GLAM/Newsletter/June 2020/Contents/Australia report
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Taking training online
National Gallery of Australia volunteers re-train as Wikipedia editors
When the National Gallery of Australia closed to visitors in March, one disappointment was the interruption to the Know My Name program on which Australian editors had been working as part of Art+Feminism 2020. It also shut out the Gallery's team of volunteer guides.
With some creative thinking by the Know My Name Program Coordinator, and lots of preparation work by the Gallery's volunteer coordinator, learning team and library staff, Wikimedia Australia supported online Wikipedia training for gallery guides. A huge thanks to Wikimedian, Kerry Raymond for developing and expertly delivering the 100% online training for new editors, over three 2-hour sessions in June. Twenty new editors have so far worked on 26 articles related to Australian women artists, and contributed 86 references.
1Lib1Ref May 2020
1Lib1Ref also went online for the May-June session. State Library of Queensland staff met virtually and continued their great work for 1Lib1Ref, with a geographical focus on Brisbane suburbs.
This was the second year of 1Lib1Ref involvement by Yarra Plenty Regional Library, and a training day for library staff had been booked since last year. When a face-to-face workshop was not possible, we converted this to a two-hour online training session, followed by a number of drop-in support sessions where Pru Mitchell or Kerry Raymond were available in the library's online platform to answer questions or demonstrate new skills.
With library staff working from home, and no access to the local history collections, the project had to find alternatives to book citations. The Victorian Heritage Database became the primary resource, and was used to add detail about heritage places to articles related to the library's community. The Project was well-managed by Liz Pidgeon, Local and Family History Librarian, and she and the team added 327 citations. Liz reports that:
participants agreed that local place name articles were a good focal point to for a citations project. They enjoyed the collaborative nature of the training, and enjoyed the local history reading and learning aspect.
Ingrid Cumming, Western Australian Heritage Awards
Congratulations to Ingrid Cumming, recognised in the Western Australian Heritage Awards for her role in setting up and maintaining Noongarpedia, Australia's first Indigenous language Wikipedia. The commendation for an individual who has made a significant contribution to heritage and has demonstrated best practice standards acknowledged that:
Noongarpedia has enabled young people to embrace knowledge as a means of breaking down barriers, enabling ancient Noongar knowledge to become a heritage tool locally and globally.
