GLAM/Newsletter/August 2021/Contents/WMF GLAM report

This Month in GLAM – Volume XI, Issue VIII, August 2021

WMF GLAM report

GLAM conversations and feedback for a better Wikimedia movement

Conversations during conferences

Wikimania

August was a very busy month in the Wikimedia community. Wikimania 2021 was the biggest conference the movement ever had, as it was conducted in a virtual environment. It had over 4,000 registrations and ran for five days, with sessions across different time zones, covering various topics. All the GLAM and Education sessions are available in this category.

The GLAM & Culture team, at the Wikimedia Foundation, also participated in two sessions. One was the Structured data on Commons: today and tomorrow, that was followed by a discussion table at the unconference, the Structured data on Commons and had presentations by Carly Bogen, Dominic Byrd-McDevitt, and Giovanna Fontenelle. Right now, you can watch the video on YouTube, but it will also be available on Commons soon.

The table was joined by 20 people, the maximum allowed, who provided feedback and had a 30 minutes discussion around the depicts guidelines produced by the GLAM and Culture team to improve the modeling page for Structured data on Commons. During the conversation, the guidelines were available on this sandbox page, but now are published on the main page, with some open questions and issues available on the talk page.

The other session was the State of GLAM Wiki in 2021 and its video is available here. Fiona Romeo, from the WMF GLAM and Culture team, opened with a short intro to GLAM-Wiki and, at the end of the session, presented how the team is thinking about visual knowledge, especially considering the millions of high-quality images the movement’s partnerships with libraries and cultural institutions have brought to the Wikimedia projects and how we can make sure the files GLAMs contribute are well described, discoverable, and used to enrich other projects, more Wikipedia languages and Wikisource.

The session also covered topics such as a panorama of the GLAM-Wiki activities in New Zealand, by Siobhan Leachman, and the social and technical overview of the Digital Public Library of America GLAM-Wiki initiative, by Dominic Byrd-McDevitt.

Another very technical presentation was shared by Éder Porto, from the Wiki Movimento Brasil User Group, who gave a talk about the technical developments and challenges involved in the , during a data roundtripping project.

Brazil was represented twice and Érica Azzellini, Communications Manager of the user group, introduced the , which is helping to fill the Wikimedia knowledge gaps of a very underrepresented part of the country. Susanna Ånäs, the GLAM coordinator at Wikimedia Suomi/AvoinGLAM, also talked about knowledge equity and ideas around the recent activities of AvoinGLAM, as a GLAM manifesto.

GLAM Wiki in New Zealand
Technical Developments and Challenges in GLAM-Wiki Initiatives: Museu do Ipiranga
Wiki Loves Bahia: Addressing local knowledge gaps

Hack4OpenGLAM and CC Global Summit 2021

Susanna Ånäs, who presented in the State of GLAM Wiki in 2021 session is also organizing the Hack4OpenGLAM, a 5-day culture hack event, part of the Creative Commons Global Summit 2021 (20–24 September), that intends to use creativity to build projects with open cultural heritage. This year's theme is knowledge equity and some very interesting schemes are already available.

During the CC Global Summit main program, the GLAM and Culture team is also participating and presenting a few sessions:

What does the Future Hold for Open GLAM and Creative Commons?
- Monday, September 20, 3:30pm - 4:30pm (UTC)
  - Speakers: Andrea Wallace, Brigitte Vezina, Giovanna Fontenelle, and Susanna Ånäs
Attributing Public Domain Materials: From Best Practices to Standardization
- Wednesday, September 22, 1:00pm - 2:00pm (UTC)
  - Speakers: Brigitte Vezina, Deborah De Angelis, Fiona Romeo, and Sarah Pearson
Introducing Wikisource: The Free Digital Library
- Friday, September 24, 11:00am - 11:30am (UTC)
  - Speaker: Satdeep Gill
Spreading CC's message for GLAMs during a pandemic
- Friday, September 24, 12:30pm - 13:30pm (UTC)
  - Speaker: Giovanna Fontenelle

Technical conversations

In the last months and weeks, the GLAM team has also been very active in more technical conversations, especially on Phabricator. In this newsletter, we would like to highlight some of them.