GLAM/Newsletter/August 2020/Contents/Estonia report

This Month in GLAM – Volume X, Issue VIII, August 2020

Estonia report

Virtual exhibition about Polish-Estonian relations. Rephotography and cultural heritage

By Johannes Vahe & Ivo Kruusamägi

Virtual exhibition about Polish-Estonian relations

Students from the University of Tartu together with Polish volunteers made a virtual exhibition in Wikipedia about Polish-Estonian relations.

The exhibition focuses mainly on the Estonian-Polish cultural and diplomatic relations. The reader of the exhibition will be convinced that although the history of both of the countries Estonia and Poland has been turbulent the transnational cooperation between these two countries has been increasing even during the toughest times.

The exhibition can be read in Polish, Estonian and English. It is decorated with representative pictures from both Estonian and Polish archives and museums.

"Exciting and fast reading that is engaging and makes you smile," describes one of the authors of the exhibition, Johannes Vahe "In addition, there are a number of relevant images that help you understand the text."

Co-author Carlos Kleimann on the other hand says that "Although cooperation with memory institutions had to be done mainly using virtual methods and some aspects can certainly be improved, there has been a forward-looking contribution to the historical relationship between the two countries."

Communication with GLAM institutions

During August, Wikimedia Eesti was present at Museum Education Information Day in Tartu and at the Summer Seminar of the GLAM institutions at Vihula Manor.

Wiki Loves Rephotography

In cooperation with Ajapaik the Estonian Wikipedia is running a rephotography campaign of cultural monuments in September (Wikimedia Finland has had a rephotography track at the WLM competition already in 2018 and 2019 as part of the Helsinki rephotography project). As a fresh addition users of Ajapaik platform can now authenticate themselves with their Wikimedia account. Next step (uncompleted at the moment) is to start automatic uploads of rephotos (under the users Wikimedia username).

Wiki Loves Rephotography is a good way to look at how have cultural monuments changed over time. It also gives an added reason to approach GLAM institutions and ask for more old images.

Some examples of how a site might (not) change: