GLAM/Newsletter/March 2023/Single
WikiGap Tirana 2023, Albania
On International Women's Day, March 8, women of different ages came together to celebrate the achievements of Albanian and Swedish Women in STEM.
For the sixth year in a row and with the support of the Swedish Embassy in Tirana, Albania, WoALUG organized the WikiGap event at the Swedish Embassy.
This year our community decided to contribute to improving and translating articles about Women in STEM from Albania and Sweden.
At this event, we invited 2 guest speakers: Teuta Toska, an Albanian Linguist, and Ermelinda Mahmutaj, a botanist and well-known environmental activist. Both of them talked about why girls should choose an education in STEM fields, Albanian scientist women that had inspired them, and what it meant for them to be women in STEM in Albania.
At WikiGap, the participants learned how to present information about Women in STEM’s work on Wikipedia.
In the meantime, the participants are writing articles on their own, and we will have a follow-up meeting at the ambassador’s residence to watch a movie about women. This moment will reflect on improving more articles about women and to close gender gap on Wikipedia.
Social media
- We have a public Telegram channel (language used mostly Albanian) if you want to join and discuss Wikimedia projects.
If you want to see more about our activities, you canː
- Like our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter or Instagram
Starting the year at WMAR
Dissemination of open culture
This month, Angie Cervellera (WMAR's culture and open knowledge program manager) was invited to talk about open access and culture in an international event organized by the "Red de Museos y Estrategias Digitales - REMED". Other three people from museums and open glam (Spain and Mexico) joined the debate around the use of diverse technologies for visibilizing women's participation in arts, culture and history.
On the other hand, we were invited to participate on a series of workshops with last year's school students in relation to the Huellas de la Escuela program, from Buenos Aires City government. With this long-term alliance we showed how Wikimedia project can be useful for writing local history and empowering young people in the role of making more accessible the culture.
Archivos en Vigilia, 3rd edition
As every March since pandemics, we developed Archivos en Vigilia, an initiative aimed for cultural and educational institutions to open human rights related archives, specially related to our dictatorship process. This year Argentina is commemorating 40 years of uninterrupted democracy. As a result, more than 40 archives were added to the Archivos en Vigilia activity category on Commons and are accessible to the whole world.
New uploads in Commons
As a product of the Digitization project of Wikimedia Argentina, a total of 30 documents with 343 single pages inside were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. The Nicolas Levalle fond is preserved by the Museo Regional de Adolfo Alsina (Buenos Aires Province), who are working with us since last year.
Know My Name edit-a-thon at the National Gallery of Australia
Know My Name
Know My Name is an annual edit-a-thon event run during International Women's Week with Wikimedia Australia and the National Gallery of Australia (NGA) to improve representation of Australian women artists on Wikipedia.
Beginning in 2020 as part of the NGA's Know My Name art exhibition, the edit-a-thon's have created 119 new Wikipedia articles, and 200 editors have added 210,000 words and over 2,000 references.
This year, we focused on improving existing Wikipedia articles. Twelve editors worked from a list prepared beforehand, and following an introductory session on the Wikimedia Movement and how to edit Wikipedia, then they dove in and began adding content.
Archivists from the NGA Research Library prepared artist files from their collections, making referencing incredibly easy. These files contained press clippings, exhibition listings, and flyers relating to the artists, and our volunteers were able to use these alongside other online resources.
In 2020, the NGA published a book for their Know My Name art exhibition featuring images and information on many of Australia's women artists and creators. Ahead of the edit-a-thon, Wikimedia Australia gave a presentation to the gallery staff on the importance of publications like this for helping fill notability criteria on Wikipedia.
During the edit-a-thon, a reporter from ABC Radio Canberra stopped by and interviewed several participants about why they edited Wikipedia, and the importance of increasing the number of articles about Australian women on Wikipedia, and their quality.
We look forward to heading back to Canberra next year to host another Know My Name edit-a-thon during International Women's Week 2024. Both Wikimedia Australia and the National Gallery of Australia are keen to find additional ways to continue to engage with our community and further improve the representation of Australian women artists and creators on Wikipedia. We hope to announce more later this year.
Further reading
- Our blog post detailing the Know My Name 2023 event
- Know My Name Wiki Project page
- Dashboard stats for 2023 Know My Name event
- Wikimedia Commons Gallery for 2023 Know My Name event
- The edit-a-thon highlighting the work of women artists, ABC Radio Canberra interview
- Writing wrongs: Giving women artists their rightful place in history, Our article about Know My Name in 2021
- National Gallery of Australia Know My Name page
Wiki Loves Pará, Women's month and a huge upload for biologists
Wiki Loves Pará is an initiative organized by Wiki Movimento Brasil (WMB), with support from the Wikimedia Foundation. It aims to highlight Pará's cultural, historical, and natural heritage on Wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia in Portuguese. In 2023, Wiki Movimento Brasil (WMB) will mobilize volunteer editors, institutional partners and Pará communities to improve coverage of Pará on the free internet!
