GLAM/Newsletter/August 2024/Single
Vacancy Wikimedian in Residence for Wikipedia on Aruba - Aruba on Wikipedia project
Vacancy Wikimedian in Residence for Wikipedia on Aruba - Aruba on Wikipedia project
The project "Wikipedia on Aruba" wants to make Aruban and wider Dutch Caribbean culture and heritage widely accessible and visible on Wikimedia platforms such as Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikidata. The goal of the project is to motivate and enable people and institutions to share their knowledge, and to develop and support a thriving Wikimedia community around Aruban culture and heritage.
This is a Wikimedia Nederland project, in cooperation with Archivo Nacional Arubano, Biblioteca Nacional Aruba, Monuments Fund Aruba & UNOCA.
For this project we are looking for a
Wikimedian in Residence on Aruba / Project Coordinator Open Knowledge Aruba (18 months/0,8 fte)
The Wikimedian in Residence will be the coordinator and point of contact for the project on Aruba, acting as a liaison between cultural heritage organisations, volunteers, the Wikimedia platforms and the global Wikimedia movement.
The full job description can be read on the Wikimedia Nederland website. Deadline for application is 16 September 2024.
Technology and biodiversity: “Amazonian Knowledge on Wiki”
"Amazonian Knowledge on Wiki" is a project organized by Wiki Movimento Brasil (WMB) with funding from Creative Commons and Wikimedia Switzerland. It aims to disseminate information about the biodiversity of the Pará Amazon. The collections, especially those related to biodiversity, emphasize the crucial role of open knowledge in preparation for COP-30, which will be held in Belém in 2025.
The first activity of the project took place on August 22, 23, and 24, in an innovative event that brought together 20 geoscience professionals for the Open Mapping and Documentation of the Zoobotanical Park of the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi.
The goal was to enhance the georeferencing of the park’s buildings and major trees. This includes marking the park’s entry points, locations where animals live, identifying the largest trees (those over 200 years old and predating the museum), and, most importantly, detailing which buildings are within the park, their locations, and the services they offer. To achieve this, WMB enlisted the participation of the research group “Meninas da Geo” from the Instituto Federal do Pará (IFPA), under the coordination of Professor Tatiana Pará, with support from the Museu Emílio Goeldi itself.
The first two days of the event took place at IFPA, focusing on developing the activity strategy and enhancing participants' knowledge with a practical laboratory class on open mapping and documentation. The third and final day (August 24) was the major field day for validating the data obtained from the preliminary survey and for forest mapping at MPEG.
To ensure the success of the fieldwork, participants were divided into groups responsible for mapping: (1) animal habitat areas; (2) building areas; and (3) areas with large-canopied trees. The mapping employed forest inventory techniques, measuring tree diameter, height, and other characteristics.
As observed in the preliminary analysis of existing MPEG mapping on OpenStreetMap, large trees were either not properly identified or not registered at all. Consequently, the mapping team adopted a range of combined mapping strategies to provide a comprehensive and detailed view of the large trees.
One of the largest tree species is the Samaúma or Samaumeira, which is one of the main attractions of the Zoobotanical Park. This specimen continues to thrive and impress with its exuberance at over 120 years old, being part of the group of trees referred to as “ancients of the Park,” according to Pedro Oliva.
- Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi
The Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi (MPEG), located in the center of Belém, was chosen for this project for being Brazil’s largest Natural History Museum and the most important research institution in the state of Pará. It is considered a “classroom for the Amazon” due to its pioneering scientific studies and educational activities on the natural and sociocultural systems of the Amazon. The 5.4-acre Zoobotanical Park is the first of its kind in Brazil, founded in 1866, and includes a living collection of fauna and flora as well as permanent ethnographic and archaeological exhibitions.
MPEG is the legacy of the Swiss naturalist Émil August Goeldi, who ran and reorganized the institution during his mandate between 1894 and 1905. Goeldi was responsible for structuring comprehensive and rigorous studies of the Amazon region and for organizing the first collections of the institution during this period marked by the europeans naturalists influence in Brazil. Today, the institution holds 19 main scientific collections with more than 4,5 million items and it is recognized worldwide as one of the most important research institutions on the Brazilian Amazon. The collections are broadly divided into: botany and zoology, ethnography, archaeology, linguistics, soil collection, palynology and rare works (these include drawings by European naturalists in Brazil in the 19th century). Part of the collection is already digitized, but not available on Wikimedia yet.
MPEG is located in the heart of the city that will host the United Nations Climate Change conference in 2025 (COP-30). The event is promised to center the Amazon rainforest in the discussion around climate change and the city of Belém is already going through infrastructural changes to receive the event. But the open knowledge ecosystem still lacks quality information about the Amazon’ social and natural ecosystems.
In 2023, Wiki Movimento Brasil (WMB), invested in partnerships in the state of Pará through the Wiki Loves Pará project, in order to consistently engage local communities on Wikimedia projects to cover quality information about the region. The diagnosis is that the Pará state, a region twice the size of France that comprehends a significant portion of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, is an information desert on the Wikimedia projects. By consequence, the Amazonian natural, historical and sociocultural diversity is invisible in the open knowledge ecosystem.
