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< GLAM | Newsletter | February 2014


National Archives; Sèvres & mass uploads; Wikipedians in the European Parliament

National Archives − follow-up

As part of our partnership with the National Archives, and as a follow-up to the September project, 32 major documents from the French history were mass-uploaded on Wikimedia Commons.

Sèvres: Wikimedia Commons helps to share the best manufacturing practices

How to make a good cast? Every photo has a validation by Sèvres specialists

Tuesday 25 February 2014, two Wikipedians went to Sèvres Porcelain Manufacture in a partnership with Wikimedia France chapter. It's been almost a year now that Wikipedians come regularly to photograph and film the know-how of the Manufacture specialized craftsmen who create high quality porcelain while preserving gestures and ancient techniques. The Sèvres Manufacture is organized in numerous workshops each specialized in a specific treatment. An object such as a plate can thus pass through several workshops for the different actions to perform: Cast, cooking, glazing, gilding, etc.

Photos and videos taken during the recording sessions are then subjected to validation by the Manufacture in order to communicate the best practices, and those selected are published on Wikimedia Commons. A similar validation has been made by the Cadre Noir (the French cavalery school), who share their photos which illustrate the best practices (and more).

Haute-Saône museums

Preparations for the mass-upload with the Haute-Saône museums is going along. We have decided to use the GlamWiki Toolset, and with our help the museum is proceeding to tests on the Wikimedia Commons Beta Cluster (example).

Wikipedians in the European Parliament

During the plenary sessions of the European Parliament, on the February 3rd to 6th, 2014, a group of Wikipedians performed a photography and editing project in Strasbourg. About 50 users from nine different countries participated to take pictures of the 764 members of the European Parliament. Students from a make up school did professionally the make up of the politicians and experienced photographers took pictures of them. About half of all politicians got their picture taken and all these pictures have been added to the articles about them.

Project page on Commons: Wikipedians in European Parliament

  • Martin Schulz
    Martin Schulz



Claim open culture, again and again

Coding Da Vinci The German Hackathon on Open Culture Data

Save the Date: 26th & 27th of April in Berlin
The preliminary works on the scheduled hackathon on open culture data in Berlin are done. In March we will launch the website codingdavinci.de. The multiples datasets will be released on occasion of the hackathon under free license. So far these institutions are contributing with a selection of their data :

The Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek will provide their API, and the Wikipedia API & Wikidata API will be ready for use. The GLAM institutions will be on the spot and present their data selection and show it in its context. Their will be all kind of data: images, film, lists of monuments, of people and metadata. Quite a mix! The aim is to spur the coding of apps, games and other applications based on open culture data, such as Jüdische Orte or Valiant hearts. We will support coders, designers and hackers that like to join the event in Berlin with travel grants. Please be aware that the general language of the event will be German. Registration starts on the homepage codingdavinci.de 12th of march.

The Hackathon starts on 26th of April with a two day event in Berlin and runs until the 5th of July. The long coding time will give participants a fair chance to develop hopefully real good stuff. Front end designers are welcomed too. The results will be presented to a jury who will elect the winners among the teams. Prizes are both money and grants.

Open up!

Open up! - Den Zugang öffnen (German with subtitles)

These days we have finalized an Imagefilm (corporate video) for GLAM institutions to motivate them to open up their digital collection for reuse. The film was shot at the GLAM conference "shaping access" in Berlin last November and is in all parts under free license. For those who like to reuse the film in their fields we provide a subtitle version in English.


National Museum, New Delhi, India (January 2-5, 2014)

The National Museum, New Delhi

A late 18th century Jain board game meant to teach moral values, a predecessor of the modern game of Snakes and Ladders

The National Museum at New Delhi is one of the largest museums in India and despite some spectacular holdings, the number of local residents who have visited the museum remains small. The museum management has in recent times made some great advances through the introduction of volunteer guides to help visitors interpret the artefacts. When Wikimedia's Indian Chapter representative Sowmyan Thirumurti visited the Director General Dr Venu Vasudevan, the idea of a GLAM-Wiki workshop did not require selling. A talk by Andrew Gray on 23 December 2013 preceded the actual workshop.

The Workshop

At four days, this must be the shortest ever GLAM event but even this entailed considerable organization and discussion on infrastructure, travel, stay, deciding the volunteers, topic coverage and schedule.

The workshop participants were first introduced to editing on their own user pages. Understanding key policies, referencing and other aspects took the greater part of the first two days. On day three and day four, some artefacts were chosen for research, photography and article creation. This however was fraught with troubles of notability and choice of title but the decision was taken to be bold. Some new articles were created and a small set of QR codes were printed and placed near selected artefacts. The library of the museum was an especially important and critical resource and it was quite clear that finding published content, research and referencing was critical, one that could take considerable time, well beyond the workshop.

The participants continue(d) to work on these articles and were (and still are) supported after the workshop through interaction via a Google Community. An informal follow up meet was organized by Rohini Lakshane on January 31, 2014.