Although the state of Pará is two times larger than France in terms of territorial extension and is all covered by the Amazon Forest and all its richness, it is still a desert of information on Wikimedia projects. This means that there is not enough content about Pará in Wikipedia in Portuguese, the sixth most accessed site in Brazil. The little emphasis on social and environmental issues of Pará in the Wikimedia projects affects the relevance of the state in the free knowledge ecosystem:
- 66% of the 144 municipalities in Pará have less than ten photos in Wikimedia Commons.
- 4 cities (Afuá, Belém, Marabá, and Terra Alta) represent 77% of the images of the state on Wikimedia Commons.
- There are 39 federal areas of environmental preservation in Pará. 23 (58%) of them have no images on Wikimedia Commons and 18 (46%) have no articles on Wikipedia.
- Only 38 Wikipedia entries are dedicated to ethnic groups and peoples of Pará, and 81% of them have less than 10 thousand characters.
- 247 GLAM institutions from Pará have items on Wikidata. None of them have digitized collections available on Wikimedia platforms.
All along 2023, WMB will carry out a series of activities to include the environmental, cultural and social diversity of Pará in the Wikimedia projects, which go far beyond Wikipedia.
NEW GLAM PARTNERSHIP
This is the first GLAM-Wiki partnership between Wiki Movimento Brasil (WMB) and an institution that is part of Instituto Brasileiro de Museus (IBRAM).
Museu da Abolição (MAB) is a federal public museum whose mission includes to preserve and disseminate the memory and the cultural heritage of African descendants. It also aim to stimulate reflection and critical thinking about the enslavery abolition in Brazil and other transversal themes related to human rights, such as: access to work, public inclusion policies, religious intolerance, racism, prejudice, exclusion, gender etc.
See the GLAM-Wiki partnership's page here.
This partnership is an action related to two axes of WMB's strategic planning to be implemented between 2023 and 2025:
Foster and diversify partnerships for open knowledge in Brazil Expand the list of collaborations within cultural and educational institutions, activist groupss, government entities and open knowledge organizations, spread throughout the different regions of Brazil. | |
Promote knowledge equity Articulate individuals and groups to act on knowledge gaps or on the systemic bias in the content of Wikimedia projects. |
BBC 100 WOMEN EDIT-A-THON
Since January, our community is working on enlarging and improving information about women on the Wikipedia in Portuguese, focusing on the BBC 100 Women list. Now you can see the results on the gender bias on Wikipedia:
- 377 Articles created
- 413 Articles edited
- 1.07K Total editions
- 18 Editors
- 3.77M Bytes added
- 28.5K Articles' views
This huge work includes turning the 2022 and 2020 lists all blue!
And we want to thank the groups that supported this amazing action: WikiMulheres+, Wiki Editoras Lx e Art+Feminism.
EVERY BOOK ITS PUBLIC CAMPAIGN
And one new campaign begins!!!
Every Book Its Reader (#EveryBookItsReader) is a campaign to increase quality content about books, literary works, and oral stories in Wikipedia, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, Wikibooks, and Wikisource.
From April 1st to April 30th 2023, Every Book Its Reader encourages participants to contribute with content under the hashtag #EveryBookItsReader.
The campaign name is the third law in Ranganathan’s five laws of library science.
This is an international event organized by ten librarians from seven countries:
- Botswana, in Southern Africa - organized by the University of Botswana
- Brazil, in South America - organized by the University of São Paulo
- Canada, in North America - organized by the Québécois and Canadian Francophonie
- México, in North America - organized by Alequihdez and the University of Guadalajara
- Romania, in Europe - organized by delia2 and Elena Ancu Damian
- Spain, in Europe - organized by the University of Barcelona
- United States, in North America - organized by the Oregon State University
In Brazil, the campaign is organized by Lilian Viana (Library of ECA/USP) and Stela Madruga (Library of IME/USP), and the five greater contributors will win a small gift.
You can learn more about the entire campaign or see the Brazilian page of the event.
APESP'S BIRTHDAY
On March 10, the Public Archives of the State of São Paulo (APESP) celebrated 131 years of its officialization. As part of this celebration, between mid-February and early March, some APESP collections were added to Wikimedia Commons as part of the actions related to the GLAM-Wiki partnership between APESP and Wiki Movimento Brasil.
The uploaded batch was composed by more than 400 documents and photos of great importance to the history of the State, including parts of these collections:
- Escola Normal de São Paulo photo collection
- Altino Arantes
- Railroad Companies collection
- Reichert Brothers’ Factory
- Guilherme Gaensly
- Brazilian Historical and Geographical Institute
- A Redempção Newsletter
- Correio da Semana Newsletter
- Correio Paulistano Newsletter
- O Farol Paulistano Newsletter
- O Tebyreçá Newsletter
- Palácio dos Bandeirantes
- Water and Sewage Division of the City of São Paulo
- A Cigarra Magazine
- A Platea Magazine
- Arara Magazine
- O Beija-Flor Magazine
- Secretaria de Governo
- Secretary of Social Promotion - Immigration
- Views of São Paulo
MUSICA BRASILIS FOR WOMEN'S MONTH: FORGOTTEN COMPOSERS
Ernestina Índia do Brazil
composer and pianist of whom very little is known. She was born in the city of Rio de Janeiro in the late 19th century, and throughout her life adopted the surname Guimarães. She was a contemporary of another great national composer and musician: Chiquinha Gonzaga. Ernestina composed waltzes, polkas, and quadrilles.
