitalii (20 August 2022). "Криза і БоГеМА: Як українці зберігають культурну спадщину під час війни". Вікімедіа Україна (in Ukrainian).
Tools; Helpdesk; IGO/INGO
Tools
The Content Partnerships Hub hosted a group discussion on August 13 at Wikimania 2022, for anyone who builds and uses content partnerships tools (Wikimedia tool developers, Wikimedia affiliates and end users) to talk about better support for such software in the upcoming years.
More than 30 people participated in the session. Brainstorming was done collaboratively: participants answered various questions in a shared Etherpad document, now saved to the wiki. The session was recorded and (for now) available on YouTube; a blog post has also been published at Diff.
Helpdesk
The Helpdesk of the Content Partnerships Hub has just been officially launched, and a session was dedicated to the Helpdesk during Wikimania. The Helpdesk will “provide hands-on support to affiliates and volunteers who are trying to form content partnerships, especially for local communities in the underserved and underrepresented parts of the world.” The work of the Helpdesk will be guided by an Expert Committee, composed of experienced Wikimedians working with content partnerships from across the globe.
If you want support from the Helpdesk – with anything from batch uploads to advocacy support – send an email to helpdesk
wikimedia.se and the process will start from there.
IGO/INGO
Wikimedia Sverige works with and supports the International Energy Agency (IEA) with writing articles related to energy, energy security and sustainable energy. This work follows an upload of graphics from the IEA.
New tool in development utilizing Structured Data
In Development: View it! tool
The new “View it!” is a tool for discoverability of Commons media currently under development. You can install the prototype now and get started using it and providing feedback. The following is our first report from the View it! team:
The View it! tool is being designed to improve discoverability and increase editor and reader access to images uploaded to Commons, particularly those utilizing structured data. The tool is available across all Wikipedia platforms if users install the code on User:<YourUserName>/global.js; however, users can enable it on a particular project if preferred– look for the “View” button next to the Article and Talk buttons after the installation. Please visit the Meta page for installation instructions and to sign up for testing and updates.
We are currently working to make the tool multilingual, so the button and text will translate according to the project the user is on. This month, we focus on extending and improving search functionality and View it! Results opening in a new tab/window. Currently, we are seeking comments on the user interface and how users would like View it! to manifest when in use.
More information on View it! and August update
The number of images displayed in a Wikipedia article is finite and highly curated by editors; through the tool, users will have access to the entire catalog of images on Wikimedia Commons, increasing discoverability and giving editors and readers a more broad experience. Our hope is that adoption of View it! will encourage contributors to utilize Commons more readily and include structured data with uploads.
During August, the team of User: Dominic (Project Manager), User:SuperHamster (Developer), and User:JamieF (Community Outreach), hosted two community conversations around the tool. One during Wikimania 2022/Pittsburgh Meetup and a virtual meeting on Wednesday, August 31, 2022. Those interested can find the notes from both events and a recording of the August 31st meeting on the Meta page. We received great feedback, particularly about what the user interface (UI) might look like, the search queries, and how users can manipulate the queries to achieve specific results (like adding a particular location, for example). So far, the tool has shown value for non-English wikis, is helpful for identifying and removing data errors, and is valuable outside of Wikipedia, such as seeing images for places on Wikivoyage or more images of flora and fauna on Wikispecies.
Beta testing is rolling out this week; please feel free to join on the Meta page, where you can also follow along on tool updates. Also, please reach out with any questions you may have!
We want to say a huge Thank you! To the GLAM community for supporting the beta rollout, joining our community conversations, and chatting with us on Telegram about the results you have pulled and recommendations. We appreciate it! The Wikimedia Foundation generously funds View it! through the Structured Data Across Wikimedia project.
Capacity building for Bophana Center
Capacity building for Bophana Center
Earlier this year, Bophana Center and UNESCO Bangkok, with support from the Wikimedia Foundation, started a joint project to engage indigenous youth in Cambodia to create audiovisual archives on Wikimedia Commons and further reuse on Wikipedia. More details on Diff.
Now, Bophana Center and the Wikimedia Foundation are collaborating to further build the audiovisual archives. To support this, Sakti Pramudya from the Partnerships team and Satdeep Gill from the Culture and Heritage team did a training for Bophana Center and a cohort of indigenous youth in August 2022. The training was aimed at equipping Bophana Center staff to further provide training to the indigenous youth as they engage with Wikimedia projects. Eighteen users participated in the training and uploaded 90 images. Some of the images have been reused on different language Wikipedias as well. More detailed statistics are available on the Outreach Dashboard.
An engagement event was also organized as part of the workshop, which included two Wikimedians from Cambodia and potential GLAM partners.
September's GLAM events
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