GLAM/Newsletter/March 2013/Contents/Taiwan report
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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.
