GLAM/Case studies/Archived
This list of case studies describes specific projects undertaken by cultural organizations and Wikimedia. Click on each section for further information and specific projects.
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Libraries
Medium-sized liberal arts college
Some statistics from a small sample of about a hundred images uploaded to Wikimedia Commons (illustrations from a book and photographs) show an increase in reuse of materials from Loyola University New Orleans (LUNO).
- Elizabeth Joan Kelly (2019). "Assessing Impact of Medium-Sized Institution Digital Cultural Heritage on Wikimedia Projects". Journal of Contemporary Archival Studies.
- Elizabeth Joan Kelly (2019). "Reuse of Wikimedia Commons Cultural Heritage Images on the Wider Web". Evidence Based Library and Information Practice.
Ball State University
Case study: Using Wikipedia to Enhance the Visibility of Digitized Archival Assets by Michael Szajewski
Abstract: As an increasing number of archival repositories, libraries, and cultural institutions build significant freely accessible digital collections, archivists and digital librarians must continue to develop digital outreach strategies that reflect the nature of searching and discovery in today's information economy. This case study examines the use of Wikipedia by the Ball State University Libraries as an opportunity to raise the visibility of digitized historic sheet music assets made available in the university's Digital Media Repository. By adding links to specific items in this collection to relevant, existing Wikipedia articles, Ball State successfully and efficiently expanded the user base of this collection in the Digital Media Repository by vastly enhancing the discoverability of the collection's assets.
The St Cuthbert Gospel is a manuscript dating to about 690 which, among other things, is the oldest Western book with its original bookbinding. After having it on loan for many years, the British Library in London arranged to buy it for £9 million, a record price for a manuscript. The BL wanted to have the existing short article in the English Wikipedia expanded to a Featured Article, and ideally to see it on the main page on the day the purchase was announced, which was all achieved on 17 April 2012.
Richard Power of the BL web department and Claire Breay, the Senior Curator responsible for the manuscript, helped User:Johnbod, with resources, and advice including two meetings. The article received some 40,000 views on the day it was on the main page, and receives about 20,000 per year ongoing.
The cooperation with the Federal Office of Cultural Heritage in Austria leads to the first GLAM-project in Austria. The goal is a partial digitization of their library collection. This GLAM-project is, due to the amount of material which was released in its entirety for Wikipedia, designed to last several years. For this reason, this project is also unique, because it provides the first permanent cooperation with an governmental authority worldwide. In 2012, the Austrian Wikipedia community has won jointly with the Bundesdenkmalamt the Zedler-Award for the best community project.
The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum has an ongoing relationship with Wikimedia that has resulted in the creation of a content-focused WikiProject on the English Wikipedia, a collaboration project on Wikimedia Commons that has uploaded of over 11,000 separate files (mostly photographs and scanned documents), a transcription project on Wikisource that works with those scanned documents on Commons, and an internship in the form of a Wikipedian in Residence on site at the Library in Ann Arbor.
Library of Congress
After a Wikimedian uploaded restored File:Wounded Knee aftermath.jpg as File:Wounded Knee aftermath3.jpg, the en:Library of Congress updated its information based on discoveries in the restored image (Library of Congress updates record based on Wikimedian restoration work, Wikipedia Signpost, September 7, 2009, News and notes).
The Thomas J. Watson Library is the main library of the Metropolitan Museum of Art ("MMA") in New York City. They have digitized over 1,100 books published by the MMA (as at May 2013, still expanding), including large "doorstopper" exhibition and collection catalogues from as recently as 2009. These are available as downloadable PDF files from their website, and represent a massive resource for anything to do with art history and the history of art.
A staff member from the library has been working with Wikipedia to place links to this material in the appropriate Wikipedia articles. Several hundred links have been added to Wikipedia, mostly as "Further reading" or "External links". Now over 50% of the over 40,000 views per month received by the library's web pages for these books originate from Wikipedia.