See her category on Commons here.
Amanda Tenreiro Aranha
was born in the state of Amazonas and died in the state of Pará, and used an alias to publish his compositions: E. Feuillet. She studied piano, singing and harp at the Carlos Gomes Institute in Belém, and had as masters Meneleu Campos, Virginia Sinay Bloch and Esmeralda Cervantes.
See her category on Commons here.
Cecília Ierecê de Lemos
was born in the state of Pará and was daughter of the Brazilian politician Antonio Lemos. From childhood, she was educated in the Fine Arts, having studied Piano and Violin and composed a collection of songs. Cecilia was even instructed by the Brazilian master Carlos Gomes, with whom she had lessons about harmony.
See her category on Commons here.
Júlia Cesaria Ribeiro Cordeiro
was born in the state of Pará and composed religious songs. Unfortunately, we could not find any further information about the composer.
See her category on Commons here.
INSTITUTO DE ESTUDOS BRASILEIROS FOR WOMEN'S MONTH: GREAT WOMEN
Dona Veridiana Prado
born in 1825, she was the matriarch of one of the famous São Paulo families and one of the great patrons of the modernist movement. It is said that she was the one who introduced the habit of the evenings in her mansion in Higienópolis, gathering artists and intellectuals. She was a great owner of land that was allotted during the industrialization process of the city of São Paulo (in the 20th century) and today comprises some entire São Paulo neighborhoods. Veridiana died in 1910.
See her category on Commons here.
Júlia Lopes de Almeida
was born in 1862, in the city of Rio de Janeiro. She was the daughter of doctor Valentim José da Silveira Lopes, later Viscount of Saint Valentine, and Adelina Pereira Lopes, both Portuguese who emigrated to Brazil. She was a writer, chronicler, theatrologist, and abolitionist, and was one of the founders of the Brazilian Academy of Letters. And all this at a time when literature was not seen as an activity suitable for women.
Julia died in 1934, in her hometown, from complications of yellow fever.
See her category on Commons here.
Käethe Köllwitz
German artist born in 1867 whose work in printmaking reflects her view of human conditions in Germany in the first half of the 20th century (the period around World War I). She depicts the working class, famine, war, and poverty in her works. Before she died in 1945, she still produced several pacifist posters.
See her category on Commons here.
A HUGE UPLOAD FOR BIOLOGISTS
Especially for people who love plants and for Biologists!
The Instituto Nacional da Mata Atlântica (INMA) made available its collection from the system Reflora and we uploaded 10,000 images that are part of the Museu de Biologia Mello Leitão (MBML) Herbarium collection.
INMA is our partner since last year, when we held the Wiki Loves Espírito Santo. And now we are harvesting the fruits (leaves, flowers, roots and all other plant parts) of this partnership.
See the INMA's GLAM page and the uploaded media.
From Ruhnu to Vääna a.k.a. Winterspring in WMEE
Photographic Success Stories
During the last two months our team has been collaborating with Viljandi Museum in order to add to Wikimedia Commons photo bank Estonian photographer Jaan Riet’s (1873-1952) photographs (mostly took in the first decade of the 20th century). As 70 years passed from his death last year, his extraordinarily large collection of wide variety of negatives, black and white group photos and portraits is since the beginning of this year under free CC license available everyone. We made sure at least some of the valuables make it to Wiki as well and so we received more than 30 high-quality photos from the Riet’s collection, preserved in Viljandi Museum’s photo collection. As a result, it’s now possible to check out the creation of one of the most productive Estonian photographer, which were previously absent from Commons all-together.
In addition to this, we had a very fruitful collaboration with Ruhnu Museum, which itself is the most isolated museum in Estonia being located in the middle of Gulf of Riga. Although Ruhnu has only 89 permanent residents (as of 2022), it has a colorful history as the ancestorial home of Ruhnu Swedes, who inhabited the island from the early 13th century until the end of Second World War. During this winter, we in WMEE had the privilege to get a glimpse of some of the Swedish culture still visible today in the museum. As a result we were able to bring under public domain wide range of women’s marriage caps and children’s hats designed to be worn during variety of different events. We also created a virtual exhibition based on the caps and hats so that people eager to find more about the subject could also fill their interest.
You’re welcomed to check out both of the collections by clicking on the following links:
- Jaan Riet’s photos of early 20th century Viljandi and its people
- About Ruhnu Swedish women’s marriage caps and children’s hats
Estonian Manor Houses in a New Light
In the begging of February our team came on an idea that fascinated us from the very start: collect photographs of variety of art examples in Estonia’s manor schools and turn them into a virtual and a real life exhibition in October this year! So far the idea has been a hit among different interest groups whom we are trying to include, for an example Association of Estonian Manor Schools. We have since tested the project on Vääna manor school (which operates today in former main building of the manor ensemble) where we took more than 40 photos of various interior decorations with artistic value (inc. ceiling paintings, more than 200 years old restaurated wooden tile floors etc). We continue with the enterprise by contacting more Estonian manor schools which are known to have many well-preserved artistic details!