- Meninas da Geo
“Meninas da Geo” is part of the “Meninas Digitais” Program, which aims to empower girls and women in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), aligned with the United Nations’ actions to achieve Sustainable Development Goals 5: Gender Equality. Practically, the group operates on three fronts: education, research, and outreach, to train women, young people, farmers, and riverine communities to use geotechnological tools and enhance their territorial management.
See the Meninas da Geo's Wikiversity page
Editathon Women in Science and the Arts by Casa de Oswaldo Cruz-Fiocruz
Casa de Oswaldo Cruz-Fiocruz is a technical-scientific unit of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation created in 1986 for valuing institutional memory and disseminating the history of science and public health policies in Brazil. The COC's GLAM project aims to expand free access to its archival, bibliographic and museological collections, and to promote activities for disseminating good information about history, science and health in Brazil.
This year, Casa de Oswaldo Cruz-Fiocruz focused its efforts on promoting knowledge about women scientists in Brazil. As part of this initiative, 1,828 images from six collections featuring scientists at the institution were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. These collections are from Alda Falcão, Dyrce Lacombe, Elizabeth Leeds, Hortênsia de Hollanda, Maria Cristina Fernandes de Mello, and Virgínia Portocarrero.
To further disseminate this collection, on August 26th, we organized the Editathon Women in Science and the Arts, an event by Casa de Oswaldo Cruz/Fiocruz in partnership with Wiki Movimento Brasil and the Art + Feminism project. Through this initiative, we invited Wikimedians and newcomers to collaborate in improving and creating articles about notable Brazilian women in the fields of science and the arts on Wikipedia. You can see the contributions on the outreach dashboard.
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Alda Falcão -
Dyrce Lacombe -
Elizabeth Leeds -
Hortênsia de Hollanda -
Maria Cristina Fernandes de Mello's collection -
Virgínia Portocarrero
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See the Casa de Oswaldo Cruz-Fiocruz's GLAM page and the uploaded media.
Egypt-a-thon at Casa Museu Eva Klabin
Casa Museu Eva Klabin is a museum located in the Lagoa neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The museum houses a classical art collection with over 2,000 pieces, including artifacts from Ancient Egypt. This month, as part of our GLAM partnership and inspired by the museum's temporary exhibition Eternal Egypt: Immortality in the Viscountess de Cavalcanti and Eva Klabin Collections, we have uploaded 48 works from the museum's Egyptian collection to Wikimedia Commons, and also 11 3D models of some of these pieces of art. Additionally, on September 5th, we will support an editathon at the museum, aimed at improving Portuguese-language content about Egyptian art on the internet and highlighting the historical significance of Brazilian collections on Wikipedia.
See the Casa Museu Eva Klabin's GLAM page; the uploaded media; and the 3D models.
Criola's Edit-a-thon
Criola is a civil society organization based in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, that has been working for 30 years to combat racism and advocate for Black women's rights. Criola received funding from the Wikimedia Foundation to implement the project “CRIOLA – Projeto de Aprimoramento nas Habilidades no Uso de Novas Tecnologias para a Construção de Meios para a Equidade Racial" (CRIOLA – Project for Improving Skills in the Use of New Technologies for the Construction of Means for Racial Equity) through which it developed a series of activities.
The project supports 140 cis and trans Black women (including leaders, scholars, researchers, nano-influencers, among others) in the production and dissemination of free and anti-racist knowledge. This project also helped them improve their skills in using new technologies, with the objective of reducing the racial gap in this type of knowledge.
| “ | Reaffirming the power of Black girls and women in the production of social technologies as responses to inequalities and inequity. Challenging narratives and amplifying the voices of Black women, especially in the public sphere. - Criola | ” |
Furthermore, the specific objectives of the project were:
- To produce collaborative information and content about the impacts of cisheteronormative patriarchal racism, as well as the thoughts, art, literature, and innovations produced by Black women;
- To hold seminars and training sessions for 30 cis and trans Black girls and women on new technologies to combat racial inequalities in the information field;
- To create and disseminate a virtual space to document the thoughts and knowledge of cis and trans Black women, capturing material under Creative Commons licenses; and,
- To partner with organizations to expand the dissemination of the aforementioned materials.
WMB have supported the NGO in some of its wiki-related activities, including uploading 40 videos and 74 transcriptions to date, as well as organizing an editathon aimed at increasing the quantity and quality of content about Black women on Portuguese Wikipedia.
See the Criola's GLAM page and the uploaded media.
