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< GLAM | Newsletter | December 2019


GLAM+Wikidata Collaboration between Armenia and Albania

By Armine Aghayan (Armineaghayan) & Liridon Selmani (Liridon Selmani)

GLAM+Wikidata Collaboration between Armenia and Albania

The idea to start a collaboration between Armenia and Albania was born at 7 Birthday of Wikidata that is at WikidataCon 2019, held in Berlin. During the conference breaks Liridon Selmani from Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group told me about his initiative of working with Albanian National Library and transferring their data into Wikidata.

Together with Liridon we decided to work on the database of the National Gallery of Armenia and transfer the existing data into Wikidata. In Wikidata there were some 250 items from the National Gallery of Armenia which were created during different workshops and edit-a-thons.

  • Working on the database of the National Gallery of Armenia during a workshop
  • Art+Feminism edit-a-thon and Wikidata workshop at Mrgavan Wikiclub
    Art+Feminism edit-a-thon and Wikidata workshop at Mrgavan Wikiclub
  • An editor from Mrgavan Wikiclub created Wikidata item about a painting depicting a woman or women topic
    An editor from Mrgavan Wikiclub created Wikidata item about a painting depicting a woman or women topic
  • An editor from Mrgavan Wikiclub using National Gallery of Armenia database creates a wikidata item
    An editor from Mrgavan Wikiclub using National Gallery of Armenia database creates a wikidata item

After the collaboration with Liridon more than 24000 items from the National Gallery of Armenia can be found in Wikidata.

We got data from National Gallery of Armenia, did mapping and matched those data with current Wikidata items, created wikidata items for missing artists who has works preserved in the National Gallery of Armenia but there were no wikidata items for some artists.

This collaboration is ongoing and Armenian Wiki Community will help us to have the Wikipedia articles about the artists whose wikidata items were created but the Armenian Wikipedia articles are missing. Also we plan to import the images of the artworks from the above mentioned gallery for the artsists who died 70 years ago and their artworks have no copyright.

Wiki Loves Monuments Award Ceremony

By Armine Aghayan (Armineaghayan) & Vahagn Haykazyan (Gardmanahay)

In 2019 Wikimedia Armenia participated in Wiki Loves Monuments international photographic competition and was in the 3-rd place by the number of images uploded during the competition. 139 participants uploaded 21076 photos of the monuments from Armenia and Artsakh.

  • The winning photos
  • Tatev Monastery. Author:Vahagn Grigoryan
    Tatev Monastery. Author:Vahagn Grigoryan
  • Garni Temple. Author:Matthias Süßen
    Garni Temple. Author:Matthias Süßen
  • Charent's Arch. Author:Matthias Süßen
    Charent's Arch. Author:Matthias Süßen

This year Wikimedia Armenia organized small group trips to see and take photos of the monuments located in different regions, focusing on photographing monuments which has not been much covered and Wikicommons was lucking those images.

In Armenia, both active editors, Wiki Club members, as well as newcomers participated in the competition.

Based on the feedback and the results received, Wikimedia Armenia decided to participate in Wiki Loves Monuments 2020.

On December 28, 2019, the results of the competition were summarized and a small ceremony was held in Wikimedia Armenia office. The authors of the first 3 images selected by the jury, as well as the participants who uploaded the highest number of images, as well as high quality photos, got symbolic presents from Wikimedia Armenia.

  • Wiki Loves Monuments Ceremony
  • Gift-card
    Gift-card
  • One of the participants of the group visits was sharing her impressions
    One of the participants of the group visits was sharing her impressions
  • Award ceremony participants
    Award ceremony participants
  • Active uploaders
    Active uploaders
  • The photos of these photographes were among the best 10 images
    The photos of these photographes were among the best 10 images


Edit-a-thon Prachatice 2

By Gampe

Edit-a-thon Prachatice 2

At the beginning of November, this year's local edit-a-thon took place in the town of Prachatice in Šumava, South Bohemia. It followed the successful event of March this year. In the week before the actual edit-a-thon there were held events for the Prachatice public:

