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OCLC announces Wikipedian in Residence; 2 edit-a-thons; US cultural partnerships report; brief news

By LoriLee, Q Miceli, Merrilee Proffitt

OCLC announces Wikipedian in Residence

Max Klein has been appointed as Wikipedian in Residence at OCLC Research. He will be in residence until the end of August in OCLC’s San Mateo, California office. In his position, Max will work with OCLC Research to explore and pursue mutually beneficial projects between OCLC, library stakeholders, and the Wikipedia community through a range of activities, including working with OCLC staff and librarians to help foster a broader understanding of Wikipedia's practices. He will initially focus on two goals: helping to foster a broader understanding of Wikipedia's practices for librarians, and exploring where links between libraries and Wikipedia makes sense. OCLC Research is very pleased to join the ranks of the Smithsonian Institution, the (U.S) National Archives and Records Administration, the British Library in hosting a WIR. We’ll be blogging about Max’s work on HangingTogether.org and you can view an interview with Max on Youtube.

Max has a BA in Mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley. While a student, he led and facilitated a student-run course on the Politics of Piracy which incorporated editing on Wikipedia. He also served, recruited and lectured as a Regional Ambassador as part of Wikipedia's Education Program.

OCLC is a nonprofit, membership, computer library service and research organization dedicated to the public purposes of furthering access to the world’s information and reducing information costs. Tens of thousands of libraries around the world use OCLC services to locate, acquire, catalog, lend and preserve library materials.

Women at Princeton Edit-a-thon

During the opening question and answer session at the She Roars conference at Princeton University last year, one alumna asked if there could be a museum of the history of women at Princeton. President Shirley Tilghman directed the questioner to Princeton’s archives, the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library. Taking inspiration from Mudd Library’s current exhibit, “She Flourishes: Chapters in the History of Princeton Women,” Technical Services student worker Q Miceli organized another Wikipedia edit-a-thon at Mudd called She Roars. We Record. The event, which took place on May 19, was designed to encourage new users to participate in editing articles about a little-publicized topic.

Women at Princeton Edit-a-thon II 01

Members of the Wikimedia Chapter of New York City helped undergraduates and community members learn how to edit Wikipedia. Using resources available in the archives’ reference room, website, and exhibition display, participants wrote about prominent female staff members and even created an article about the history of coeducation at Princeton. One undergraduate participant was particularly enthused about creating articles on women in science, and she has since returned to Mudd a few times to do research.

The Mudd Library staff looks forward to hosting more edit-a-thons next academic year.

Deliverables
Articles created
Articles expanded

US Cultural Partnerships

  • Ongoing coordination with US cultural organizations and support and advisement for early stages of planning processes, including support for GLAM OTRS queue and other email inquiries.
  • Assistance with Monmouthpedia coverage and other GLAM-Wiki social media promotion.
  • Coordinated New Mexico Museum Association proposal for US GLAM-Wiki presentation.
  • Prepared for and presented at the MuseumNext conference in Barcelona, which included a Wikipedia Lounge and a QRpedia presentation. (More information on the Spain Report.

In brief

  • The article "To wiki or not to wiki," written by US Cultural Partnerships Coordinator Lori Phillips, has been featured in the recent publication Reprograme, an e-book that compiles best practice in museum communication and digital engagement. The e-book is free to the public and will soon be available in Portuguese and Spanish.
  • The successful Wikimedia presence at the American Association of Museums conference in Minneapolis resulted in a series of recaps, including the New Media Consortium and the Wikimedia blog. The Wikipedian in Residence virtual session is also available to view for free.
  • Multiple museum professionals pointed to Wikipedia as a highlight of the AAM conference, including Adrianne Russell in her blog post "GenX Says, AAM Reflections" and Robert Connolly in the blog post "Wikimedia, Museums, Trade and More".
  • The Smithsonian Institution Archives held its second edit-a-thon in May. Article improvements focused on the history of the Smithsonian and it's people. Approximately 15 people participated from around the world, including around ten in house participants. Numerous articles were improved upon, including the Enid A. Haupt Garden, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and Solomon G. Brown.
  • The Walters Art Museum has released 19,000 images to Wikimedia. For more information, see the press release
  • Max Klein was this month named OCLC Research Wikipedian in Residence. To learn more, see the press release.