If you’re interested in checking out our first photoshoot in Vääna manor and would like to take a glance to one of the most beautifully renovated Estonian manor house then click here.
Residency at the Brittany Museum
Residency at the Brittany Museum
How time flies! It's been already 6 months of residency at the Brittany Museum. Here some quick figures about what happened:
- around 300 people took part in an event, from a general introductive presentation (eg. what is Wikimedia? is Wikipedia reliable? is Wikipedia neutral? the best and worst articles on Wikipedia !) to more specific training (for #1lib1ref, Wikidata, Wikisource, Wiktionary, and so on)
- Almost 5000 edits on Wikimedia projects
- including 2000 edits on Wikidata
- 2000 on Wikisource
- 700+ on Commons
- Almost 900 items created on Wikidata about objects from the Museum (see https://w.wiki/6Xwz )
Javanese Wikisource Competition; 5 More Bincang GLAMs; GLAM Socialization to University of Sriwijaya
Javanese Wikisource Competition
From 6-20 of March, the Javanese Wikisource Competition managed to proofread 30 books and 3 manuscripts. A total of 2,768 (out of possible 3,912) pages were either proofread or validated by 32 participants in 14 days, with a total of 9,390 edits. Several of the participants have never edited Wikisource or any Wikimedia projects before and some of them managed to get to top 10 contributors.
A blog was written, titled Javanese Wikisource Competition in English, Indonesian, and Javanese (the first Diff blog in that language).
Full report: GLAM/Case studies/Javanese Wikisource Competition
5 More Bincang GLAMs
During February, we hosted 5 live sessions of "GLAM Talk", with the following topics: Featured Pictures, Quality Images, and Valued Images in Commons (2 March), GLAM Indonesia collections in Commons (9 March), How to be a good photographer in Commons (with a guest speaker, 16 March), Tools in Commons: VisualFileChange, CropTool, Cat-a-Lot (23 March), Uploading with Flickr-to-Commons and editing Structured Data with AC/DC (30 March).
To Palembang: GLAM Socialization and museum visitations
At March 13th, GLAM Indonesian held a socialization event of the GLAM Indonesia collections to the students of the University of Sriwijaya in Palembang, working together with the Unsri Wikiclub that was recently established. The event was attended by around 30 people, and in this program we presented many collections from various GLAM institutions in Indonesia and other countries.
Then the next day, we took some of the Wikiclub members to visit Museum Balaputra Dewa and Museum Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin II, to introduce them to the museums so that in the future, the Wikiclub members could hold events such as Wikitrainings, or edit-a-thons in the museums. GLAM Indonesia also talked to the museums about partnership and digitization projects.
GLAM Spring
Museums and libraries: 2023 funded projects
The winners of the Call for Proposals for Museums, Archives and Libraries 2023, promoted by Wikimedia Italy in collaboration with ICOM Italy and Creative Commons Italy to encourage the sharing and free reuse of images, data and content preserved by cultural institutions, have been choosen.
Six winning projects out of 34 proposals received, for a total of 44,000 euros made available by Wikimedia Italy to encourage the production of free knowledge. Here the winners:
- Parco archeologico di Sibari (The Archaeological Park): the Park of Sibari, under the Regional Directorate of Museums Calabria, will undertake to make reproductions of its collections available online. The images, uploaded to Wikimedia Commons and also catalogued on Wikidata, will be able to illustrate Wikipedia pages in different language editions, making the collection known worldwide and enriching the collaborative encyclopedia. In addition in collaboration with local associations, two exhibitions will be held (the first dedicated to the 10-year anniversary of the flooding of the area that also hosts the park's archaeological sites and the second will be dedicated to Wiki Loves Monuments Calabria, for which the museum will also be engaged in organizing in 2023).
- Biblioteche civiche torinesi (Turin civic libraries): they will work on the enhancement of this important part of the city's historical and artistic heritage on Wikipedia and Wikidata. In addition 16 publications related to fashion events, 21 Automobile Show catalogs, and 10 publications related to the history of the library will also be digitized on Wikisource.
- Biblioteca Lazzerini: their work will be dedicated to Prato and the documentation of the long history of the local textile industry. In addition to uploading to Wikimedia Commons the historical photographs of Prato's woolen mills between the 19th and 20th centuries, eleven Wikipedia entries will also be created: from one on the history of Prato's textile industry, to those dedicated to various historical figures who from the Middle Ages to the 20th century made the Prato area specialize in textiles.The project will also land on OpenStreetMap, which will be used to document the topographical history of Prato, integrating data from a 1918 map that attested to 134 textile mills that existed in the city, offering opportunities for study and comparison between past and present.
- Museo etrusco romano di Trevignano Romano: the museum will work on the theme of accessibility and citizen participation in the enhancement and sharing of cultural heritage. It will do so by also involving the superintendence for the metropolitan area of Rome, the province of Viterbo and southern Etruria and the National Etruscan Museum of Villa Giulia. The Wikimedia and OpenStreetMap projects will be enriched with materials and data from the collections. In addition to the production of 3D images, videos in Italian sign language will also be made and made available to present the museum collections to everyone.
