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GLAM/Newsletter/December 2022/Contents/Portugal report

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Portugal report

Wikibase in social sciences and Public Domain Day celebrations

Using Wikibase for research in social sciences: the case of eViterbo

A new report about the usage of Wikibase in social sciences research is out. Zooming in on the experience of building eViterbo, the report explains most the advantages and setbacks of using Wikibase in this context, while detailing technical procedures and documenting the platform. You can find the document on Zenodo. Since March, this has been the main focus of the wikimedian residency taking place at NOVA FCSH, a leading faculty for humanities and social sciences in Portugal.

So, what is eViterbo?

screenshot of eViterbo's homepage
eViterbo's homepage

eViterbo is the main research output of TechNetEMPIRE, an FCT-funded research project looking into the technical and scientific networks of the built environment (engineering, architecture, cartographers, carpenters, masons, etc.) in the Portuguese Colonial Empire. The project is led by researchers Alice Santiago Faria and Renata Malcher de Araújo, both affiliated to CHAM - Centro de Humanidades (a joint ressearch unit of NOVA FCSH and Universidade dos Açores), and also had the support of lab2pt at Universidade do Minho and IEETA of Universidade de Aveiro.

The platform was called eViterbo as a tribute to Francisco Viterbo, the author of one of the main 19th century sources in which the project is rooted. Like in the life work of Francisco Viterbo, which on top of his well-known Dictionary of Architects and Engineers studied other arts & crafts as well as Portuguese agents and aspects, eViterbo contains content from other art history-research projects from the “Art, History and Memory” research group within CHAM. The inclusion of several areas of knowledge from within the “Art, History and Memory” research group, makes the future of eViterbo possible in several areas and a prime tool for Art History and related fields in Portuguese.

eViterbo is a multifaceted platform that combines a MediaWiki-based encyclopedia with an open linked data structured database, built on a Wikibase suite. It is a pioneer platform combining these two parts into a single platform in a research setting, particularly in social sciences.

Public Domain Day 2023 celebrated at the Portuguese National Library

After a few years of remote celebrations, Public Domain Day 2023 was finally celebrated in-person at the Portuguese National Library (Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, BNP) on January 6th. In the morning, the event welcomed presentations about the history of the day, how BNP makes use of open data, public domain in the Wikimedia landscape, and public domain and Creative Commons licences. In the afternoon, there was a Wikidata workshop for beginners, centred around Portuguese authors whose works are now in the public domain.

This was a joint venture of ANSOL (Portuguese association for free software), BNP and Wikimedia Portugal, with the help of Creative Commons Portugal.


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