One of the best outcomes from the workshop was the article chauper Gyan chauper - a Jain version and precursor of the modern board game of "Snakes and Ladders". More on the workshop at [1].
One article on a popular exhibit which has defied an encylopaedic naming scheme has already gone through an AfD. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivory_carved_tusk_depicting_Buddha_life_stories

Art and Feminism; Wikipedian in Residence; War memorials

Art and Feminism edit-a-thon in Amsterdam, 1 February

Art+Feminism meetup at De Appel, Amsterdam, 1 February 2014

On 1 February 2014, WMNL volunteers Jane023, Ciell and Spinster organized a Dutch version of the massive international Art+Feminism edit-a-thon that was held worldwide on the same day. The Amsterdam event was kindly hosted at De Appel arts centre, a contemporary art venue with a great track record of female directors and balanced representation of women artists.

The event was mostly an extensive Wikipedia tutorial for a dedicated group of relatively new users. Jane023 presented her research on representation of female artists on Wikipedia and in various large art encyclopaedias and websites. The gathering was mentioned in Dutch art blogs and press: Kunstbeeld and Trendbeheer. A thorough and balanced article on Wikipedia and women artists appeared in Dutch national newspaper Volkskrant (4 February 2014).

About 20 articles were created in the first week of February: notable woman artist biographies and a notable exhibition on women in art. Examples include nl:Christina Houbraken, nl:L.A. Raeven, nl:De Vrouw 1813-1913. Afterwards, several volunteers continued working on the to-do list.

This event might end up being an unofficial kick-off for a larger Dutch gender gap project. Several staff from nl:Atria, kennisinstituut voor emancipatie en vrouwengeschiedenis (the major Dutch archive / knowledge center for women issues) attended the edit-a-thon; they currently also host a Wikipedian in Residence and intend to develop more activities that involve Wikipedia. Follow-up meetings are in preparation.

Check the Amsterdam Meet Up page on the Dutch Wikipedia.

Expedition WiR project has kicked off

Eberhard Isbrand Ides: Dreyjaehrige Reise nach China - Title page

One of the Dutch Wikipedian in Residence projects in 2014 is titled Expedition Wikipedia. In this project, Wikipedian in Residence Sandra Fauconnier assists Dutch university collections and libraries in making a selection of their expedition collections available via Wikimedia projects.

In January and February, Sandra has visited all participating institutions and made an inventory of the expedition-related collections held by them. A report (in Dutch) about this first phase is now available.

In the upcoming months, Sandra starts working with a selection of institutions on actual media donations and other collaboration projects with Wikimedians. First steps include:

  • Image donations related to the Siboga Expedition, which is well-documented in various Dutch academic collections (University of Amsterdam, Tropenmuseum)
  • Media related to the research travels of Felix Vening Meinesz (TU Delft, Utrecht University)
  • An educational trajectory at Maastricht University, in which students will analyze important historical travel reports and contribute some of their acquired knowledge to Wikipedia. A project page in English - with reading list - is available.

War memorials

Preparations have started to organize in April a raffle about war memorials in the Netherlands together with the National Committee 4 and 5 May. Just as with Wiki Loves Monuments, participants can take pictures of these monuments, upload them to Commons and add them to the lists of these war memorials in the Dutch Wikipedia.

Page in Dutch about the project: nl:Wikipedia:GLAM/Oorlogsmonumenten Nederland


Women on Wikipedia

Norwegian minister of culture, Mrs Torild Widvey, writes on Wikipedia


The Norwegian minister of culture, Mrs Torild Widvey, edited her first Wikipedia article on March 6th. No coincident, just 2 days before the International Women´s Day. This launched our female editor relay in 2014, commemorating the 1814 Constitution anniversary. The minister of culture has already challenged the next woman, Director general of the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise (NHO), Kristin Skogen Lund to write an article on Wikipedia. All contributors will write about a topic they find important related to the 1814 Constitution anniversary celebrated throughout 2014 in Norway. Our goal with this female editor relay is to motivate all women to contribute to Wikipedia with their knowledge.

  • Minister of culture, Mrs Torild Widvey, editing and launching her first Wikipedia article, together with Lars Jynge Alvik (Profoss)
    Minister of culture, Mrs Torild Widvey, editing and launching her first Wikipedia article, together with Lars Jynge Alvik (Profoss)


Monthly Glam edit-a-thons

In 2014 there will be monthly GLAM edit-a-thons held in collaboration with different museums, archives, cinemas and libraries. The first one was at the Norsk Folkemuseum in February and in March we will visit Preus Museum. The edit-a-thons will be organized in a way that both people who are new to Wikipedia and people with lots of experience can contribute.

  • We started the edit-a-thon with a guided tour in one of the current exhibitions at Norsk Folkemuseum
    We started the edit-a-thon with a guided tour in one of the current exhibitions at Norsk Folkemuseum

Local portal and CC toolkits

Local heritage portal

The Local museum of Västmanland are building a local heritage portal along with other GLAMs in the region. During a seminar February 19 several presentations were given on topics including usability and local history. Among others Axel talked about how to interact with Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons, community, statistics and free licenses. Several participants were interest in batch uploading and there will be a course later on for GLAMs who wants to make content available. After a discussion with the creator of Kulturarv Västernorrland, a similar portal but for a different region, where they use CC BY-SA as their default upload license but offer no way to find material based on license, they will implement a search option based on licenses to allow for material to be found and re-used outside of that specific portal.