- Museo civico insubrico di storia naturale: they will publish under a free license digital reproductions of 94 fossil specimens preserved in its collections and create or expand Wikipedia article of the sites from which the fossils come. The museum (in the province of Varese), is part of the Monte San Giorgio site, which straddles Italy and Switzerland and was recognized as a World Heritage Site in 2010. This area holds thousands of fossil specimens of inestimable scientific value, whose history is also presented at the museum in relation to the surrounding natural environment
- Sistema museale di Ugento: the Cultural Heritage Network of the municipality of Ugento aims to connect and attract visitors and scholars to discover places in the Apulian town that have long been closed to the public. To bring citizens and visitors closer to the local artistic heritage, they'll create a digital photo catalog of the museum's archaeological collection on Wikimedia Commons, with photos of the tomb of the Messapian athlete, craters, fibulae, and many other artifacts. They also planned tours around the city to take photos and editathon, on which people will be able to contribute not only in Italian, but also in other languages.
Working in progress with Touring Club Italiano (TCI) uploads
In March, the second major upload of files from the Touring Club was initiated; the images and maps that will be uploaded in this second installment will depict environmental disruptions in Italy. In particular are uploading:
Wikimedia Commons Category: Touring Club Italiano photos
Wikivoyage Edit-a-thon in Istog
WoALUG in collaboration with the Municipality of Istog, Kosovo, held an edit-a-thon on Wikivoyage about the city of Istog.
Participants contributing in the edit-a-thon were representatives from the Municipality of Istog, the Istog Museum, Podguri Alpine Club, as well as mountain tourist guides.
This will not be the last cooperation between the Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group as there will be more planned activities ahead.
WikiGAP in Prishtina
During March WoALUG had a very successful WikiGAP event in Prishtina. We held an online training session on March 6th prior to the event. During the session the participants were trained to edit, write and translate on Wikipedia.
The edit-a-thon was held on March 8th at the Embassy of Sweden in Pristina. Participants were gathered to promote gender equality and diversity in the Wikimedia movement. At the event the Ambassador of Sweden held an inspiring speech, which emphasized the importance of inclusive representation in knowledge sharing. Participating in the event were amazing women who contributed to Wikipedia Shqip and helped it get one step closer to closing the gender gap.
WoALUG keeps working towards creating a more equitable and inclusive world on Wikipedia!
Wikimedian in Residence
The Faculty of Arts of the University of Pristina, Kosovo, had its first Wikimedian in Residence placed by the Wikimedians of Albanian User Group. The Wikimedian in Residence (WIR) worked on creating, translating and editing crucial articles about art in SQ Wikipedia and developing long-term relationships between the institution and the Wikimedia community.
During the time of residency he helped facilitate an information session with the 3rd year students from the Art Management course of Faculty of Arts - University of Prishtina. The outcome of the information session was a very successful Wikipedia edit-a-thon, where students worked on important articles about art that were not in the Albanian Language Wikipedia.
The statistics from this event are:
12 Articles created 12 Articles edited
This edit-a-thon is one of many that will be organized in partnership with the Faculty of Arts - University of Prishtina because of the developed relationship thanks to our WIR.
Social media
- Public Telegram channel (language used mostly Albanian) if you want to join and discuss Wikimedia projects.
If you want to see more about our activities, you canː
- Like our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter or Instagram.
Auckland War Memorial Museum Local Suburb Project updates
Auckland War Memorial Museum updates
The Auckland local suburb project has been going full-speed, with six newly improved articles on central-west Auckland, including Mount Albert and St Lukes, and a new article for Te Atatū Peninsula. In addition to these, twelve locations within Auckland have new (or greatly expanded) pages, including many of the features of the South Auckland volcanic field. Features such as Pukekohe Hill and Pukekiwiriki, which are older less visible, compared to their more prominent counterparts in the Auckland volcanic field to the north.
To celebrate International Women's Day, the Auckland Museum GLAM Wiki project created our 50th article for Women in Red, profiling New Zealand psychologist and disability rights advocate Olive Webb.
GLAM meet-ups, Wikiresidencies and GLAM partners contributiong to editing contest
Meetings with GLAM sector
The month of March was full of meetings with GLAM institutions during which we had the opportunity to talk about how GLAM-Wiki projects work.
On our way to Krakow, we visited The Centre of Community Archives, which works to develop social archiving by sharing knowledge, inspiring, and supporting initiatives of the archivists from all over Poland. It was a very interesting meeting during which we learned more about the specifics of the social archiving movement and talked about GLAM-Wiki initiatives. We also discussed together what the chances and challenges are related to our potential cooperation.
In Krakow, we met with the team from the Museum of Photography in Krakow. It is the only institution in Poland dedicated entirely to the medium of photography. The museum's role is to disseminate knowledge about photography and improve cultural competence in its reception. The museum has its own collection of photographs and presents a permanent exhibition on the history of photography, as well as temporary exhibitions, in its modern building. In March, the Youth Council of the Museum was trained by Wikipedia volunteers in editing Wikipedia and joined in editing articles about Polish female photographers as part of the (Un)known Women of Wikipedia editing contest. We hope that this is the beginning of further GLAM-Wiki collaboration with the museum.
