GLAM/Newsletter/May 2012/Contents/Sweden report
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GLAM handbook released; Europeana Awareness project launched
Release of the GLAM handbook
On June 1st, there will be a conference at the Royal Library in Sweden, to mark the release of "Kulturskatter på nätet" (Cultural treasures on the web). "Kulturskatter på nätet" is a handbook for the GLAM sector in Sweden, with examples of how GLAMs can work together with the Wikimedia movement (including a list of things that Wikimedians believe), experiences from other collaborations, and a list of things Swedish copyright laws permit GLAM:s to do. Attending the conference are representatives of several of Sweden's biggest GLAM:s.
The conference is organized by Wikimedia Sverige, the Royal Library, and the National Coordinators for Digitalization.
At that point, "Kulturskatter på nätet" will also be uploaded to Commons as a PDF and a .sla (Scribus file).
Put your money where your mouth is
During the conference, Wikimedia Sverige are organizing a contest for the GLAM:s that are present. The contest is called "Upp till bevis" which roughly translates to "Put your money where your mouth is". The rules are simple:
- bring a USB stick or similar device with one file only
- there should be metadata also
- and you need to tell us why you chose this image
More information in Swedish on Wikimedia Sverige's blog.
Background
"Kulturskatter på nätet" has been developed over a period of about six months, in collaboration with around 60 representatives from various GLAM:s in Sweden. The process has been very transparent, since all of it has been done on Wikimedia Sverige's wiki. There has been a few conferences IRL, the results of which has been incorporated into the text of the handbook.
International impact
Lennart Guldbrandsson tried to get a slot on Wikimania talking about the Swedish GLAM handbook, but the talk was rejected. He will be at Wikimania nonetheless and will bring physical copies of "Kulturskatter på nätet". Since "Kulturskatter på nätet" will be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons as a .sla file, it will be possible for others to tweak and internationalize it fairly easily.
The project Europeana Awareness takes off
Wikimedia Sweden (WMSE) is one of the 48 organizations involved in the Europeana Awareness project. Through the project John Andersson has been hired as an Event manager and he will work full time with the project for the coming 18 months. The project consists of two major parts: firstly the co-organization of a number of GLAM conferences in some of the European countries that have Wikimedia Chapters actively working with GLAM issues, and secondly to organize a European wide competition called Wiki Loves Public Art (WLPA), obviously inspired by the very successful Wiki Loves Monument competition.
Support through the project will be given mainly to conferences organized in Sweden, Poland, UK, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. Already an Edit-a-thon in Leuven, Belgium is well under way and will take place between the 13-15 of June, with World War I as its theme. The Event manager's role is to support the national Wikimedia Chapters in different ways in their work when organizing the conferences and also to facilitate cooperation between them. This could for example be done by supplying the Wikimedia Chapters with information and contacts from within Europeana's vast network, contacting other organizations that are planning to organize similar events through the Europeana Awareness project so that duplication of work can be avoided, or simply by bringing in the Europeana Foundation as a partner, something that is likely to help attract the interest of many GLAM institutions.
The organization of Wiki Loves Public Art will mainly take place at the end of this year and the beginning of the next. Its focus is similar to the one of WLM, but instead of monuments we want people to go out and take pictures of public art (i.e. sculptures, monuments, mosaics, mural paintings, memorials and place specific installments in the public space – but not graffiti for example). To organize this, with all the tricky copyright legislation associated with taking pictures of public art, we will hopefully have the possibility to use the judicial experts that are associated with the Europeana Awareness project to help us out when preparing for this and to help us make rational decisions. The main focus countries for this year's Wiki Loves Public Art competition are Sweden, Poland, UK, France, Germany and the Netherlands but we hope that we will see contributions from all over Europe. Already Wikimedians from Austria have shown interest in participating. However, if some countries' copyright legislation just makes Wiki Loves Public Art impossible we will just have to leave those countries out for now and hope that they will improve their legislation in the future!
