GLAM/Newsletter/April 2014/Contents/USA report

This Month in GLAM – Volume IV, Issue IV, April 2014

USA report

Wikimedia Activities in the U.S.

Wikipedia Activities in Delaware

Colored Conventions Edit-a-thon

The University of Delaware held its first Wikipedia Edit-a-thon on Saturday, April 26, 2014. The event was organized by Jim Casey, Audrey Hamelers, Jordan Howell, and Tracy Jentzsch, with support from various departments at UD: the Department of History, the Interdisciplinary Humanities Research Center, the Interdisciplinary Science and Engineering Laboratory, the History Media Center, and the Library. The Edit-a-thon focused on the Colored Conventions Project. Starting in 1830 until well after the Civil War, African Americans held conventions to discuss the political, legal, social and educational issues of their day. The minutes of those meetings are a rare and invaluable record of early African-American leaders.

Wikipedia Activities in Philadelphia

By Mary Mark Ockerbloom

The monthly GLAM Café had a good turnout of Wikipedians, who were involved in planning for the UDel edit-a-thon and a proposed GLAM Wiki day at CHF, date to be determined. The May 13th GLAM Café will be in memory of Adrianne Wadewitz, and the June 10th GLAM Café will celebrate Wiki Loves Pride.

Wikipedia Activities in Washington, D.C.

By Djembayz and Andrew Lih

April saw the conclusion of the Andrew Lih's class at American University, Wikipedia & Public Knowledge, which engaged four different GLAM institutions in edit-a-thons with students, curators and Wikimedia DC community members.

The final National Museum of the American Indian edit-a-thon featured a talk by museum staffer Holly Stewart, addressing topics such as the recent Redskins mascot naming controversy and popular historic topics that may be erroneously interpreted in the public sphere, such as Pocahantas, Trail of Tears and Thanksgiving. Working with a "living cultures" museum was an interesting contrast to the National Archives and Smithsonian Institution Archives from earlier in the semester.

There were nice outreach benefits as well - staff from the Freer/Sackler Gallery of Asian Art and the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center attended the earlier edit-a-thons, and were inspired to have events of their own. The Freer/Sackler Edit-a-thon was held on April 29, where some of the American University students went to shoot video for Wikipedia articles. The Smithsonian APAC created an edit-a-thon for May 10 spanning several cities to commemorate Asian Pacific Heritage Month in the US. So far, NYC, DC, Los Angeles, San Diego and Austin, TX will have simultaneous events.

April was also our first Africa Collection Editathon at the Library of Congress. All agreed that it will take more than one meeting to explore the Library's reliable sources, and several enthusiastic attendees extended our three hour event for the remainder of the afternoon.

Wikipedia Activities in New York City

By OR drohowa and Mlynch345

Center for Jewish History Hosts "Women in Jewish History" Edit-a-Thon

A "Women in Jewish History" -themed Edit-a-Thon was held at the Center for Jewish History on May 4th, 2014. Articles added to Wikipedia at the event include: Dina Abramowicz, Pauline Wengeroff, and Rosika Schwimmer. The event brought some 30 attendees and included librarians and archivists, scholars, Wikipedians, and members of the public. The event was organized by CJH’s newly created Wiki Subcommittee.

The Guggenheim Museum begins a GLAM Project

New to the GLAM world, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is working on improving Wikipedia. A group of staff members at the museum have participated in an editing training back in March and have since incorporated article management into their weekly workflows. The top priorities for the museum right now are fact-checking and enhancing the information on the Museum and Foundation pages, adjusting broken external links, and providing more external links to the digital resources on the Guggenheim's library and archives website for relevant pages that include artists, founders (Hilla Rebay and Solomon R. Guggenheim), and past exhibitions. More of what they're working on can be found on their GLAM Page.