GLAM/Newsletter/March 2020/Contents/Special story
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COVID-19
While not a purely GLAM issue, many GLAMs have, of course been affected by the ongoing COVID-19 situation. Most GLAM-wiki events have been cancelled, or forced to move online.
We thought you'd be interested to see how the wider Wikimedia movement has been responding.
Pages edited
The Wikimedia Foundation research team have compiled a list of pages created or edited in connection with the pandemic (note: page is about half a megabyte!), in any language; it includes everything from major new articles on the topic to mentions in articles about notable survivors, such as Tom Hanks, and is updated automatically and regularly. Hopefully the tools for doing this will be available for deployment in other scenarios - albeit less dramatic!
With a GLAM focus, the English Wikipedia also has an article dedicated to the impact of the pandemic on the arts and cultural heritage sectors, featuring discussions of closures, impacts upon budgets and staffing, financial assistance, innovative digital responses, and new cultural works being created as a result. It is already nearing 200 footnotes-long, but we intend expand it further, to ensure proper coverage both geographically and by sector - and of course you can help.
Meta
As the name implies, Meta Wiki is where the community documents and discusses Wikimedia-side issues. And of course there is a page on meta about our COVID-19 content.
Wikiprojects
Wikimedia projects are always collaborative, but WikiProjects give focus to that collaboration, and a venue where discussions can take place. For example, on:
Wikidata
Wikidata also has a large volume of relevant data on COVID-19. Wikidata Queries around the SARS-CoV-2 virus and pandemic is a free eBook to facilitate their use.
Press coverage
The movement's work in this area has come to the attention of the press. For example:
- How Wikipedia Prevents the Spread of Coronavirus Misinformation (Wired)
- Like Zika, The Public Is Heading To Wikipedia During The COVID-19 Coronavirus Pandemic (Forbes)
The future
If you're staying at home, don't forget there are many things you can do to improve Wikimedia projects - write or edit an article, fix some errors, find some citations, transcribe some text on Wikisource, or upload that backlog of photos you've been ignoring to Wikimedia Commons.
We wish you good health,
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