The national reference library of Australia donated some resources.
Wikimedia France signed an agreement with the Bibliothèque nationale de France to provide the French Wikisource with 1400 public domain texts that had been prepared for the library’s Gallica web resource.
Pritzker Military Museum & Library
The Pritzker Military Museum & Library has an ongoing initiative to add content based on its collections to Wikipedia. Couple of the key items for the PMML project is the adding of references and citations to existing Wikipedia articles and adding/creating articles on military history topics (including the American Civil War, WWI, women and the military, etc.)
Since 2012 Amical Wikimedia has a collaboration agreement with the Catalonia's Network of Public Libraries. They are collaborating with more than 150 libraries out of a network of 370, in a grassrootproject. Read further here.
Archives
The Smithsonian Institution's Archives of American Art developed a Wikipedian-in-Residence program with a focus to improve content on Wikipedia related to American art history, donate images to Wikimedia Commons, and to develop relationships with Wikimedian volunteers through online and in-person events and activities.
The Bulgarian Archives State Agency initiated in 2011-2012 a collaboration with Bulgarian Wikimedia volunteers, and this became the first GLAM collaboration in the country. Within this collaboration, the Archives gave the Wikimedians possibility to access and digitize public domain content for free, donate images to Wikimedia Commons, and to develop relationships with Wikimedian volunteers through online and in-person events and activities.
From autumn 2007 to December 2008, the German Federal Archives (Deutsches Bundesarchiv) partnering with the Wikimedia Germany uploaded 100,000 images to the Commons.
The Smithsonian Institution Archives developed a Wikipedian in Residence program to focus on improving content about subjects held in the archives and Smithsonian history, and to strengthen relationships with the Wikipedia community and build staff awareness.
- The Impact of Open Access on Galleries, Libraries, Museums, & Archives by Effie Kapsalis, March 2016
The Regional Archives of Sweden have donated various resources for use with Wikipedia. See: commons:Commons:Regionarkivet
Hasenberg-Quaretti Archive
Museums and galleries
Bangladesh National Museum developed articles related to Bangladesh Liberation War in partnership with Wikimedia Bangladesh on December 24, 2016.
NEMO survey
IPR and museums, 2015.
Among the findings: over 20 % of museums already uses the equivalent of a free license (CC-BY or CC-BY-SA) for their copyrighted holdings (table 14).
Te Papa
Kingston, Adrian and Philip Edgar. "A review of a year of open access images at Te Papa." MWA2015: Museums and the Web Asia 2015. Published August 15, 2015. Consulted October 17, 2015.
11 museums
«Real and perceived gains far outweigh the real and perceived losses for every museum in the study that has made a transition to an open access approach» (Kelly 2013: 24).[1]
From Images of Works of Art in Museum Collections: The Experience of Open Access: A Study of 11 Museums.
USA art museums
Reproduction charging models & rights policy for digital images in American art museums. «One hundred US art museums were surveyed and in-depth interviews were carried out with 20 museums. [...] Everyone interviewed wants to recoup costs but almost none claimed to actually achieve or expected to achieve this.»
Berlin Stadtmuseum
The Berlin Stadtmuseum hosted a Wikipedian in Residence.
The British Museum has developed multiple partnerships with the UK Wikimedia Chapter including the Backstage Pass tour, the "Hoxne Challenge" and the Featured Article Prize. The British Museum also served as the first GLAM to host a Wikipedian In Residence.
The Brooklyn Museum developed Wikipedia articles on the under-represented topic of female pop art artists to tie in with an upcoming exhibition.
The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis has an ongoing Wikipedian-in-Residence program that pilots a variety of GLAM projects, including image donations to Wikimedia Commons, work with middle and high school students in the Museum Apprentice Program, and processes for contributing institutional expertise to Wikipedia. See the Children’s Museum's success story for more information - written by Angie McNew, Director of Web and Emerging Media at the Children's Museum and project manager for the ongoing Wikipedian-in-Residence program that began in August 2010.