On the first day of spring, we visited the Rother's Mills in Bydgoszcz, a new self-government cultural institution opened in a restored historic building of mills. In the extraordinary industrial interiors of the Mills, we met with the Mills team to tell them how GLAM-Wiki projects help popularize local heritage. It was also an excellent opportunity to see the permanent exhibition entitled Knots. A story about a city by the rive, which tells the history of Bydgoszcz inseparably linked to the Brda, the Bydgoszcz Canal, and the Vistula, where one could feel the spirit of the city, where important events intertwine with stories of the daily lives of residents.
Wikiresidency in the National Museum in Krakow
In March, the second edition of the Wikiresidency at the National Museum in Krakow began. After a three-month residency last year, the Wikipedian in residence Filip will collaborate with the museum for another 10 months.
We can already reveal that the new wikiresidency program will be connected with the museum's and its branches' event calendar. We will continue training museum staff on editing Wikipedia so more articles on the museum's collection in Wikipedia could be developed. We also plan to upload more images of museum collection to Wikimedia Commons so they could be used as illustrations to Wikipedia articles.
Stay tuned for further details about the museum residency program on the GLAM-Wiki project website.
New wikiresidency in the General Zawacka Foundation in Torun
In March, we also signed a cooperation agreement with the General Zawacka Foundation in Toruń, where a Wikipedian in residency will be involved for the next three months.
The focus of the Wikipedian will be on developing biographies of women who fought during World War II for Wikipedia. Additionally, The Foundation will prepare photographs of museum exhibits to be uploaded onto Wikimedia Commons.
One of the first effects of this Wikiresidency is an article about the first Polish female general Maria Wittek, which is also available in English Wikipedia.
Check the GLAM-Wiki project website for updates on the effects of wikiresidency.
GLAM partners contributing to editing contest (Un)known women of Wikipedia
This year, we have also invited our GLAM partners to engage in the (Un)known Women of Wikipedia contest, aimed at developing female biographies on Wikipedia.
The National Museum in Krakow, the Museum of Photography in Krakow, the Association of Graphic Designers, and the Museum of Women's History proposed articles of female artists, graphic designers, photographers, creators to be written or developed, and offered prizes for the winners.
As result of the March contest, 227 articles about female scientists, sportspeople, travelers, explorers, artists, writers, actresses, and more were written or developed in Polish Wikipedia.
We would like to congratulate all the Wikipedia editors who participated in this initiative!
#3 Wikimedians-in-residence online meet up
In March, for the third time this year, we met online with the Wikimedians in Residence to discuss current topics related to GLAM-Wiki partnerships. This time, we focused heavily on exchanging experiences and best practices in the area of training for GLAM institutions.
The February training at the Wawel Royal Castle State Art Collection was held in a new, shortened format, with the main goal of enabling participants to start editing Wikipedia during the meeting. The change in approach is the result of a Wikitrainers meeting organized by Wikimedia Poland and, in the case of the GLAM-Wiki sector, was inspired by experiences from Wikimedia Denmark.
GLAM in March
Edit-a-thon about Literature
An edit-a-thon about literature was organized, which lasted from March 27 to April 2. A total of 4 editors participated and wrote 20 new articles on Serbian Wikipedia. During this edit-a-thon, some very interesting biographies of writers were written, as well as articles about books and literary genres.
#1Lib1Ref
In cooperation with Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia Serbia had meetings on how to improve and better understand the #1Lib1Ref global reference editing campaign.
Wikilive 2023
During March, Wikimedia Serbia actively worked on the preparation of the Wikilive 2023 conference. In the program of the conference, there were three sessions related to the GLAM program - Competitions on Wikipedia, a panel discussion with partners from cultural institutions, and a panel discussion with Wikipedians in residence.
Wiki librarians
An edit-a-thon called Old Trades was held within the Wiki Librarian project. A total of 11 editors participated in the edit-a-thon and wrote 58 new articles and improved 4 articles. Also the internship of the students of the Department of Librarianship and Informatics of the Faculty of Philology of the University of Belgrade was held on March 23 and 27, as well as an additional workshop on March 30, live at the University Library "Svetozar Marković" in Belgrade. Within this practice, 11 editors participated and wrote 11 new articles.
Photo memories from three industrial towns; Update from the archives; ArkDes edit-a-thons
Photo memories from three industrial towns
More updates from the project 100 000 Bildminnen, which we wrote about last month. Another batch of photos got uploaded in March, these time from Borås, Vårgårda and Trollhättan. These towns all have strong industry traditions, which the photos provide an insight in. For example Borås is well known for its textile industry, and in Vårgårda oats and other cereals are processed.
The planning for edit-a-thons in various parts of the country, to inform people about the project and encourage them to use the photos and improve their metadata, is underway. We're particularly looking forward to engaging people who have an interest or connection with the industries documented in the photos.
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Cars in Trollhättan...
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oats in Vårgårda...