Colombia in Wikimania Mood
(Español abajo)
From Wikimedia Colombia we participate in Wikimania
The annual global meeting of Wikimedians was held in Katowice, Poland, from 7 to 10 August 2024. At the meeting, the Wuayuu community was awarded the prize for new Wikipedians of the year. Here is a look at the meeting to tell how it happens and what we can do to be part of these spaces in our region. The session "Building alliances for pro-open legislative reform" included the collaboration librarians-wikimedians. Read more (in Spanish)
Desde Wikimedia Colombia participamos en Wikimania
Del 7 al 10 de Agosto de 2024 se celebró el encuentro mundial anual de Wikimedistas en Katowice (Polonia). En el encuentro, la comunidad Wuayuu fue condecorada con el premio a nuevos wikipedistas del año. Aquí una mirada del encuentro para narrar cómo ocurre y qué podemos aprovechar de estos espacios desde nuestra región. La sesión "Building alliances for pro-open legislative reform" muestra la colaboración entre bibliotecas-wikimedistas. Leer más
Cooperation between National Library and Wikimedia CR was presented at Wikimania 2024
Success story: Cooperation between Czech National Library and Wikimedia CR
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Wikimedia Czech Republic started to cooperate with National Library many years ago. It all started with metadata linked to future wikidata base, which resulted in long partnership covered in 2023 with a signed memorandum. Wikidata partnership starting back in 2006 resulted into educational and community activities, which we organise in partnership every year. National Library also has an „army of wikimedians in residents“ (as we call them: wikiresidents). They have their atributed agenda, which they focus on. And this partnership is and could be a good example for other, full of mutual understanding and human ideas.
Czech contribution at Wikimania 2024 in Katowice
Czech participation in Wikimania 2024 was exceptional. There is no wonder, as Katowice are short distance from most cities and towns in Czech Republic. For many members of the Czech team it was a first full onsite experience with this main WMF event. Apart from National Library partnership, 2 more sessions on media education and 2 lightening talks were presented.
Teach (with) Wiki class was presented by Pavel Bednařík on Wednesday 7th. This session aimed at using Wikipedia and other WM projects in school. Teachers book Teach (with) Wiki prepared by high school teacher and Wikimedian Jaroslav Mašek is unfortunatelly only being published in Czech, but it could serve as a good source for anyone. Participants could join a brief demonstration of the activity "Recognising and writing encyclopaedic text." Different texts about Václav Havel were about to be compared and discussed.
Finally 2 lightening talks by Klára Joklová, executive director of Wikimedia Czech Republic and Lucie Schubert, education manager of WMCZ, were part of the Lightning talks panel. First introduced successfull campaign There's an error, the other brought to light 10 year of senior education programme celebrations.
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Presentation on Czech experience with media education featuring Wikimedia projects
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Klára Joklová during her lightning talk -
Lucie Schubert during her lightning talk
Wikimedians-in-residence assigned to add lexicographical data of 5 endangered languages of West Bengal
The West Bengal Wikimedians User Group is collaborating with the School of Language and Linguistics of the Jadavpur University to document and preserve five endangered languages spoken in West Bengal, India: Kharia Thar, Koda, Kudmali, Mahali and Toto. To achieve this, five postgraduate linguistics students from the department have been chosen as paid Wikimedians-in-residence (WiR) after a departmental interview process. They have received training to add lexicographical data to Wikidata. Each WiR has been assigned one of the endangered languages and provided with existing data collected during previous field projects conducted by the department. The entries will be evaluated by Dr. Atanu Saha, a faculty member of the department and the user group will bear the expenditure of the entire process. This initiative aims to enhance the digital presence and accessibility of these languages, contributing to their long-term preservation and revitalization efforts. The project can be tracked in this Programs & Events Dashboard.
10 reasons why the National Library of the Netherlands moved its Wikimedia-related publications from SlideShare to Zenodo, and keeps them on Wikimedia Commons
10 reasons why the National Library of the Netherlands moved its Wikimedia-related publications from SlideShare to Zenodo, and keeps them on Wikimedia Commons
During the summer holidays I migrated my professional archive of open access presentations, articles, workshop materials and other publications of the last 13 years from SlideShare to Zenodo. As most of them are related to Wikimedia, I also made sure to have copies on Wikimedia Commons.
As the Wikimedia coordinator of the KB, national library of the Netherlands, I wrote a long-read about my journey in transitioning from SlideShare to Zenodo. I explain my motivations, and why I've chosen Zenodo + Wikimedia Commons as the ideal combo to make my professional output more visible, findable, reusable and durable, for a diverse range of audiences.
- My original article: https://zenodo.org/records/13365077
- A slightly extended version on Diff: 10 reasons why the National Library of the Netherlands moved its Wikimedia-related publications from SlideShare to Zenodo, and keeps them on Wikimedia Commons
- KB's GLAM-Wiki publications archive:
Looking for Aotearoa's next roving Wikipedian, a Wikidata Te Papa research expeditions publication & the Wikidata WikiProject IBC follow-up workshop
Wrapping up the first Aotearoa Wikipedian at Large
The Aotearoa Wikipedian at Large position spends between six and twelve months doing short projects with different groups and organisations, sometimes all around the country, sometimes in a particular region. They might spend one week helping a gallery load images of artworks into Wikimedia Commons, the next running training workshops for school librarians, and the one after that in the bush getting students to take openly-licensed bird photos.
Giantflightlessbirds spent the first six months of 2024 as a Wikipedian at Large based in Ōtautahi Christchurch, working with multiple institutions. Highlights include:
- A week on a field trip into the Canterbury High Country with biology students, introducing them to Creative Commons and Wikipedia, uploading their openly-licensed phtoography, and creating an article about the Cass Field Station.