The [http://www.derby.gov.uk/leisure-and- culture/museums-and-galleries/ Derby Museum] in England was the first GLAM to work with Wikimedia to install QRpedia (QR codes allowing visitors to access Wikipedia articles from their smart phones related to the exhibits, in their preferred language). Wikimedians also worked with the museum to create "The Wright Challenge" which has produced over 1200 articles in 28 languages about content within the museum.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Beginning in April 2014, a team of Guggenheim Museum staff in New York began working to expand and improve the content on Wikipedia. The team dedicated two photos to the public domain and created or improved a total of 10 pages. The summer interns reviewed 392 links in which 40 dead or weak links were replaced. Their collaboration continues in the form of staff editing of Wikipedia, image donations, and editing events.
The partnership with Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry in the UK is the first ongoing Wikimedia collaboration in the UK outside of London. There have been a number of different sub-projects as part of the collaboration including image donations, editing events and the UK's first Wikipedia Takes... event.
From February to April 2011, the IMA carried out a project to revamp the institution’s Wikipedia article in a way that followed all Wikipedia policies and avoided conflict of interest issues.
Similar to, but not in connection with GLAM, conservation interns and volunteers created articles for all of outdoor artworks at the IMA using resources from WikiProject Public Art.
Likewise, using resources from the conservation department and IUPUI, in November 2010 the Indianapolis Museum of Art unveiled an E-Volunteer program that provides guides for interested volunteers to learn how to contribute information about IMA artworks to Wikipedia. Currently, IMA e-volunteers and conservation interns are creating articles for the 100 most important artworks at the IMA and related conservation and restoration projects.
WikiProject Public Art was created in 2009 by IUPUI faculty and staff and IMA staff as part of the collection care and management course for IUPUI’s museum studies program. The first class proceeded to locate, survey and document all of the public art on IUPUI’s campus and documented it in its entirety on Wikipedia, totaling 40 new articles and over 350 images.
The second class in 2010 utilized WikiProject Public Art to document the public art collection of the Indiana Statehouse. The class produced 37 articles about 42 artworks and over 270 images. In 2011 the State of Indiana recognized this work by awarding the class Concurrent Resolutions.
The Khalili Collections, eight private collections of art based in the UK, have employed a Wikimedian In Residence to upload images to Commons, add catalogue data to Wikidata, and create new Wikipedia articles on topics related to the collections. Image views on Wikipedia have become the main way the public encounter the collections, with just under 50 million image views in a year across more than seventy languages. This work has improved the representation of Islamic art and Japanese art in particular on the Wikimedia projects.
Lakhota Museum Jamnagar (Gujarat) India on Commons
- Lakhota Museum Jamnagar was entirely covered by Rangilo Gujarati as a part of small GLAM activity carried out single handedly. This is one of the best examples on how one small museum can be converted into Commons Gallery without much logistics which can be followed for all the GLAM enthusiasts out there.
The del Objeto del Objeto (Object of the Object Museum) is a first museum in Mexico City exclusively dedicated to design and communications, based on a collection of gadgets, packaging and advertising belonging to Bruno Newman. It donated images from the collection.
The Museo de Arte Popular, in Mexico City, donated photographs related to Mexican handcrafts and folk art including those of the en:Vochol which was created for fundraising purposes.
Museo Universitario del Chopo
The Museo Universitario del Chopo of National Authonomous University of Mexico, is a museum of contemporary art and host of alternative and countercultural movements since the 70s, has been working with Mexican Chapter since 2012. The activities with museum includes one edit-a-thon in 2013 and the sponsoring for Wiki Loves Monuments in 2012 and 2013. In this museum was the award ceremony of the contest in two consecutive years and in 2013 the program of WLM includes the discussion panel about Wiki Loves Monuments critics, heritage registry and Creative Commons with experts on free culture and heritage conservation.