  • A lecture by the restorers Tomáš Skořepa and Jiří Mašek at the Prachatice Museum on the restoration of the facades of the Prachatice Renaissance houses.
  • A lecture by Dušan Foltýn, historian and wikipedist, on the history of the Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy of St. Borromeo in Neumanneum,
  • Wikipedia editing courses for people from Prachatice institutions and voluntary associations (Prachatice Municipal Office, "Prachaticko News" Local Server, Prachatice Catholic Parish, eight people participated)

Eight Czech wikipedians, one German and one Austrian participant on the spot and five others wikipedians participated remotely in edit-a-thon on November 1 - 3. In addition to writing 68 new articles and extending 253 existing articles, we obtained 915 new photographs, texts and photographs from restoration reports, documents and photographs from the Neumanneum archive (27 files), unique historical photographs from the photographic collection of the Prachatice Museum (15 files).

The event took place under the auspices of the Prachatice City Authority and the Prachatice Museum. The event was funded by InterKultura association and Wikimedia Czech Republic. The participation of the German and Austrian wikipedists was funded by the chapters of Wikimedia Deutschland and Wikimedia Österreich.

A follow-up edit-a-ton is planned for March 2020 in the nearby town of Volary. If you are interested in the history of the Czech-German borderlands, you are cordially invited!

  • A lecture by Dušan Foltýn in Neumanneum
    A lecture by Dušan Foltýn in Neumanneum
  • "Sitr House", today the seat of the Prachatice Museum, cca 1886-1888, print from the museum collections.
    "Sitr House", today the seat of the Prachatice Museum, cca 1886-1888, print from the museum collections.
  • Participants of Edit-a-thon Prachatice 2
    Participants of Edit-a-thon Prachatice 2

Transitional Justice edit-a-thon held in Prishtina

Transitional Justice edit-a-thon held in Prishtina

During December Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group organized a thematic edit-a-thon on transitional justice intending to bring together editors to write articles on events related to the Kosovo War. As a result, students of different backgrounds participated in the edit-a-thon which took place in Prishtina and lasted 3 days.

On our first meeting with the participants, we held a training session during which we taught them the basics of editing in Wikipedia, answered their questions and encouraged them to choose a topic within the theme to start their research.

Our next gatherings were during the weekend of 14-15th of December; this time to get busy and start writing. To help the participants with the brainstorming process, we also invited for short lectures Shkëlzen Gashi and Furtuna Sheremeti. Shkëlzen has done comparative research on the portrayal of key historical events related to Kosovo in school textbooks across the region whereas Fortuna is doing her PhD on war reparations. The speakers sparked discussions about transitional justice, the sensitivity of the topic, challenges and issues to be cautious about when writing on the topic.

Outcomes of the edit-a-thon

Editors helped expand or wrote new articles about massacres that happened during the 1998-1999 war in Kosovo. It was quite interesting to engage in conversations about the importance of documenting such sensitive topics in the best way possible, to identify the problems faced in the process and of course to meet new editors who we hope will continue their journey as editors of Wikipedia.

  • Photos during the Transitional Justice edit-a-thon
  • Discussion with Shkëlzen Gashi
    Discussion with Shkëlzen Gashi
  • Training session during transitional justice edit-a-thon.
    Training session during transitional justice edit-a-thon.
  • Discussion with Furtuna Sheremeti
    Discussion with Furtuna Sheremeti


A Wikipedian in Residence and a Wikipedian writes

Wikipedian in Residence at Lincoln University

Christchurch-based Wikipedians on a photo trip to Lincoln University

From November–December 2019 I (User:Giantflightlessbirds) was employed as Lincoln University Wikipedian in Residence at Lincoln University, New Zealand. This placement was a proof-of-concept to develop a Wikipedia strategy for the University for implementation in 2020, and seems to be the first WiR position at a Southern Hemisphere university.