Monmouthpedia launches; British Library Wikipedian in Residence

GLAM represented at WikiConference UK

The GLAM panel at WikiConference UK.

On Saturday 12 May, the Science Museum in London played host to the second annual WikiConference UK. Home to the first major GLAM project, the UK has had a prosperous series of GLAM partnerships with institutions across the country ever since the Wikipedian in Residence project at the British Museum, London.

At WikiConference UK this year, there were several GLAM-related sessions on the schedule; a talk on the partnership with the Science Museum, a final call for a UK co-ordinator Wiki Loves Monuments co-ordinator, a presentation on "Europeana and GLAM", an introduction to the Open Domesday project and a GLAM panel.


Monmouthpedia launches to substantial media acclaim

Wikimedians help local residents edit Wikipedia at Monmouth Library.

Following 6 months of work, the Monmouthpedia project publicly launched. Following blog posts on the Wikimedia UK and Wikimedia Foundation blogs, 212 different news services in 33 different countries picked up on the story over 3 days, including the following coverage:

Ashley van Haeften (Fæ), Chair of Wikimedia UK and Giles Howard of Monmouthshire County Council sign the Memorandum of Understanding.

The day began with experienced Wikimedians from across the country travelling to Monmouth Library to help local residents get to grips with contributing to Wikipedia. Wikimedians then moved to the "Monmouthpedia Control Centre" in Shire Hall, Monmouth where the media-monitoring team had been busy documenting the press coverage of Monmouthpedia - from all around the world. In the afternoon representatives from Wikimedia UK and Monmouthshire County Council signed a Memorandum of Understanding in front of TV cameras.

Later in the afternoon, a couple of Wikimedians went on to Monmouth Museum to help more locals learn the ropes of editing.


News in brief

  • Wikipedian in Residence, British Library: May 3rd was the first day of the six month term for British Library Wikipedian in Residence Andrew Gray (Andrew Gray). From May to October, Andrew will be co-ordinating a number of projects including editathons, editing training for staff and academics, and the GLAM-WIKI conference in September 2012. June will see the upcoming WWI Editathon on the 16th, and a series of internal and external introductory Wikipedia workshops.


Wikipedian in Residence at National Art Museum; Wikimedia representation at MuseumNext

200,000 hits for African films' entries on Wikipedia, in CC-BY-SA thanks to the FCAT

Illustration of Saartje Baartman: the plot of the movie Black Venus depicting her life comes from FCAT's website.

New case studies about partnerships within the Share Your Knowledge project are being written on it.wiki (more can be read on the Italy report for this month).

The one about the African Film Festival of Còrdoba-FCAT (which is also available in Italian) tells the story of a multilingual donation; although Share Your Knowledge is an Italian project, contents by FCAT Còrdoba are in English, French and Spanish, so they were uploaded on the corresponding encyclopedias. FCAT texts are mainly about "African" movies, directors and actors. The tutor of the project, m.casanova, had some difficulties in the process. Communities tend to be cautious if an OTRS ticket is not immediately issued for a given website and/or if it is not meticulously attached to attribution templates; users might also raise questions about whether a certain donation is legally plausible, a field in which laws vary from country to country and getting legal counsel for each case is the only way to figure something out. Also, differences amongst admissibility criteria on several Wikipedias sure do not help. Should these issues be notified in the GLAM mailing list? Would the GLAM processes benefit from the make-up of a "GLAM task force" of experienced users willing to intervene and help arbitrating similar disputes? To get back to FCAT, it is worth noticing that despite the problems, Michele Casanova got a barnstar for his work. 1270 articles were created or improved thanks to this partnership's contents; 200.000 hits were recorded only between March and May 2012, the most visited page being Black Venus, the sad story of the Khoikhoi woman exhibited as freak show in the 19th century in Europe, which won the Equal Opportunity Award in Venice in 2010. While formal quarrels are just memories, more quality contents about Africa are now a reality on Wikipedia.

Wikimedia representation at MuseumNext conference in Barcelona

The Wikipedia lounge ready for GLAM representatives at MuseumNext 2012.