- Working with Christchurch Art Gallery to create Ink on Paper, one of their 2023 exhibitions, in Wikidata and Commons, improving the way museum exhibitions are modelled in the process, and running an editathon on the overlooked artists featured in the show.
- Setting up monthly meetups for the Christchurch editor community
- Beginning an entomology collaboration with Canterbury Museum, involving iNaturalist and the local branch of the NZ Entomological Society
- Working with University of Canterbury Biology Department on a Wikipedia drive to celebrate their 21st anniversary
Applications are open for the 2025 Wikipedian at Large
Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand (WANZ) has opened funding applications for the Wikipedian at Large, a role that takes Wikipedia to the people. If this sounds good to you and you're an Aotearoa-based Wikipedian, check the WANZ website to see how to apply. Proposals are due by 30 September 2024 and the successful applicant will be announced by 15 October 2024.
Ambrosia10 & Avocadobabygirl have co-authored an extended abstract on the Wikidata WikiProject Te Papa research expeditions for a presentation that will be presented by Ambrosia10 at the SPNHC TDWG 2024 conference. This extended abstract was published in the Biodiversity Information Science and Standards journal and can be found here.
The organisers of the Wikidata WikiProject IBC 2024 including Ambrosia10 and Stitchbird2 successfully held their last virtual workshop following up with attendees of the online introductory Wikidata workshop held in early July and the in person attendees at the IBC Wikidata workshop. The slides for the follow up workshop can be found here. This project will be running for another 6 months the organisers been invited by the Annals of Botany to publish an article in that journal on Wikidata as a result of our successful poster and engagement work at the International Congress.
An insight of Wkikimedia MKD's 2024 GLAM Programme
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GLAM programme is one of the key programmes of Wikimedia MKD and as such a lot of activities and projects have been realized so far. Since the beginning of 2024 many activities and project activities have been completed and excellent results have been achieved. The size of the activities varied, some are small workshops and other are activities of a large scale with results that exceed even the given goals for the particular activities.
Since this year’s GLAM programme and activities are topic-oriented, that is writing, contributing, acting and promoting the ‘Climate and Climate Changes’, Wikimedia MKD organizing topic-oriented GLAM events and activities. This topic is very important today in Macedonia and in the world and our Macedonian community on Wikipedia is giving its own contribution to this cause.
On 18.04.2024 a workshop was held in the city library Goce Delcev in Veles. Members of the Wiki Club Veles, members of the club Wiki Senior and other members took part in - or in total 27 people, led by the coordinator Lili Arsova. The first part of the workshop was a lecture from NGO Vila Zora. After the lecture 14 participants edited on Wikipedia and created 36 new articles.
Another event was held on 26th June 2024 with the members of Wiki club Ohrid. The workshop was opened by Natasha Nedanoska who talked about this important subject. After the lecture, members of Wiki club Ohrid wrote articles on this subject on the Macedonian Wikipedia. Wikimedia MKD and the Macedonian Ecological Society (MES) continue their well-established productive collaboration on various different topics related to our environment. This time, Wikimedia MKD in collaboration with the MES organizations planned and successfully organized an edit-a-thon of climate changes. This is one of several GLAM project events this year where the focus is the climate changes. Having in mind the fact that Wikimedia MKD dedicated its GLAM programme on climate changes, this edit-a-thon and the lecture that preceded it was a very good chance to give our contribution to this worldwide problem. This event took place on 30 May 2024 at the premises of the Museum of Macedonian Struggle in Skopje. The edit-a-thon started at 12:00 local time and it was organized with students of Josip Broz Tito High School in Skopje. The total number of students that took part was 10 led by the coordinator Irena Trajkovska Sterjoska.
The selected few for this report are just an exemplary representation of the type of GLAM activities and projects that were carried out so far by Wikimedia MKD. There are many more with great results that can be seen and viewed on our monthly reports. Wikimedia MKD’s dedication to providing free knowledge and increasing the number of volunteers for this cause has been and will be among the key priorities in the period that follows.
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Frosina Panduroska Dramikjanin lecturing the participants on climate changes. -
Editing articles in Ohrid. -
Sashka Kocevska is giving a lecture -
The participants are listening a lecture
What's up in GLAM-Wiki in Poland
GLAM Global Meetup
On August 6, 2024, during Wikimania preconference day, the GLAM Global meetup at the Silesian Museum in Katowice brought together around 40 participants from various countries. This initiative for GLAM-Wiki enthusiasts aimed to explore collaboration opportunities within the global GLAM-Wiki community, share knowledge, and address the technical needs of those working at the intersection of cultural heritage and Wikimedia.
The Polish team actively participated in the event. Kamila Neuman, Open Culture Manager at Wikimedia Poland, co-led the morning session, Connecting Minds: Empowering GLAM-Wiki Professionals, which focused on improving collaboration within the global GLAM network. Participants shared projects, challenges, and brainstormed solutions to enhance communication and knowledge-sharing.
