GLAM/Newsletter/February 2016/Contents/Austria report
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GLAM activities for libraries and archives in the DACH region
OpenGLAM @ Digital Libraries Conference in Graz
Beat Estermann and Sylvia Petrovic-Majer from the Knowledge Foundation's OpenGLAM working group and Wikimedia Österreich's Executive Director Claudia Garád joined forces to host a GLAM workshop in the context of this year's "Vernetzte Welten" conference on digital libraries in Graz, Austria. The event is an annual gathering of digitalization experts from the DACH region (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) and organized by the University of Graz in cooperation with Europeana Local Austria. The 3-hour workshop consisted of two parts: During the first part, participants were provided with an overview of OpenGLAM and GLAM-Wiki activities in general, with concrete examples from Switzerland and Austria – covering many forms of activities, ranging from mass uploads, over Wikipedians in Residence, to Hackathons, and Edit-a-thons. The second part consisted in an interactive session designed to foster the exchange among the approximately 20 participants about the opportunities and challenges of Open GLAM activities in their institutions and to discuss the next steps that could be taken in common. The workshop was not only a great networking opportunity but also provided fresh impetus for GLAM activities in Austria and the DACH region.
On the second conference day, Florian Steffen from the Swiss National Library talked about his institution's experiences with GLAM-Wiki cooperation. By giving an account of their rich interactions with the Wiki-Communities, the Swiss National Library could serve as another source of inspiration for similar cooperation projects in Austria.
In the course of the conference we also discussed possibilities of hosting an international OpenGLAM get-together in the context of one of next year’s GLAM conferences in Graz.