From May 23 to 25, five Wikimedians participated in the MuseumNext Conference in Barcelona. They had been invited to organize a Wikipedia lounge at the event's venue, where museum professionals had an opportunity to network with Wikipedians from the GLAM-Wiki initiative. MuseumNext brings together cultural professionals from around the world to discuss emerging trends in museum technology. This year's conference was framed around the themes of Digital Participation, Digital Marketing and Digital Challenges. The lounge was organized by Amical Viquipèdia, and was modeled on the 2011 Communicating the Museum event at Düsseldorf.

Nancy Proctor's keynote at MuseumNext.

The conference organizers had requested that five Wikipedians represent the top five countries that were present at the conference, including Spain, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany. Wikipedians included Maarten Dammers of Wikimedia Netherlands, Daniel Mietchen for Wikimedia Germany, John Byrne of Wikimedia UK, US Cultural Partnerships Coordinator Lori Phillips, and Àlex Hinojo representing the local community. Hinojo and Phillips also had the opportunity to present a session about QRpedia, which was met with much interest and questions from attendees. QRpedia projects were discussed as best practice in QR code usage in museums, with linkage to Wikipedia an important component to this success.

The Wikipedian contingency was greeted with much enthusiasm by conference attendees, and Wikipedia emerged as a thematic thread throughout the presentations. Most notably, Nancy Proctor, Head of Mobile Strategy at the Smithsonian Institution, mentioned Wikipedia several times while keynoting the conference. This interest led the Wikipedia Lounge to be a popular space during breaks and lunches, where dozens of museum professionals stopped to learn more about how to begin Wikipedia projects.

Wikipedian in Residence at the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC)

the National Art Museum of Catalonia.

During MuseumNext conference was officialy announced that Àlex Hinojo, User:Kippelboy, will be collaborating with the National Art Museum of Catalonia (MNAC) as a Wikipedian-in-Residence for the next months.

The MNAC museum embraces all the arts (sculpture, painting, objets d'art, drawing, engraving, posters, photography and coinage) and has the task of explaining the general history of Catalan art from the Romanesque period to Modern Art. Is also very important the material conserved in its Library and at the General Archive. A museum is made by its collections, but, as well as conserving them and being responsible for them, it also has to spread knowledge of them, and here is where a Wikipedian-in-Residence can Help.

The project is part of the internationalization process of the museum. It aims to add value to the museum and its collection by the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia, in different languages​​, thus improving the online presence both of museum, Catalan Art and its most representative artists.

MNAC has a huge collection and loads of masterpieces that must be better known worldwide. MNAC needs to be explained. I believe that Wikipedia is one of the most powerful tools to contextualise a museum collection within a global discourse on the history of art. We need the reach of a project used by people from all around the world who will help us to translate and improve the global knowledge of our National Art collection. Wikipedia is one of the main gateways to knowledge and MNAC must be well represented.

During the next months we will plan several projects and activities, such as content donations, backstage passes, edit-a-thons, Wikipedia workshops for museum professionals....We want to establish new links of cooperation: Start projects of co-creation of content with universities, art centers and even the general public, using Wikipedia as a workplace.

Cultural lobbying; current and future projects

Meeting at the French Ministry of Culture

On May 4th, Rémi Mathis and Adrienne Alix attended a meeting at the French Ministry of Culture, organized by the Chief of Public Policies in the General Direction of Heritage. The meeting was the result of our common letter with other associations involved in the defense of photographs in museums. We campaign for free photography in museums when the collections are in the public domain. The meeting gathered 25 people from different departments of the ministry. We will work together to write a “charter” for visitors and museums to clarify the rights of each and promote free photographs and sharing.

See the blogpost : Photographs in museums : to get a solution ? (fr)
Drawers of the Mundaneum

Future project with the Mundaneum, ancestry of Internet?

On May 21th, Adrienne met several people from the Mundaneum, a museum in Mons (Belgium). This institution collects archives and collections of Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine, two lawyers who have invented the Universal Decimal Classification at the end of the 19th century. They wanted to create a new way of classification and knowledge sharing, with a lot of similarities with Wikipedia and Google. They are often called “grand fathers of internet”.

