GLAM/Newsletter/August 2016/Contents/Brazil report

This Month in GLAM – Volume VI, Issue VIII, August 2016

Brazil report

UG Wikimedia in Brazil: GLAM initiative with the Museum of Veterinary Anatomy will load hundreds of valuable images

Members from the User Group Wikimedia in Brazil have established a partnership with the Museum of Veterinary Anatomy of the School of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science (MAV-FMVZ) of the University of São Paulo in order to relicense high-quality images of objects from the museum collection and upload them to Wikimedia Commons. The goal is to upload from 300 to 400 pictures of mounted animals, macerated skeletons and anatomical models, with a great scientific, educational and artistic value, especially for projects like Wikipedia. This activity has had the support of the Research, Innovation and Dissemination Center for Neuromathematics (RIDC NeuroMat), from Brazil.

As a pilot step, the UG BR has uploaded four images to the Commons. So far, three of these pictures were voluntarily improved by an experienced editor and have been nominated as either valued or featured image. Initial uploads are already featured on Wikipedia pages in Portuguese, English and French, eventually reaching tens of thousands of visitors a day.

Context

This GLAM project is the first initiative that has been organized with a museum at the University of São Paulo, the largest university in Latin America. This initiative could become a case model for new partnerships at this university, that hosts over ten museums.

The UG Wikimedia in Brazil has held three meetings with museum directors before the pilot upload started. These meetings revolved around an introduction to Wikimedia projects, licensing and organizational details. A challenge in this project has been the producing of metadata in English, a task to which a professor of Veterinary Anatomy has collaborated. The UG Wikimedia in Brazil has also provided clarification and orientation to the museum staff on OTRS procedures.

Win-win partnership

Museum directors have seen this partnership as an opportunity to increase the visibility of the collection. They were especially motivated to be part of a global movement of museums that collaborate with Wikimedia projects, especially the Commons. Members of the UG Wikimedia in Brazil are involved in setting up a Wikipedia education program in the School of Veterinary Medicine, that would focus on improving content that could be associated to pictures that will be uploaded in the context of the GLAM initiative.

UG members have established an uploading schedule for the coming months, so that images are uploaded with the necessary information about the picture and the object. Uploaded images that are already available may be seen here. The UG Commons page is available here.

This initiative with the Museum of Veterinary Anatomy has benefited from previous projects that members of the UG Wikimedia in Brazil have taken part of. One of the user group members involved in this initiative, for instance, was involved with a GLAM initiative prior to the UG. He conducted another GLAM activity in Brazil in 2014, when the Italian-Brazilian Cultural Institute (ICIB) provided for scanning 1,200 pages from a work on the Italian Immigration in Brazil called "Il Brasile e gli Italiani". The whole material was uploaded to Commons, with the support of IAIDigital scanning company.