As well as presentations to staff on Wikipedia and Wikidata, progress was made in a few areas over the three weeks:

  • On December 9, Wikipedia volunteers Schwede66 and Podzemnik came out to Lincoln from Christchurch and spent an hour photographing campus buildings for upload to Category:Buildings of Lincoln University. We added 180 images of buildings and 40 of public artworks and created 20 new categories.
  • Young Farmers Club Hall by Schwede66
    Young Farmers Club Hall by Schwede66
  • Hudson Hall by User:Podzemnik
    Hudson Hall by User:Podzemnik
  • As part of a project of adding notable trees on campus, a Cradle template was created for individual trees, with 26 properties.
  • Sugar maple (1958)
    Sugar maple (1958)
  • Scarlet oak (1976)
    Scarlet oak (1976)
  • Mulberry (1974)
    Mulberry (1974)
  • Golden cedar (1984)
    Golden cedar (1984)
  • Tulip tree (1961)
    Tulip tree (1961)
  • California walnut (1954)
    California walnut (1954)
  • Te Paepaetapu a Rakaihautu (1997), Chris Booth
    Te Paepaetapu a Rakaihautu (1997), Chris Booth
  • Joy of Living (1992), Llew Summers
    Joy of Living (1992), Llew Summers
  • Jug-Skin Fence (2009), Cheryl Lucas
    Jug-Skin Fence (2009), Cheryl Lucas
  • H₂O (2005), Neil Dawson
    H₂O (2005), Neil Dawson
  • Overview (2013), Graham Bennett
    Overview (2013), Graham Bennett

As a result of this work, described in more detail in the Lincoln University WiR Project Page, Lincoln hope to bring a Wikipedian back for a longer contract in 2020.

Stuart Yeates NZ Professors project

Stuart Yeates (User:Stuartyeates) comemmorated his 15th anniversary of editing Wikipedia under his own name with three articles on the SciBlogs site run by the Science Media Centre, an information source for journalists covering science and technology in New Zealand. Stuart's articles were:

  1. 18 Dec 2019. "How I came to be writing Wikipedia biographies for female New Zealand professors".
    Starting in 2017, Stuart compiled a list of hundreds of women who were current full professors at New Zealand institutions, and began creating stub articles on them
  2. 19 Dec 2019. "What to put in a Wikipedia biography – and what gets left out".
    More on his workflow, scripts, and templates, and a call for the public to sign up and help edit.
  3. 20 Dec 2019. "15 years of editing Wikipedia".
    The ups and downs of his long Wikipedia career, including the editor who talked his way into Stuart's IRL workplace to harangue him.

These articles are more examples of the coverage Wikipedia is increasingly getting in the GLAM sector and the media in New Zealand, and are great to see.


Plaintext Wikipedia dumps for the National Library

Text dumps from Wikipedia to The National Library; Språkbanken - a language technology resource collection for Norwegian

Wikimedia Norge event at The National Library

Like Wikimedia Norge did last year, we supplied plaintext copies of Wikipedia content to the National Library division, Språkbanken, which is a corpus of texts in Norwegian and Sámi languages in December 2019. This time, it was texts from talk pages they requested, since that is somewhat closer to natural or informal language than what article texts are.

Here is more info the National Library division, Språkbanken /Language bank work:

"Språkbanken offers digital language resources for use in research and in the development of language technology. The resources can be downloaded from Språkbanken’s website free of charge. The collection is expanding continuously.

Språkbanken is a service to that part of the ICT-industry which works with the development of language-based ICT-solutions, to researchers within language technology and linguistics, and to public enterprises which develop electronic solutions for public services. Among other things, Språkbanken contains corpora of written and spoken language, i.e. large collections of text and speech in machine-readable format.

Språkbanken is a national infra-structure initiative designed to ensure that language technology solutions based on the Norwegian language will be developed, and thereby prevent domain loss of Norwegian in technology-dependent areas." (link)


Swedish Performing Arts Agency; Bibliographic data about Swedish periodicals

More art from Swedish Performing Arts Agency on Commons

Wikimedia Sverige has been collaborating with the Swedish Performing Arts Agency (Musikverket) on several projects aiming to improve the coverage of performing arts history in the Wikimedia projects. In December we did another upload of over 2,500 files to Wikimedia Commons. Some of them are black and white photographs of notable theatre and opera performers, a collection that we had worked with previously and that has been steadily growing to the 3,500 files that are up on Commons today.