In the afternoon session on technical tools, Kasia Makowska, Open Science Manager worked alongside international colleagues to address key challenges like tool reliability and metadata management on the basis of outcomes of the CSI project.
It was a pleasure to be part of the organizing team, which included Susanna Ånäs (AvoinGLAM), Michelle van Lanschot (Wikimedia Nederland), Gorana Gomirac (Wikimedia Serbia), Andrew Lih (Smithsonian), Jamie Flood (National Agricultural Library & Wikimedians of Indiana), Angie Cervellera and Mauricio V. Genta (Wikimedia Argentina).
Working together to make this meetup a success was a great experience.
If you want to know more about the outcomes of the GLAM Global meetup, please read the event follow-up written by Michelle.
Engagement of GLAM-Wiki Partners at Wikimania Katowice
We are delighted and honored that our key partner, National Museum in Krakow (MNK), contributed to the Wikimania 2024 program with two important events.
The first one was the Key Partner session: Culture and Science Directors' Panel. The panelists included Alicja Knast – General Director of the National Gallery in Prague, Dr. hab. Agnieszka Turska-Kawa – Vice-Chancellor of the University of Silesia, and Prof. Dr. hab. Andrzej Szczerski – Director of the National Museum in Krakow. The session, moderated by Daria Cybulska, Director of Programmes and Evaluation at Wikimedia UK, focused on the concept of openness, its application in cultural and scientific institutions, and the leadership required to implement it.
Alicja Knast emphasized the importance of openness in museums and the challenges of providing space for debate in art institutions, while Dr. hab. Agnieszka Turska-Kawa pointed out that in the world of science, openness, especially in the form of open access to publications, can help build trust within the academic community and in relationships with the broader public.
Prof. Andrzej Szczerski, Director of the National Museum in Krakow, which is a GLAM Wiki partner of Wikimedia Poland, highlighted the significance of openness for established institutions like museums, which are often seen as hierarchical and elitist. He noted that despite these stereotypes, openness is crucial for sharing knowledge with a wider audience. Collaboration with Wikipedia has been a significant step for the National Museum in Krakow in disseminating knowledge and making its collections accessible to the public. Thanks to the digitalization of collections and the partnership with Wikimedia, the museum has seen a significant increase in public engagement. Szczerski stressed that openness allows museum institutions to reach a larger audience and transform their role from traditional guardians of heritage to active participants in the global exchange of knowledge.
As the leader of a large institution, Prof. Szczerski also emphasized the need to strike a balance between authority and openness, as seen in the collaboration between the National Museum in Krakow and Wikipedia. He highlighted that openness in museums, especially those of canonical significance like the MNK, is essential for ensuring their contemporary function in the dynamic world of digital knowledge.
The panel concluded with the idea that openness, though full of challenges, offers great opportunities for collaboration, trust-building, and creating a shared space for dialogue, especially at the intersection of culture, science, and Wikimedia's open knowledge ecosystem.
The second event was the Key Partner session: Wiki-Matejko: The Digitized Artist. Collaboration Between Wikimedia Poland and the National Museum in Krakow.
Joanna Szytuła from the National Museum in Krakow and Agata Stadnicka, a Wikipedian in Residence, presented their cooperation with Wikimedia Polska. They highlighted the museum’s efforts to make its vast collection accessible to the public through open digital portals and Wikipedia. This collaboration, which began in 2021, aims to align the museum’s mission of preserving and promoting Polish art with Wikipedia’s goal of sharing free knowledge.
The main focus of the presentation was the editing initiative WikiMatejko, dedicated to Jan Matejko, one of Poland's most renowned painters. The project led to the creation and improvement of numerous Wikipedia articles, including translations, media uploads to Wikimedia Commons, and contributions to Wikidata. The museum’s commitment to social responsibility, accessibility, and sustainability was emphasized, as the project enabled both the museum’s staff and public contributors to engage with its rich collections.
The speakers also addressed the challenges of motivating museum employees to contribute to Wikipedia. The project continues to evolve, with plans to expand similar activities in the future, focusing on other Polish artists.
We were also pleased to host our other GLAM partners who joined the Wikimania conference: the National Museum in Poznań, Warsaw National Museum, and the Museum of Photography in Krakow. We appreciate our partner's engagement and eagerly anticipate our upcoming initiatives.
Swiss GLAM Programme
Wikimania
In August the Wikimania took place in Poland. As it was this year in Europe it was possible to travel by train. Switzerland was represented by two staff members as well as about 8 community and GLAM people. As we cooperate with Open GLAM CH from Open Data CH it has been an opportunity to intensify the exchange with open Data formats besides many other interesting cooperations.
Performance Arts
Together with SAPA Foundation, the Swiss Archive of the Performing Arts, we are working on the visibilty of performance art in Switzerland. Please find here our blog on Diff. 11.000 images have been uploaded. Several edit-a-thons take place in September that are listed on the project page.