As part of a collaboration between Wikimédia France and the Mundaneum, we discuss to enrich their exhibitions with QR Pedia, to liberate content from the Mundaneum and to do other projects to value the links between Mundaneum and the Wikimedia projects.

Open Glam (part 2)

We had the second workshop “OpenGlam” organized with the Open Knowledge Foundation on May 29th. We continue to work about Public Domain and cultural content. We were about 12 people to work with the notes of the first workshop (April 27th), to give some recommandations to the new cabinet of the ministry, and to the policy and administrative makers. The final document will sum up, in 4 or 5 pages, the main problems and solutions about release of cultural content. It will be published in mid-June.


Manuscripts of the Archives of Alpes-Maritimes

The small group working on Wikisource about manuscripts from the 18th century are soon in holidays. They made a good job with the wikisourcians, and in a few month almost 150 manuscripts pages are corrected. They will resume the workshop in November. In the French archivists community, this project was well-received. Several blogs and website discussedthe project .

See on Wikisource (fr)

Wikipedia takes the Cadre Noir

"Cabriole à la main" (Dressage)

On May 19th, a group of wikipedians went to Saumur, to visit the Cadre Noir, the national school of Equistrianism. This is a very old military institution (sixteenth century) which aims to train high-profile riders. The rules of dressage of the Cadre Noir are listed on the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.

Wikipedians have first visited the Cadre Noir with squires and took hundreds of photographs. They also worked on the articles about Cadre Noir with staff of the institution.

The Cadre Noir also uploaded some very high quality photographs on Wikimedia Commons. This meeting will continue with other actions.

See the category on Wikimedia Commons


Wiki Loves Monuments and Case Studies

Wiki Loves Monuments Italy

Wiki Loves Monuments is currently producing in Italy a growing network of institutions and public administrations supporting the initiative and allowing access to their contents. This month with a resolution of the Comunal Committee, Pavia released its monuments and artistic heritage under a CC0 license, recognized the potentiality of an initiave such as Wiki Loves Monuments for enhancing and promoting the city. It is important to notice that Wiki Loves Monuments is really working as a door opener and a powerful communication tool to establish new partnerships and explain the importance and the advantages of adopting open licenses and contributing to Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects.

Case studies make their way on the Italian Wikipedia

Case studies about partnerships within the Share Your Knowledge and WikiAfrica projects are undergoing heavy changes on it.wiki. The existing ones were examined lately and their structure was compared to the ones written by Wikimedians for international GLAM partnerships. The latter were judged to be more effective and understandable, so the former are being rewritten. The case studies now follow a standard format, which includes an infobox with a summary of the collaboration, overview on the institution, history of the collaboration, uploads on Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects and feedback from the community, contents analysis, contents samples (articles, images, documents...), press releases, presentations, events linked to the collaboration, related articles, external links, categories. Elitre is specifically focusing on this task and we are planning to highlight 2-3 institutions each month. All case studies are listed in the GLAM collaborations on the Italian Wikipedia.

Before Cariplo contents were imported, it.wiki did not have an article about a major contemporary painter such as Luca Alinari (and this image, of course).
The case study about the Fondazione Cariplo, as of today, tells the story of a major partnership in the field of art between Wikipedia/Wikimedia and an Italian institution. Describing how such contacts are established and managed, as a matter of fact, is crucial to make sure that anyone can understand and replicate these efforts in the future. New research on the Cariplo case (made possible by some of the tools specifically used for GLAM reports) shows that, although less than a half of the donated pictures is actually included somewhere, in the first four-month period of 2012 affected pages received more than 1 million and a half hits, and that these images are being displayed on a number of Wikipedias beyond the major ones: projects in Russian, Swedish, Galician and Basque are also benefiting from the presence of these relevant artistic images. More about this case can be found in previous issues of This month in GLAM.
A recent picture of the Italian filmmaker Segre.

New contents were also added to the story of the collaboration between Wikipedia and the historic African, Asian and Latin American Festival in Milan. The Festival provided 150 articles about movies and filmmakers and involved its public, including people who never edited before, during two edit-a-thons (2011 and 2012). The results of the last one were presented last March in Milan during a public event focused on good practices to follow to add cinema-related contents to the encyclopedia. Among the most relevant entries, the article about the Italian director Andrea Segre. Texts from the English version of the Festival site might be uploaded in the future. New case studies are also being written, like the one about the African Film Festival of Cordoba-FCAT (English version available): more can be read about it on the Spain report for this month.