From 2014 Mexican Wikimedia chapter has a collaboration agreement with Museo Soumaya, a cultural institution belonging to Fundación Carlos Slim A.C. Museo Soumaya, which preserves a collection of over 66,000 pieces of art. The majority of the art consists of European works from the 15th to the 20th century. It also holds Mexican art, religious relics, and historical documents and coins. It also holds the largest collection of casts of sculptures by Auguste Rodin outside of France, and the world's largest private collection of his art. Museo Soumaya also served as the second GLAM in a Spanish speaking country to host a Wikipedian In Residence and the first in Mexico.
From 21 January 2012 to 3 June 2012, the Teylers Multilingual Challenge was a Wikipedia writing challenge for the Teylers Museum in Haarlem, the Netherlands, based on the template created by the Wright Challenge. At the end of the challenge there were over 600 articles on Teylers related subjects in 13 different language wikipedias: en (203), nl (141), ca (103), hu (40), fr (36), es(19), it (19), de (17), ru (6), uk (6), fy (5), pt (4), eo (2). Roughly half of the articles were new, and a large selection of the rest were expanded or linked in some way to Teylers core articles. For an overview of the GLAM activities see here, and for an overview of the results, see here.
The Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam, a museum for anthropology of tropical cultures, has been working with the Dutch Wikimedia Chapter since their exhibition on the Maroon culture in 2010 when they donated 2000 images from Surinam to Wikimedia Commons. This was followed by a project to bring 100,000 media files from Indonesia to Commons.
A member of the museum staff began adding links to their site, and also creating articles that breached the museum's copyright. After a number of editors began to "clear" the links before posting, and the articles were sorted out by an OTRS ticket and revisions, the problems were dealt with successfully.
The Walters Art Museum connected with Wikimedians at a GLAM-WIKI event, and months later were partnering with those volunteers to upload over 18,000 high quality collections images to Wikimedia Commons. The Walters changed the licensing on their website to be more free and evident, and also created an internship based around the Wikipedian in Residence concept. Today, the Walters continues this partnership, by working with Wikisource to transcribe Latin documents in the Walters collection.
Other
meta:Wikimedia Argentina has been working with a network of both museums and libraries to develop in-house digitization projects, for the institutions. Building skills for the organization, WMAR gains considerable access to unique digital objects previously not available on the web.
European Space Agency
ESA admitted that selling images and videos does not generate income.[2] NASA's imaging has always been in the public domain as for all USA agencies.
Arab TV news station Al Jazeera agreed to re-license video footage, previously released under a Creative Commons license with non-commercial or non-derivative restrictions. These videos, which show clashes between police and protesters on Cairo’s 6th October Bridge in January 2011, were re-licensed under the freer CC-BY-SA license, allowing them to be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons.
Centro Cultural de España en México
The Centro Cultural de España en México (Cultural Center of Spain in Mexico) is a cultural institution belonging to the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation based in Mexico City. Since 2012 has been a constant ally in the Wikimedia mission in Mexico trough the partnering with the Mexico chapter. Its facilities have been held one translathon about indigenous languages in cooperation with Mozilla Mexico chapter and three edit-a-thons. Two of this events become international due to the collaboration of Iberocoop chapters simulthaneously. In addition, Wikimedia Mexico members was invited in other free culture talks or discussion panels organized by the center.
Mexico is considered a Megadiverse country, part of the group of nations possessing the greatest number and diversity of animals and plants, almost 70% of global species diversity. The mexican government created in 1992 the National Commission for Knowledge and Use of Biodiversity (CONABIO), an interdepartamental commision to promote, coordinate, support and carry out activities aimed at increasing awareness of biodiversity and its conservation and sustainable use for the benefit of mexican society. Since 2012, CONABIO have the support of Wikimedia Mexico to work with the Wikimedia projects trough GLAM models. In 2014 the staff of the commission received workshops by the members of the mexican chapter, and due to the awareness and support in free licenses, the commission decided to index in its Naturalista project content of English and Spanish Wikipedia by default. Naturalista is a naturalist collaborative project for cataloging and identification of species.