Femmes Artist Table
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The KBCB is a museum with a library in Biel/Bienne at the language border of German and French where every last Friday of each month the GLAM community has Meetups. The association FATart presented their aim and projects that also involved a cooperation with Wikimedia CH in order to create more articles about relevant female artists. The idea raised as female artists find it difficult to speak about their artwork after all the experiences of being left out from the art canon. It is about sitting together at the table and talking about female art. In the mixed group two men had great ideas on how to work on closing the gaps.
Indonesian Featured Article award
Khalili Foundation
Most of this month's work has been on adding content to the Interfaith Explorers site, creating 51 new pages and adding content and links to others. Hence there has been relatively little wiki editing.
Indonesian Wikipedia has given a Featured Article award to their translation of the Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam article. This resulted from a long review process involving four users, and is a rare honour; Indonesian Wikipedia only has 394 Featured Articles out of 700,000 total articles. This is the fourth Featured Article award achieved by this project: two in English, one in Urdu and now one in Indonesian.
The article Mihrab (painting), created by a volunteer at one of our edit-a-thons, has been translated into Spanish.
I attended Wikimania 2024 at Katowice, Poland, including the GLAM Wiki Global Meetup, where I met with cultural Wikipedians from many different countries. This was covered in a news item on the Khalili Foundation web site. A proposed session for the Museums Computer Group conference in Birmingham was rejected.
GLAMOrgan reports 4,105,051 image views this month. There were no image uploads to Commons this month.
Wikimania report and meetups
Wikimania activities
WikiPortraits
WikiPortraits wikimedians gave a workshop at Wikimania 2024, talking about experiences in capturing higher quality portraits for Wikimedia Commons for use in Wikidata and biographical articles. WikiPortraits: Transforming the Wikipedia photo desert into a green oasis
GLAM CSI
From the Smithsonian Institution, Andrew Lih, Ryan King, and Sara Snyder led a workshop talking about the GLAM CSI (Contributor Study Initiative) Workshop on Documenting Wiki User Stories: From Insight to Action.
A more extensive report can be found at: meta:GLAM_CSI/Wikimania_2024#Main_session_-_Workshop_on_Documenting_Wiki_User_Stories, including presentation slides, and drafts of user stories.
San Diego Summer Sessions 2024
San Diego Public Library and San Diego Wikimedians, held workshops, San Diego/August 2024
San Diego Wiknic
San Diego Wikimedians held a wikinic, San Diego August 2024 Wiknic, at Vacation Isle.
Triangle Wiknic 2024
Wikipedians of North Carolina held a wikinic, Triangle Wiknic 2024, at Boxyard RTP.
BHL-Wiki Working Group August monthly highlights
Agenda and recording of the August 2024 meeting
The August meeting was recorded. The recording can be found here. Use Passcode: Q9Gk+MBQ.
The agenda for that meeting can be found at this link. The agenda lists the dates of future online meetings and the zoom link to join.
Any BHL-Wiki curious Wikimedian is very welcome to attend.
Wikimedian in Residence position
Interviews for the BHL Wikimedian-in-Residence position are progressing with five extremely qualified candidates. These interviews are being overseen by Wikiblueprint consulting. The procurement timeline at the Smithsonian Institute may take an extended portion of time but the aim is for an October or November start. However certain steps are out of the control of the Biodiversity Heritage Library so the BHL-Wiki working group and the wider wiki community will be kept updated on progess.
BHL-Wiki working group GitHub project board
An important introduction to the BHL-WIKI GitHub project board was given to the BHL-WIKI working group to empower all participants to track work, milestones, metrics and scholarly outputs related to the group.
Members of the group should watch the meeting recording to get an introduction to this board as we intend to use this as our main project management and organisation system.
IMPORTANT: If group members would like access please email JJ Dearborn, the BHL Data Manager, your GitHub handle at DearbornJ “AT” si.edu.
BHL Flickr feed uploads
The BHL-technical team and BHL-Secretariat have decided to move forward with a trial effort to resurrect BHL's Flickr project after a period of testing. Testing will be conducted by Nicole Kearney, Michelle Marshall, and Siobhan Leachman. If successful Flickr uploads will again be opened up to all BHL partners, with documentation and policies in place for the community.
Note: These efforts will be community-led and not centrally managed as they were in the past. BHL Administrative oversight and Tech support will not be available.
The BHL-Wiki working group sees this as important as the BHL Flickr feed was an important source of historical biodiversity images with many already being uploaded into Wikimedia Commons. The ability of BHL partners to contribute images to the BHL Flickr account will make it easier for Wiki folk to access and upload these important biodiversity images, particularly with the ongoing development of the Flickypedia tool.
August outreach
Ambrosia10 and other participants of BHL-Wiki working group including S.v.Mering undertook various outreach events during August. These included the following:
- International Botanical Congress Wikidata workshop (with S.v.Mering, Stitchbird2 and Joaquimsantos1978) - Wikidata Workshop Slides
- IBC Wikidata Poster (with S.v.Mering, Stitchbird2 and Joaquimsantos1978)
- BHL Symposium & IBC
- BHL symposium presentation - Ambrosia10 and S.v.Mering replaced their sick colleague to present this presentation Carmen Ulloa Amplyfying Women IBC, Madrid
- Also of particular interest to BHL-Wiki folk was the presentation Matching herbarium specimens with Mary Vaux Walcott watercolor paintings using machine learning and detective work
- Natural History Museum, London & Kew staff “Wikidata is the way” presentation
- Wikimania presentations about work undertaken which was reliant on or made use of BHL content or identifiers -
- WikiProject IBC (with Stitchbird2 and S.v.Mering)
- Hidden Figures presentation about creating a course based undergraduate research experience (CURE)
- Women Genera project (with S.v.Mering) about creating a linked open dataset in Wikidata on women after whom flowering plant genera have been named.