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and fabrics in Borås!
Update from the archives
At the Swedish National Archives we continue holding our internal monthly editathons. Below a selection of what we uploaded in the last month or so. Our main focus is on maps but the occasional document, drawing or photograph is included!
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Letter issued by Sultan Ahmed III assigning Nicola Danal Spiro as dragoman to Thomas Funck.
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Swedish envoy Gustaf Oscar Wallenberg and Chinese viceroy Tuan Fang, and their respective entourages, sit down for a photo op.
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Page from a report leaked to the Soviets by Swedish spy Stig Wennerström.
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Crop of a larger hand-drawn map of western Ukraine. The map is believed to have been drawn in 1635.
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Architectural drawing of Järvsö church.
ArkDes edit-a-thons
The edit-a-thons about women in architecture and design continued in March with an event on March 14, with one more event set for April 18.
Swiss GLAM Programme
Knowledge Equity in GLAM
The Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is the principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women.
The Wikimedia CH GLAM Lead, Sandra Becker, and the WMCH GLAM Experte, Amandine Cabrio, took part as volunteers to the first week of the CSW67. They enjoyed a lot of great talks and conferences. The main point was the importance of the education and empowerment of women and girls in the digital revolution we are currently ongoing.
We gave a talk the 7th March, in the side event program, focuses on the topic “Knowledge Equity in GLAM”. Our talk raised the gender and representative gaps in both GLAM institutions and the Wikimedia Projects. Statistics show that women, Asian and African are underrepresented in the Wikimedia Projects and in the GLAM areas, producing knowledge bias. After a workshop with the participants, we concluded that:
- It is paramount that we team together, cooperate and ally with each other to bridge the gender and representation gaps. Only in bringing together the Community, GLAM institutions, associations, etc. we will be able to address all this challenges;
- We must empower women, bring them education and keep them safe, whatever the context. We also must support African and Asian people to the Wikimedia Projects and encourage them to contribute and share. We must take in account the differences in their culture and knowledge sharing;
- We have to take in account the sensibilities and diversities of every culture when we bring them to the table. Respect and understanding must be our guiding lines. Some knowledges are not made to be shared;
- We ought to collect and share more systematically data, knowledge of all culture, even the smallest one. But it is impossible to make general projects. We must take in account the specificities of the culture.
Swiss GLAM Wiki Group
Wikimedia CH has continued organizing information and knowledge exchanges for or by GLAM professionals that edit Wikimedia projects.
At a national level, we have continued to organize our WikiGLAM meetings. The first 2023 meeting was the 15th March. We met our GLAM partners online and presented our 2023-2028 GLAM Program Strategy.
The feedback we received are allowing us to strengthen our strategy and take the needs of the Swiss GLAM area in account.
Event in the Photo Elysee Museum
LesSansPages is an association who works on increasing the presence of women on the Wikimedia projects, as contributor but also the make women and women's issue more visible.
They organized a very successful workshop the 11th March at the Photo Elysee Museum. The goal was to create and improve article around women photographers. For more information about this workshop, you can read this page (in French). And for the results, see this dashboard.
15 Days of French women writers
Les sans pagEs also organised a workshop the 25th March in the Town Library of Meyrin around French women's writer to create and improve contents in the Wikimedia projects. The participants enjoyed a photo safari in the town to create special content for Wikimedia Commons and then they took part to an editathon in the afternoon.
You can have a look at the program here.
The Noircir Wikipedia project joined the event and made great contributions about African women author in Wikidata. More about the work done here .
Khalili Foundation
Khalili Foundation
A new milestone for the project has been reached as Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam has passed Featured Article review! This is the first Featured Article to come from this partnership, which has also produced seven Good Articles. The review process involved weeks of discussion with six volunteers, who suggested dozens of stylistic improvements. On Wednesday 17 May, the article will be summarised and linked on English Wikipedia's front page as "Today's Featured Article".
An article about a painting, Musa va 'Uj, went live on English Wikipedia, becoming the 36th new article created by the project (excluding the new articles created at edit-a-thons). It passed DYK review, becoming the 23rd article from this project to do so. There is now a Khalili Collections category on English Wikipedia to assist navigation between the different articles. There are no new translated articles this month. There were no new image uploads, but one edited version of a previously-uploaded image.
I created a new piece of code that helps me to track the quality of hundreds of visual art articles in one go. The Global visual art taskforce has icons to show the quality rating of the various target articles, similar to the Vital Articles lists. This shows at a glance, for example, that the African artist biographies are at a generally lower quality level than the Central and Latin American artist biographies. Maintaining this list presents a problem: the Vital Article ratings are updated by a bot, but this bot is approved and coded specifically for the Vital Articles lists and cannot work with the global visual art taskforce page. I can't create Wikipedia bots, but what I have been able to do instead is code a PHP script which finds every link that is accompanied by a quality icon, then retrieves the current rating for that article in the Visual arts wikiproject (or another wikiproject if there isn't a visual arts rating). This produces a textual report which looks like:
El Anatsui changed from C to Start Zhang Zeduan changed from Stub to Start Tomioka Tessai changed from Start to C Saloua Raouda Choucair changed from B to Start Amrita Sher-Gil changed from B to C Larry Alcala changed from C to Start Mihr 'Ali changed from Stub to Start Abd al-Samad has no rating in the Visual arts wikiproject 282 articles examined
This saves a lot of time and directs me to the articles that have changed quality rating, as well as providing other useful error messages (for instance if an article has moved).