In this particular project, however, we got to work with some new material: sketches of theatre scenography and costumes by several Swedish artists, such as Isaac Grünewald, Carl Grabow and Lydia Skottsberg. These artworks were only digitized by Musikverket in 2019, meaning they were not available online before. It is a positive sign that GLAM institutions choose to prioritize the Wikimedia projects in their work, reaching out to wider audiences and helping make free knowledge more available.

  • Scenography sketch by Carl Grabow.
    Scenography sketch by Carl Grabow.
  • Costume sketch by Signe Hebbe.
    Costume sketch by Signe Hebbe.
  • Scenography sketch by Isaac Grünewald.
    Scenography sketch by Isaac Grünewald.

You can read more about this project, in Swedish, on Wikimedia Sverige's blog.

Bibliographic data about Swedish periodicals on Wikidata

Most common languages of periodicals on Wikidata on January 7, 2020. Query.

As part of our collaboration project with the National Library of Sweden, aiming at increasing the amount of Swedish bibliographic data on Wikidata, in December we worked with the data about journals, magazines and other periodicals in the Swedish National Bibliography. The result of this work is that over 32,000 new items about periodicals (of which 30,000 are in Swedish) were created. This brings the total number of periodical items with Libris Edition ID (identifier of an entry in the National Library of Sweden's catalog) to over 33,000, at the same time making Swedish the second most popular language of periodicals on Wikidata, right after English.

White Elephant; WikiWednesday Salon; Cascadia Wikimedians annual meeting

White Elephant

Wikimedia Los Angeles held a white elephant sale, Los Angeles/December 2019

WikiWednesday Salon

Metropolitan New York Library Council, and Wikimedia NYC held a salon, NYC/December 2019

Cascadia Wikimedians annual meeting

Cascadia Wikimedians User Group, held their annual meeting Cascadia Wikimedians annual meeting


New blog posts

New blog posts about Structured Data on Commons and GLAM

Metadata roundtripping now becomes easier thanks to structured data. Is this something your GLAM partners would be interested in?

In December, a few new blog posts about Structured Data on Commons have been published on Wikimedia Space:

In January, we will continue to work on more documentation. As mentioned in the previous This Month in GLAM edition, the development team also continues development of several key features.


Job vacancies and item 80 million

By Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing)

News

Press, articles, blog posts

New tools

  • Dwynwen, adapted from Crotos, provides users with a search interface designed specifically for artworks and other visual digital content from Commons, using Wikidata.
  • WDumper, generating customized Wikidata RDF dumps. More information


Technical matters

Other news

For all other Wikidata news, new properties, etc, see:

(There was no report for the week of 23 December, due to Christmas)


Mapping GLAM-Wiki collaborations

By SGill

Mapping GLAM-Wiki collaborations

In late 2019 and early 2020, the GLAM team at the Wikimedia Foundation collects data about the past international GLAM-Wiki activities that have been publicly documented by the Wikimedia community: in this newsletter, in affiliate and project reports and other resources. We have started this research project to build a better overview of the kinds of GLAM-Wiki projects that have been done in the past, and in order to analyze this for broad developments and patterns. This research project primarily supports the work of Wikimedia Sverige to establish a GLAM support hub, but of course the data will be useful for many different purposes.

Krishna Chaitanya Velaga and Davit Saroyan work on the data collection. You can read more about this research here and look at the work in progress in the spreadsheet. Feel free to leave comments in the spreadsheet if you have suggestions, additions or other remarks.

  • GLAMWiki Activities by continent (as of 9th January 2020)
    GLAMWiki Activities by continent (as of 9th January 2020)
  • GLAMWiki Activities by project per year (as of 9th January 2020)
    GLAMWiki Activities by project per year (as of 9th January 2020)


January's GLAM events

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