#CCtoolkits

Orders were to bring food from your country.

Creative Commons are building a set of toolkits to enable easier use among organizations and others interested in OpenGLAM and free licenses. During a two day booksprint in Krakow, hosted by CC Polska and organized by Alek Tarkowski and Dorota Kawecka participants from Poland, Netherlands and Sweden got together to work on this. Among discussions and eating we produced a presentation, a FAQ, several case studies and other documents describing the benefits of working with open licenses. The documentation will be presented at the CC Toolkits page in April along with the other sections (Education, Government, Creative industries and Science) while Basics of CC is already done.

Blog posts from Joris at Europeana, Lisette at Kennisland, Aleks at CC Poland and Axel at Wikimedia Sweden.

Projekt Hedemora

Last summer a WikiProject at sv.Wikipedia called "Projekt Hedemora" was launched, with the goal to engage the local community (as well as interested global participants) in writing Wikipedia articles and add photos to Commons from the town Hedemora and its municipality. The use of QRpedia would add value to existing information for tourists and inhabitants – for a start supplementing the 35 signs in "Kulturpromenad Hedemora". The aim is to engage Internationella Föreningen ([Hedemora] "International Association") and/or the Swedish for immigrants education (SFI) to add more languages. The idea was presented at a local exhibition September 7, 2013, and was well recieved by municipality officials.

Photo of Teaterladan by User:Xauxa, who also did the translation to Spanish.

The WikiProject was inactive for a while, but was given a boost in February 2014. Hedemora Municipality board then announced that a pilot study of strengthening the cultural points of interest in the municipality would be carried out. The initiator of Projekt Hedemora, User:Vivo was given an appointment with the municipal commissioner. As a strong example to display for the commisioner, Teaterladan was chosen, one of Hedemora's most famous landmarks and part of Kulturpromenad Hedemora. Translation requests was posted on Twitter and Facebook, as well on Village Pump at svwp. The experiment was a success. Between February 21 and March 2 the article went from three language versions to eleven. The meeting went well and the municipal commissioner supports a QRpedia supplement to Kulturpromenad Hedemora. An additional meeting with more representatives will take place in a near future. The meeting will hopefully figure out more links between Projekt Hedemora and the cultural points of interest strenghtening, as well as more practical details of the QRpedia project.

IdeK and Tillgång

IdeK (an association about Innovation, Ideas, Design, Communikation and Cultural Heritage) that has a good standing in the Swedish cultural heritage community, blogged about why and how cultural heritage institutions should be on Wikipedia.

Tillgång (a double meaning: Access and Asset) is a fairly new blog, started by Lennart Guldbrandsson and Stefan Högberg, and writing about cultural heritage and digitization and copyright. During February, Tillgång published four blog posts: two about the difference in Swedish copyright law between photographic works of art and photographic images (1 and 2, with the third part published in March), one about the problems with the Wellcome photos, and one collection of news stories from around the world of digitization.


Wikimedia UK

Wikimania London 2014

We have ten submissions in the GLAM track for Wikimania and more are expected by the deadline of the 31st March 2014. click here to submit a proposal for a talk

WIRs

Our WIR at the back of a Royal Society editathon in 2013

We currently have Wikipedians in Residence in York, Scotland and at the Royal Society

Editathons

On the 1st of February we held Art and Feminism editathons in both London and Dundee

Fæ lead a WMUK:Cornwall GLAMs workshop at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall in Falmouth, which was attended by a number of museums in Cornwall.

Martin Poulter ran a WMUK:Wellcome Library editathon on the 26th February.

Preparations are advancing for Wikimania with a London Libraries page listing specialist libraries in London that Wikimanians can visit.

Image Releases

Lidded box by Jane Hamlyn, image courtesy of York Museums Trust

As a result of the York Museums Trust WIR the W.A. Ismay Studio Ceramic Collection was loaded to Commons. Discussions continue with various partners for the first mass uploads with the new mass upload tool


Open Access at Wikimania; Signalling OA-ness

Reusability - including on Wikimedia platforms - is a key aspect of Open Access

Wikimania

For this year's Wikimania, a panel on Wikimedia and Open Access has been proposed within the Open Scholarship track, and several proposals on that theme are in the making. The call for submissions is open until March 31.

Signalling OA-ness

The Signalling OA-ness project - which aims to mark scholarly references cited on Wikipedia as to how open they actually are - has focused on drafting and refining specifications for the planned workflows, as detailed on GitHub.

Open Access Media Importer

The following represents a selection of the ca. 270 files that have been uploaded by the Open Access Media Importer this month, bringing the total to over 15,500. If you can think of wiki pages where these files could be useful, please put them in there or let us know.

Open Access File of the Day

The following files have been featured as Open Access File of the Day this month:


March's GLAM events

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Workshop in Yerevan Matenadaran
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GLAM tour to Yerevan Mesrop Mashtots Institute of Ancient Manuscripts
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