News in brief

  • Training for Wikipedians in residence, March-May 2012, Milan. Three months side-by-side training for Wikipedians in residence, lettera27 Foundation in collaboration with Wikimedia Italia.


GLAM work in cities across Germany

GLAM work in Cologne

A short summary on our GLAM work in Cologne:

  • Museum Schnütgen: devoted to Christian religious art, mainly medieval, one of the most famous of its type in Europa. Photographing is strictly forbidden there. I got in contact with the former vice director in September 2011 during a press conference [1]. She invited me to take photos for the Wikipedia article but a meeting was deferred a few times and now she leaves to become director of another museum.
In January 2012 the museum got a new director, and I asked again for a meeting which happened in April 2012. User:Elya and I had a very nice meeting with the new director. He likes Wikipedia and is open to new ideas like a backstage visit etc. Details to clarify. More important: He gave us written permissions to take photos in the museum. In the 2nd half of May I have taken a lot of photos in a first round. More to be done together with Elya in June. My photos are still not on Wikimedia Commons because I am waiting for his comments and approval.
  • Wallraf-Museum: Photographing in general is allowed but without tripods. At the beginning of May, I wrote an e-mail to the press department of the museum to ask for allowance to make photos with a tripod. And I get it! Due to lack of time I have not done the photos until today but I had a meeting with a volunteer in the museum. Looks like as the start of a good friendship :-)
  • Kölnisches Stadtmuseum: In January 2012 I have taken photos inside the museum. Using a tripod was allowed after a meeting with the vice director. Now in May I have gotten the permission to upload them to Commons [2].
  • I got in contact with a freelancer who consults for the "Museumsdienst Köln" on social media. We know her since a barcamp last year where Elya and I had a session about GLAM projects in Wikipedia. I have suggested a workshop (1,5-2 hours) with all museums of Cologne to inform them about Wikipedia and our GLAM activities. Very early stadium, more to come soon, hopefully...

GLAM work in Berlin

A short summary on our GLAM work in Berlin:

  • Deutsches Archäologisches Institut: The staff of the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) carries out research in the area of archaeology and in related fields which includes domestic, but especially international excavations, expeditions, and other projects. It has done so since 1829. This June our first German Wikipedian in Residence will start to collaborate for 6 month as human interface between Wikipedia and the DAI. The plan is to held various workshops targeting both the scientists and staff of the DAI but also addressing a broader public.
  • Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin: In July the second Wikipedian in Residence will start at the Berlin Museum. This museum focuses on the history of Berlin and addresses the Berliners more than tourists. In five houses changing exhibitions invite to learn about Berlin seen from different angles. The residency will focus on the actual exhibition for Berlin's 775th jubilee.

GLAM tour in Jena

The Botanical Garden in Jena, one of the oldest in Central Europe.

From May 18-22, a meetup of the Redaktion Biologie (roughly the equivalent of WikiProject Biology on the English Wikipedia) took place in Jena. Besides a number of hikes into nearby nature reserves, it included one day of touring GLAMs and research institutions, namely the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, the Phyletic Museum, the Botanical Garden, the Herbarium Hausknecht and the Hans Knöll Institute. While these visits were guided tours through the individual institutions, the guides also appreciated to get to know more about Wikimedia in an informal way.

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!


Photo of coppersmith Abdón Punzo of Santa Clara del Cobre, Mexico

Wikimedia Mexico's collaboration with the Museo de Arte Popular has taken on a new twist, helping us to contact and work directly with Mexican artisans, during the months of April and May. This began at the 6th anniversary celebration of the museum in March where Thelmadatter and AlejandroLinaresGarcia had the opportunity to meet and talk about Wikipedia to a number of artisans. To date, this has resulted in contact with four artisans for photo shoots and a number of articles, mostly in English Wikipedia. The artisans with whom we made direct contact through the musuem include the Punzo family, Juana Santa Ana, who represents a group of Amuzgo weavers in the state of Guerrero. This work has allowed us contact and convince two other artisans Ana Karen Allende and the Soteno family to invite us to take pictures of their work, including a permission letter from Ana Karen for derivative works. It is worthwhile to note that none of the following, the Punzo Family, the Soteno family or the Amuzgo weavers have websites to promote their important crafts and little to no knowledge of Wikipedia. It is likely that they would not have worked with us without the initial support of the Museo de Arte Popular.