Global GLAM Wiki Meetup - Future meetings and outcomes
Global GLAM Meetup at Wikimania roundup
At Wikimania 2024 in Katowice, Poland, a Global GLAM-Wiki meetup brought together more than 30 Wikimedians to share and discuss the challenges of contributing cultural and heritage content to the Wikimedia projects. A number of reports and outcomes from different entities can be found across the newsletter:
- July summary - GLAM/Newsletter/July_2024/Contents/Special_story
Afternoon session summary
The afternoon session focused on evaluating linked open data workflow tools and prioritizing next actions.
- Full report – meta:GLAM CSI/Wikimania 2024.
Meeting to prepare monthly global GLAM-Wiki calls
One of the wishes that was voiced at this GLAM global meetup was a desire for a periodic global online call for people who work at the intersection of cultural heritage and Wikimedia, or GLAM-Wiki. This regular call will help to regularly learn about each others' work, discuss issues, and exchange knowledge.
The call will take place starting in October or November and will be held every month, at alternating times of the day, accommodating a variety of time zones. Additional organizers and moderators are very welcome! If you are interested to help, leave a message on the Meta talk page of User:Spinster or reach out to Kamila (kamila.neuman
wikimedia.pl) or Michelle (vanlanschotwikimedia.org) if you want to get involved! We look forward to hearing from you!
To practically prepare this monthly call, we are organizing a meeting on September 12 at 8PM UTC. Click here to indicate you want to participate and/or directly join during the call: https://calendar.app.google/dDDkQorDA9LfsLGV6
AvoinGLAM at Wikimania
Open Knowledge Network meeting at Wikimania
Members of the Open Knowledge Network convened for a day dedicated to strategic planning at the Metallurgy Museum in Chorzów, near Katowice, Poland before Wikimania. We mapped threats and opportunities in the current digital ecosystem and indulged in dreaming about how to solve some of those challenges collectively.
We neglected our energy of hope, we should start dreaming again. We should be making a collective effort to plant the seed of hope in the young generation. Hope is a discipline.
The most urgent threats in the digital ecosystem perceived were issues related to access to education and digital literacy, unsustainable big tech business models, data colonialism, misinformation, power concentration, social injustice, and the challenges of maintaining openness and democracy.
Let's discuss these together in the spirit of Wikimania's theme, Collaboration of the Open!
AI Sauna at Wikimania
Susanna Ånäs joined the panel Wikimedia & GenAI: A 360 movement panel one year later along with Shani Evenstein, Jimmy Wales, Sandra Fauconnier, Alek Tarkowski, Maryana Pintschuk, Andrew Lih, and Yamen Bousrih. The invitation was related to the AI Sauna event AvoinGLAM arranged in May, which was introduced in the session Löyly of AI Sauna.
The T-shirt Susanna is wearing is by the Wiki Loves Living Heritage in Ghana project. Maxwell Beganim, Sadik Shahadu and Joris Darlington work together with the National Folklore Board, continuing the project AvoinGLAM & European Network of Focal Points for the UNESCO ICH Convention started in 2023.
AvoinGLAM was accompanied by up to 10 people in the Finnish delegation from Wikimedia Finland, Wikitongues, Marginaalimerkintöjä (Notes on the Margins) project and others. Kimmo Virtanen (WMFI) presented a lightning talk Scalable duplicate photo detection for Wikimedia Commons. Kristen Tcherneshoff (Wikitongues) presented in the round table Supporting minority languages and Wikimedia's global community. Ona de Gibert from University of Helsinki remotely presented Wikipedia's Role in Preserving Minority Languages through Open Technology.
AvoinGLAM in Inari
AvoinGLAM participates in the work of the Support for Sámi languages in digital services project by the National Library of Finland. The Steering Committee held its last meeting in Inari, and were welcomed by Siida, the Sámi Museum in Finland as well as the Sámi Languages Office at the Sámi Parliament of Finland.
Content Partnerships Hub at Wikimania; The Helpdesk; Metabase; UN collaboration day
Content Partnerships Hub at Wikimania
Wikimedia Sverige participated in Wikimania 2024, which gave us a lot of opportunities to talk about the Content Partnerships Hub, present what we have done and gather ideas and inspiration.
The Helpdesk
One highlight of the conference was the opportunity to talk about the Helpdesk, a support infrastructure for the Wikimedia movement that strenghtens our capacity of designing and implementing successfull content partnerships. We particularly highlighted the role of the Expert Committee that guides the work of the Helpdesk, we would not be able to work without their engagement. We introduced the audience to the concept of Working Groups that we are hoping to implement soon. Helpdesk Working Groups will make it easier to engage Movement experts in our work, with a focus on diversity and making underrepresented knowledge accessible on the Wikimedia platforms.
