GLAM/Newsletter/April 2013/Contents/Finland report
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WLPA; GLAM Sessions; Funding
Wikimaps taking off at GLAM-Wiki 2013
Susanna Attended GLAM-Wiki 2013 in London and presented the historical maps project that has grown out of our GLAM cooperation with the Finnish National Archives. It was decided that the project shall be called Wikimaps, and it will be developed along the lines of an earlier proposal by Maarten Dammers. The core team is now working on a proof of concept to present at the Amsterdam Hackathon, and we have been making contacts with development within the OpenStreetMap community. In addition to the Wikiteam we are building a collaboration team in Finland to support the project, including historians, GIS experts, archivists, wikipedians, open source and open content activists, linked data research team and also relevant organizations, who can help realize the project. Other than maps, the London event was a great dive into the GLAM world of Wikimedia. Thank you!
Wiki Loves Public Art
Wikimedia Finland has had its hands full starting up the public art photography contest. The task of compiling a list of public domain works took the most effort, but local jury and prize sponsorship turned out to take some time as well. WLPA has a political aspect to it that we'd like to highlight. The nature of public works of art is that they should be accessible and enjoyed by potentially everyone. While this is the case in the physical world, copyright restrictions severely hamstring their impact online. Simply treating all public works as being in the public domain might be excessive, but we don't claim to have any clear answers to the dilemma of accessibility. We hope to start public discussion in this matter, as the debate on copyright restrictions seems to focus mainly on digital piracy and contracts these days.
Wiki School, GLAM meetups
Kiasma seems to be our go-to partner and primary testing ground for new events. We took part in a short educational session on how to edit Wikipedia. The model was somewhat similar to the one used with Ateneum where a smaller group meets around a table and cooperates on a given topic. My wish is that these meetups would become regular and that they would foster the idea of open knowledge as a rewarding hobby.
I was also present at the monthly meeting of the Finnish Open GLAM group where we shared ideas on how libraries could be of help in promoting open culture. There were some exciting news from the team working on the Helsinki Central Library. Openness starts with taking the wishes of the public into consideration and they've done a good job at it so far.
Public Funding
Our chapter applied for public funding for GLAM-related activities from the Ministry of Education and Culture. They have an application process for projects relating to culture and our overall goals are overlap neatly with theirs. So far, our Chapter's activities have been completely dependent on volunteer efforts by our members and our partner institutions. If the funding materializes, we'll be able to cover the expenses of outreach programs, training, workshops and trips to GLAM events. This would give essential continuity to our work.