In other work, I have been adding data about paintings to Wikidata, using the catalogue volume The Tale & the Image: Volume one. Wikidata now knows about the paintings in the Shahnamah of Shah Alam II. These additions increase the Khalili Collection's visibility in the Sum of All Paintings dataset.
With Katy from the Khalili Foundation, I attended a meeting at SOAS in London about a future cultural diversity edit-a-thon.
Projects and activities in March
WikiSalon
Philadelphia user group held a WikiSalon, WikiSalon 2023-03-11.
SXSW - Smithsonian and Wiki: Open & Equitable Knowledge
The Smithsonian Institution held a SXSW panel, Smithsonian and Wiki: Open & Equitable Knowledge
SAGE edit-a-thon
Sage foundation, and Wikimedia DC, held a workshop. SAGE edit-a-thon. There was a dashboard. also seen here Christopher Kenneally
TSU USF Women's History Month
Tennessee State University, University of South Florida, and Wikimedia DC held a workshop. TSU USF Women's History Month Wikipedia Edit-a-thon
American University Qualitative Methods in International Relations
American University and Wikimedia DC held a workshop, AU Qualitative Methods in International Relations editing workshop
Women of Color in the Renwick Gallery
Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery and the Smithsonian American Women's History Initiative, held a workshop, Crafting a Better Wikipedia: Women of Color in the Renwick Gallery
History of Nursing in Newark March 2023
Rutgers University and Wikimedia NYC held a workshop, History of Nursing in Newark March 2023
Anthropology and Community Connections
University of Maryland and Wikimedia DC held a workshop, Anthropology and Community Connections
Nine Wikisteps
Mike Dickison made a presentation, about the pre-work GLAM organizations can do to facilitate working with Wikimedia.
Mismatch Finder: Resolving Mismatches in Wikidata’s 100 Million Items
Mismatch Finder: Resolving Mismatches in Wikidata’s 100 Million Items
Alan Ang, Partner Manager of Wikimedia Deutschland, presented at IFLA SCITECH Webinar on 31 March entitled Mismatch Finder: Resolving Mismatches in Wikidata’s 100 Million Items. See presentation deck here.
The Ethics of Open Sharing
The April highlight of Wiki Loves Living Heritage is the webinar on the Ethics of Open Sharing, created in collaboration between Creative Commons working group on the Ethics of Open Sharing, Wiki Loves Living Heritage, and Wikimedia Culture & Heritage and Let's Connect!
Program
- Welcome and introduction
The working group for the Ethics of Open Sharing under Creative Commons' Open Culture Platform has identified some of the tricky ethical considerations regarding the opening up of cultural heritage. This webinar invites to continue these conversations together with wikimedians and Living Heritage experts and networks over the Wiki Loves Living Heritage Campaign year 2023.
- Creative Commons Open Culture Program and the working group on the Ethics of Open Sharing • Jocelyn Miyara, Creative Commons Open Culture Manager
- Ethical sharing in Wiki Loves Living Heritage • Jorijn Neyrinck and Susanna Ånäs
- Panel discussion
The panel discusses the tension between copyright and traditional knowledge. In the online space we need to have practices to meet the needs of both protecting and opening.
- Melissa Shaginoff • Alaska office of the Arctic Studies Center (Smithsonian)
- Shailili Zamora Aray • Centro de Documentación Indígena No'lhametwet
- Patricia Adjei • First Nations Arts and Culture director (Australia Council for the Arts)
- Mehtab Khan • Wikimedia Initiative on Intermediaries and Information (Yale Law School)
The panel is moderated by Jorijn Neyrinck
- Ethical Sharing card deck
The Ethical Sharing card deck will be published at the event. It is based on the observations of the Ethics of Open Sharing working group that have been turned into a card game to encourage attendees to navigate the ethical considerations. The cards are an adaptation of the MOI playing cards, a project by NEMO. The Finnish Heritage Agency has supported the creation of the cards.
- Bart Magnus, Isaac Oloruntimilehin • Leads of the Creative Commons working group on the Ethics of Open Sharing
Interpretation in French, Portuguese and Spanish will be provided.
Join the working group on Ethical sharing
Shared understanding between Wiki wisdom and Living Heritage safeguarding wisdom is needed to produce approaches and solutions at the intersection of open sharing and safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage.
Would you like to join a working group to tackle the questions of ethics, intellectual property rights and more throughout the year, and come together when needed for making useful observations and solutions?
Write to wikiloveslivingheritage@gmail.com or sign up on the wiki page.
Revisit the launch event
If you missed the launch event of 17 March, the event page links to the recording and the presentations.
Wiki Loves Living Heritage is initiated jointly between the European network of focal points for the UNESCO 2003 Convention (ENFP) and AvoinGLAM.
April's GLAM events
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