Metabase
We have been developing Metabase, a linked open data platform for the Movement's activities and materials, for over a year. We felt Wikimania was a great opportunity to speak about it to a broader audience and invite people to join.
In the workshop Learn from each other with linked data – We're developing a Wikibase instance for the Wikimedia movement's activities we introduced Wikibase as a tool to facilitate capacity building in the Wikimedia movement. We presented our work and the technical capabilities of the platform, using SPARQL queries to showcase what is already possible to do, even with the limited data that has been inputed so far. Wikimedia Sverige has been working on the project on their own, and now we're looking forward for others to criticize this work and, hopefully, contribute as well.
The response in the room was very positive, with people speaking out about the problems they encounter when organizing data about their affiliates' activities and materials. Several user accounts and edits were made right there during the session, and we got a lot of thoughtful questions as well.
The next step for Wikimedia Sverige is to use this positive experience to engage people in the long term. We would like to build a community around Metabase, where people not only contribute with data abut also develop the ontology, encourage others to join and discuss the direction the project should take.
Does this sound interesting?
See the recording of the session and read the notes.
Jump right into Metabase and explore the items and queries.
We published a white paper on Metabase where we describe the background of the project, why we made the decisions we did and our thoughts on what the project could become.
We are currently thinking about how to best create a community around Metabase. What form would be most appropriate? Would you like to get engaged? You can always join the discussion in Metabase or contact the WMSE staff (andre.costawikimedia.se or alicia.fagervingwikimedia.se directly.
UN collaboration day
Another area in which the Content Partnerships Hub is active is collaboration between the Wikimedia movement and IGOs (intergovernmental organizations). We were able to devote a whole day to this exciting topic. In a series of interactive workshops, we discussed topics such as:
- How is data and resources from UN (United Nations) used in the Wikimedia platforms today, and how can we make it easier for both parties to collaborate and learn from each other?
- What useful resources do UN and other IGOs have and what could we do so they are noticed and used by Wikimedians?
- How can we can make better use of the linguistic diversity of the Wikimedia movement?
The day was concluded with an edit-a-thon where we together explored and utilized UN resources to improve Wikimedia content.
Commons Impact Metrics, WikiLibCon25, and WikiConference North America
Commons Impact Metrics available via data dumps and API
In July, Commons Impact Metrics was launched officially via this post on Diff with extended details. Commons Impact Metrics is a new data product with monthly data dumps and a Wikimedia Analytics API for cultural heritage categories, and their media files, on Wikimedia Commons.
With this data, Commons contributors, campaign organizers, and GLAMs partners are able to:
- Count monthly edits in a category;
- Identify their most active contributors and most viewed files;
- Understand which Wikimedia projects, languages, and articles are using their media files.
The goals for this project were to offer 1) more reliable data, which we accomplished by offering a dataset, data dumps, and API developed and maintained by the Data Products team and available for use and integration; 2) less complex data, which we solved by offering pre-computed data (not raw); 3) a more stable service, that was solved by using pageviews (over mediarequests) and having more depth to the categories (down to seven sub-categories) selected; 4) a service that would be at scale, solved by having categories with up to 1 million files; and finally 5) a process that would be well documented by having an API and service that aims to standardize our definitions and methods.
- Access the data via Dumps (tips on how to work with dumps locally) and API
- Find out more by reading the documentation and reviewing the Data Model
- Add your own cultural heritage categories by making a Phabricator request (documentation here)
This was a collaborative effort between Community Growth (Culture and Heritage team) and Product & Technology (Data Products team).
Wikimedia+Libraries International Convention 2025
The second edition of the Wikimedia+Libraries Convention will happen from January 15 to 17, 2025, in Mexico City, Mexico. This year's theme is Disinformation as a threat.
WikiLibCon25 is being organized by the Wikimedia and Libraries User Group, in collaboration with other affiliates from the region, and it will bringing together the Wikimedia community and librarians, as well as information professionals from all over the world, to exchange knowledge and promote collaboration projects between libraries and the Wikimedia ecosystem.
The call for scholarships is already closed, but the call for proposals is open until September 15. Submit a proposal via this form or get informed about the process of submitting a session here.
WikiConference North America
From October 4 to 6, WikiConference North America 2024 will take place in Indianapolis, Indiana, USA, organized by the Wikimedians of Indiana. The gathering has 12 sessions on its GLAM track, that will cover topics from the GLAM tools in Toolhub to WikiPortraits or even the case of a Wikimedian in Residence in an Art Museum Miami or the GLAM CSI project. On the third day, the GLAM keynote will honor Effie Kapsalis and will be led by Smithsonian's contributors.
The Culture and Heritage team will be organizing a round table on how to create Wikimedia Working Groups for GLAMs, with the cases (and members) of the Digital Public Library of America and Biodiversity Heritage Library working groups.
Registrations are still open for online or in-person participation.
September's GLAM events
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