GLAM/Newsletter/December 2020/Contents/UK report
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Wales, Women in Leeds, and the Hajj
Wales 2020 round-up
2020 was busy year for GLAM WIKI in Wales. The National Library of Wales, in partnership with Menter Iaith Mon's resident Wikipedian completed a big project funded by the Welsh Government education department to identify and improve Welsh language content most valuable to school children studying History. Over 100 articles were developed to a high standard and reviewed by experts. The project also saw he release of many Welsh learning resources on an open licence by the Welsh Government, the National Library and Museum and the main Welsh examining body. These were adapted and used to improve Wicipedia articles 20 short Welsh language videos were also created summarising key articles.
The National Library continued to share content openly with Commons and Wikidata throughout the year and have been increasingly active in round-tripping data from Wikimedia projects including the launch of our Dictionary of Welsh Biography Timeline, which uses Wikidata, Wikipedia and Commons to add extra functionality and content to their users. The Library are also developing a new crowdsourcing platform which enables users to search and tag images with Wikidata entities using English and Welsh labels.
Currently Menter Iaith Mon and the National Library are working on the Wicipics project, a campaign similar to WikiLovesMonuments to collect images of historical sites in Wales. 1500 images have been donated so far and Welsh language data is being added to Commons and Wikidata for each image/historic site. This images and their bilingual data will also form a new archive Open Access archive at the National Library. It's been a challenging year in many ways but (remote) engagement with Wikiprojects and events has been fantastic. Universities in particular have been very interested in running Wiki events and seminars and hopefully this momentum will continue into 2021! Jason.nlw (talk) 10:56, 6 January 2021 (UTC)
Wikithon: Women in Leeds event
As part of the British Library developing its cultural programme in Yorkshire, working with other GLAM organisations in the region; an online Wikithon: Women in Leeds event was held on 22nd November 2020, to create and improve Wikipedia articles about some of the amazing women of Leeds, past and present. This online edit-a-thon was co-organised by Kenn Taylor from the British Library, in partnership with Rhian Isaac of Leeds Libraries and Lucy Moore of Leeds Museums & Galleries, for the programme of events accompanying the British Library’s exhibition, "Unfinished Business: The Fight for Women’s Rights".
Hope Miyoba, Wikimedian in Residence for the Science Museum Group, who is based at the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, gave an excellent training session on how to edit Wikipedia to 29 attendees. The event produced new articles for Catherine Mary Buckton, the first woman elected to public office in Leeds, sharpshooter and circus performer Florence Shufflebottom, and philanthropist Marjorie Ziff who is notable for her contributions to the Jewish community in Leeds, whose article was further improved by the Women in Red editing community.
Positive feedback was received from participants, with comments such as ‘my 9 year old daughter says she wants to do this forever’, ‘just finished Uni and missing researching things, so this is definitely a good lockdown activity to get into!’ and ‘I’m thinking about how to incorporate women and Wikipedia entries into my teaching!’. Stella Wisdom (talk) 19:48, 8 January 2021 (UTC)
Khalili Collections
There are two new articles from the Khalili Collections project, bringing the total to sixteen. A volunteer translated the full Khalili Collection of Japanese Art article into Malay and a new article on the Khalili Collection of Aramaic Documents was accepted into mainspace and has passed DYK review.
I have been concentrating on articles relating to the Hajj, which is the subject of one of the larger Khalili Collections. A mahmal is a ceremonial litter that was carried by pilgrims to Mecca every year for several centuries. A sitarah is the embroidered cloth covering of the Kaaba. The Anis Al-Hujjaj is an account of a 17th century Hajj by a court official of the Mughal Empire. I have been working on new drafts about these concepts with research resources supplied by the Khalili Collections, as well as an overview article about the Khalili Collection of Hajj and the Arts of Pilgrimage. Fifteen images related to the Hajj were uploaded to this category on Commons, plus a higher-resolution version of a previously uploaded image. There will be a bulk upload of Hajj images in the near future.
