GLAM/Newsletter/March 2022/Contents/Australia report

This Month in GLAM – Volume XII, Issue III, March 2022

Australia report

Australia grows gender equity for International Women's Day

Gender disparity across Wikimedia platforms is well-documented, from the gendered imbalance of editing participants to the under-representation of articles on women, non-binary and trans folk.

Contributors around Australia addressed these gaps over International Women's Day with edit-a-thons at libraries and galleries in Melbourne, Brisbane and online.

Art+Feminism Edit-a-thon in Melbourne

As in previous years a group of dedicated editors met in Melbourne, Australia to celebrate International Women's Day by writing Australian women artists into Wikipedia. We achieved some of our best results to date.

Hosted again this year by the Richmond branch of Yarra Libraries on Saturday 12 March, the Women's Art Register partnered with Wikimedia Australia who provided plenty of training and support on the day to enable us to make some excellent progress.

Our group of 16 editors on the day generated outstanding results resulting in new articles on artists including Lesley Hall, Judith Wright (visual artist), Yvonne Boyd, Jeannie Pwerle, Claire Lambe, Heather B. Swann, Diena Georgetti and the Women's Domestic Needlework Group, as well as updates to a number of other articles and Wikidata. Editors drew from the artist files and library of the Women's Art Register for sources.

Happy editors
Hard at work
Art+Feminism 2022

Women in Religion

Australia's ever-prolific Women in Religion group based out of the University of Divinity in Melbourne ramped up efforts to mark International Women's Day with a Wiki-Week Editing Extravaganza. Across two online sessions, participants created new Wikipedia pages focusing on women in religion particularly those associated with the Movement for the Ordination of Women and the Women-Church journal.

The Australian Women in Religion Project effort is led by Kerrie Burn, who with her team is tirelessly collecting, sorting and uploading data, as well as editing and creating articles about Australian women. This is also the Australian contribution to the wider 1000 Women in Religion Project which aims to raise up the unrecognised work of important women in religion and to help address the gender bias on platforms like Wikipedia.

Follow the project's progress here.

Art+Feminism in Brisbane

Despite delays due to extensive flooding in southern Queensland, an Art+Feminism edit-a-thon finally went ahead at the Queensland Art Gallery on Sunday 6 March.

Angela Goddard, Dr Louise R Mayhew and Dr Kirsty Volz hosted a communal updating of Wikipedia entries on women, non-binary and trans folk in art and architecture.

New pages included Australian artists Deborah Kelly and Palawa artist Mandy Quadrio.

Read more and see the full results here.

New GLAMR Training program launched

Wikimedia Australia has collaborated with New Zealand Wikimedian Mike Dickison (User:Giantflightlessbirds) to develop a special four-part training program for GLAMR organisations in our region to explore opportunities for how Wikimedia platforms and projects can extend their collections and engagement.

Training developer Mike Dickison says the modules explore the philosophy of the movement as well as practical exercises to start participants on their editing journeys. "I wanted to create a session that was short, worked over Zoom, had clear learning goals, and made participants do at least one short activity so they stayed actively engaged," he said.

This training was designed to be run by a Wikimedia Australia team of facilitators, but can be presented in a self-guided manner by any organisation using the downloadable resources. Slides and notes are provided for each module, and each is designed to be presented over one hour.