GLAM/Newsletter/December 2023/Contents/Switzerland report
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Swiss GLAM Programme
Data and files import with the Museum of Natural History of Neuchâtel
In the second half of 2023, Wikimedia CH commissioned a project for the Museum of Natural History of Neuchâtel, to import the content of their Louis Agassiz urchin fossil casts collection. The 2000 files were imported to Commons and the data added to Wikidata. The use of structured data allowed to build a dynamic and multilingual template to describe the files with data stored in Wikidata. After getting the data and files from the museum, we analyzed and cleaned the existing data, created missing elements on Wikidata, imported the data to Wikidata using OpenRefine, and finally the files to Commons, also using OpenRefine. You can find the project page in English and in French here.
MiniGLAM on Moche culture
Wikipedians visited the Museum zu Allerheiligen and got a tour by chief curator Werner Rutishauser through the exhibition on the Moche culture in Perú. The objects shown are from the Ebnöther collection. After the tour everybody woreked on their articles. The project was organized by User Leopelle. The Moche culture is a very earny Peruvian high culture that is about a thousand years older than the famous Inca culture. It was located around the river Moche and around today's city of Trujillo. In the Museum zu Allerheiligen one can find a big collection of objects that were enlarged by objects from other collections. The Moche culture was well developed as water systems were constructed and professional housing was realized. As ceramics have been used for documentation there is quite a lot of visual material availabe to understand the Moche culture. Women also had power in society as the Lady of Cao. With the catastrophe by El Niño it disappeared. The project continues with meetings at the community space in Schaffhausen.
Make Christmas Time Anti Bias Wiki Time
The Anti-bias Wiki-Time events were dedicated to the topics of gender bias and discrimination and thus also drew attention to the lack of visibility of female personalities and diverse communities on Wiki. The Columbian artist María Linares presented her research on Anti Bias structures and oppotunities. The workshops took place in three different Swiss cities:
- 7th December 2023 in the city archives of Biel/Bienne from 5 to 8. p.m.
- 8th December 2023 at the Zurich City Archives from 5 to 8 p.m.
- 9th December 2023 at the FATpermanent Art Space in Schaffhausen from 1 to 4 p.m.
The aim of the workshops was to raise awareness of these issues with the participants and to develop possible solutions for anti-discrimination and greater visibility of diversity within Wikipedia. To this end, the Colombian-German artist María Linares gave insights into her latest artistic research and works that deal with discrimination as well as gender bias. After this introductory presentation, the participants were given an introduction to the Wikipedia universe by Wikipedian IvaBerlin. Many questions from the participants were discussed and answered in a dialogue to empower them to become future Wikipedians. Our first host Thomas Krüger, head of the City Archives of Biel/Bienne, gave insights into the day-to-day work and collection strategy. A memorable moment was the presentation by Andrea Wild and Karin Beck, hosts from the Zurich City Archives, who impressively demonstrated how difficult it can be to search for female personalities in an archive due to previous/historic social constructions and codes (taking over the name of the husband, etc.). Another highlight was the last Anti-bias-Wiki-Time workshop at the FATpermanent Art Space in Schaffhausen hosted by Ursina Gabriela Roesch, co-funder and member of FLINTA on the ground of the artistic co-working spaces. Together with Nusa Núñez de la Torre (artist) a lot of questions were raised about the used “frame-practices” around core informations. But also about the criterias of Wikipedia, which to all appearances, seem to have developed historically from a male perception and practice, and therefor resulting in a structural lack of female and diverse content.
The GLAM team wants to thank all participants for their contributions and wishes a Merry Christmas in the spirit of the event title: "Make Christmas Time Anti Bias Wiki Time".
