GLAM/Newsletter/July 2013/Contents/Wiki Loves Monuments report

This Month in GLAM – Volume III, Issue VII, July 2013

Wiki Loves Monuments report

Wiki Loves Monuments is coming

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In 2010 started Wiki Loves Monuments in the Netherlands as photo contest, as successor to Wiki Loves Art in the Netherlands, with the goal to let people participate in making our cultural heritage visible for the public. This was a success and a year later we did it again in 18 European countries at the same time. In 2012 we went global with the contest held in 35 countries.

The 2011 edition was 168,208 entries and more than 5000 people participating, recognized as the largest photography competition in the world by the Guinness World Records. The international team is working on the recognition for the 2012 edition.

In the mean while the preparations are ongoing. Many parts of the contest are getting refreshed, like the websites, new source code for the upload campaigns and new monument lists are created. This year we will cover 10 to 25 more countries and 15 more languages.

Wikipedia has as goal to collect the knowledge of mankind, but also due language difficulties it is hard to collect all the knowledge from countries with much people who do not know a lingua franca language. Smaller languages have it more difficult in projects like Wiki Loves Monuments, but also with other outreach projects. The worldwide Wikimedia movement should reach out to the smaller languages in our world, both to the users active there as to GLAM institutions. In this way we are better able to document the heritage of the whole world. Every country, language and culture has a history with monuments, buildings and objects that tell something about their origin, history and who they are. It tells is where we came from.

Let's picture that!