GLAM/Newsletter/June 2018/Contents/New Zealand report
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A New Zealand Wikipedian at Large
In the first Project Grant awarded to New Zealand, Giantflightlessbirds will be a Wikipedian at Large from July 2018 to June 2019, travelling the country working with GLAM institutions and research organisations to improve their engagement of Wikimedia. Aotearoa New Zealand is an emerging community, with a well-educated population and good internet infrastructure, but it has lagged behind in its participation in Wikimedia, and there is no organised support network for new editors.
Dr Mike Dickison / Giantflightlessbirds was previously Curator of Natural History at Whanganui Regional Museum. He has been an enthusiastic advocate for Wikipedia in the New Zealand GLAM sector for some years, and has coordinated Wikipedia support for the Critter of the Week project, a collaboration between the Department of Conservation and Radio New Zealand. He will be based in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin, and Nelson over the course of the year.
The Wikipedian at Large project page will be updated with institutions, tasks completed, public events, and media coverage. This month, Giantflightlessbirds is Wikipedian in Residence at Auckland Museum, which is the only New Zealand institution to previously host a Wikipedian. His projects include:
- Working with the Pacific Island collections team to populate articles with photos and audio/video
- Recording place name pronunciations by fluent speakers of Te Reo Māori to replace the incorrect ones currently used on New Zealand articles
- Tidying up categorisation and linking of the recent mass-upload of Auckland Museum images in Commons
- Running a Commons Wikiblitz to add the newly-photographed land vertebrate collection to Wikipedia
- Identifying an Auckland Museum database suitable for Wikidata Mix'n'Match
Media coverage
- Hancock, Farah. (16 Feb 2018). "New Zealand's own Wikipedian-at-large". Newsroom. (Interview about the project grant.)
- Wilson, Zaryd. (22 May 2018). "Mike Dickison gets grant to become travelling Wikipedian". Wanganui Chronicle, p.5
- Ryan, Kathryn (25 May 2018). "New Zealand's New Wikipedian-at-Large" (audio). RNZ Nine to Noon. (Radio interview.)
- From the team
- Armenia report
- Australia report
- Brazil report
- France report
- Germany report
- Indonesia report
- Italy report
- Macedonia report
- Netherlands report
- New Zealand report
- Russia report
- Serbia report
- Sweden report
- UK report
- USA report
- Wikidata report
- Wikimania report
- Wikimedia and Libraries User Group report
- WMF GLAM report
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