Activities between CONABIO and Wikimedia will increase with the signing of a formal agreement of partnering with Wikimedia Mexico to be signed in the second half of 2014.
XHUIA-FM or Ibero 90.9 Radio, is a Mexican radio station that has operated since 2002. It is sponsored by the Iberoamericana University, based in Mexico City. Since 2013 the station have an agreement with Wikimedia Mexico chapter focused in the coproduction of Moebius 90.9 radio program based in Wikipedia. During half hour the program have connections between different topics apparently disconnected through Spanish and English Wikipedia articles. The idea is follow the link of articles as happens in Wikipedia. Moebius is broadcasted every Saturday 08:30 a.m. (-06:00 GMT) by 90.9 FM station in México City and web page ibero90.fm. Moebius 90.9 was included in the Wikimedia Cool projects list of 2013, and reaches thousands of people every week.
Other collaboration of Wikimedia Mexico is the segment Wikirikí in "AlYEl", daily morning program of Ibero conduced by Almendra Hernández and Erick Elola based in strange or peculiar Wikipedia articles every 15 days. Activities with Ibero 90.9 included Wikipedia workshops and talks about free culture with the colaborators of Ibero.
On 20 August 2011, twelve students from Instituto Tecnológico y Estudios Superiores de Monterrey - Campus Ciudad de México participated via the web in one of the edit-a-thons of the Children's Museum of Indianapolis. Connected through Skype to the Museum, the students worked on translating articles about key pieces of the Museum's collection into Spanish. For the Fall 2011 semester, they worked on articles related to the en:Festival Internacional Cervantino For Spring 2012, a pilot program was started with en:International Baccalaureate students, translating articles with some GLAM outreach work. For the Fall 2012, this program is expanded with one firm project working with the en:Salon de la Plástica Mexicana to collect photographs and information about member artists.
The Milwaukee Arts Board, in collaboration with WikiProject Public Art students from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design undertook a project to create a comprehensive listing of the city’s public sculpture and creating 63 articles.
The Miss Lupita project is a government sponsored project by artist Carolina Esparragoza to revive the art of making dolls from a hard kind of paper mache called cartonería. The project has exhibited dolls as well as held workshops in Mexico, Japan and Portugal. In August 2012, they donated over 130 images from the project to Commons. [3]
Social and Cultural Foundations of American Education
Social and Cultural Foundations of American Education/Foundations and Assessment of Education
The "Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums & Wikimedia: Finding the common ground" conference organized at the Australian War Memorial in August 2009 engaged key stakeholders from Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) across Australia and New Zealand as well as representatives of government, cultural funding organizations and peak representative bodies to establish a two-way dialogue to determine how to use the two communities’ strengths to a mutual advantage.
Share Your Knowledge is a subproject of a historic project on the Italian Wikipedia, named WikiAfrica. Since 2011 it has involved dozens of institutions all around the world to release their contents under a CC BY-SA license and contribute to WMF sites.
WikiXDC was a one-day symposium held at the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration main building in January 2011. The event was part of Wikipedia 10th anniversary celebrations, while also serving as a kick-off for Wikimedia-NARA GLAM collaborations. Most of the day consisted of presentations and lightning talks, by NARA staff and Wikimedians, allowing both to learn and understand more about one-another.
In June 2013 we ran a one day editathon at the Royal Opera House in London. The aim was to improve our content regarding ballet, and we had an assortment of Wikipedians, ballet fans and Royal Opera House people - including their archivist. Apart from those of us who were ballet fans, and we did have a couple of wikipedians who edit ballet and we don't otherwise see at GLAM events, we'd chosen the subject area because writing articles about pre internet cultural events helps address some of our institutional bias. The Archivist brought collections of press cuttings and other source material and we were shown a video of 70s ballet.