Lagos Black Heritage Festival and Case Studies

The Lagos Black Heritage Festival

Parade at the Lagos Black Heritage Festivals

Mr Francis Awinda, Wikipedian in Residence for the WikiAfrica project at the Africa Centre presented the need and importance of the project at the prestigious Lagos Black Heritage Festival on the 4th of April 2012. The lively discussion on the need to Africanise wikipedia was held at the Kongi's Harvest Art Gallery at Freedom park in Lagos in the presence of distinguished participants led by renowned Nobel Laureate Professor Wole Soyinka who is the patron of the festivals and other Professors from Universities in Italy, USA,Somali and Nigeria, Students as well as staff from the Lagos National Museum, Onikan.

The festival was a golden opportunity for WikiAfrica to interact physically with potential individuals and organizations that can be involved in this groundbreaking initiative. At the end of the presentation the participants recognized the need for WikiAfrica in presenting factual content about Africa which saw inquiries on "how to be" involved from various organizations and individuals.It was good to know most participants at the conference were familiar with Wikipedia and after the presentation all of them agreed to the fact that more needs to be done in presenting the African content.

Currently discussions are going on with Global Tourism and cultures magazine, Lagos National Museum,Onikan and the Museum of Antiquities of Contemporary African Art to be involved as content partners.

We thank Lettera27 for the generous support in ensuring WikiAfrica was fully represented at the festivals.

Museum and Web 2012 Conference

Through the scholarship award from David Bearman and Jennifer Trant, Mr Francis Awinda attended Museum and the Web conference from 12th to 15th April 2012 at the Sheraton and Marina in San Diego, California.The conference looks at museums in relation to web technology as a tool for developing the various faculties within them and to paraphrase the conference statement its "An annual conference exploring the social, cultural, design, technological, economic, and organizational issues of culture, science and heritage on-line"

The conference had and always has a diverse presentation of participants from Galleries,Libraries,Archives and Museums as well as exhibitors presenting new technologies. During the pitching sessions which democratizes the topics to be discussed from the participants,a wide array of knowledge and tools for developing online presence were discussed as well as individual participants got opportunity to share what they are involved in. It was an honor to discus with other participants what WikiAfrica intends to achieve and why we think its important to generate factual and expanded information about Africa in Wikipedia.

I thank my benefactors David Bearman and Jennifer Trant and the entire Museum and the Web team co-chaired by Nancy Proctor and Rich Cherry!

Case studies WikiAfrica/Share Your Knowledge

WikiAfrica and Share Your Knowledge are currently producing case studies about the institutions involved in both projects. The case studies follow a standard format, which includes

  • Infobox with a summary of the collaboration
  • Overview on the institution
  • History of the collaboration
  • Uploads on Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects, and feedback from the community
  • Contents analysis
  • Contents samples: articles, images, documents...
  • Press releases, presentations, events linked to the collaboration
  • Related articles, external links, categories.

Elitre is specifically focusing on this task and we are planning to highlight 2-3 institutions each month. At the moment you can read in Italian and English the case studies of Cariplo Foundation, African Film Festival of Còrdoba-FCAT (please refer also to Spain report for this month) and Festival del Cinema africano, dell'Asia e dell'America Latina di Milano (in italian) - see also Italy report for this month. All case studies are listened in the GLAM collaborations on Wikipedia in Italian.

Potential GLAMs - Still in Talks

  • Nairobi Railway Museum have accepted to collaborate with Wikimedia Kenya to have their content on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Wikimedia Kenya has planned to undertake this project under a pilot for three months to ascertain the deliverables and probably extend the partnership. There will a non-paid Wikipedian in residence who will be going there to teach museum staff how to edit and contribute to Wikimedia, organise backstage tours for Wikipedians among other duties.
  • Kenya National Archives are still reviewing a proposal that was sent to them regarding GLAM. Hopefully the results shall be out by the time the next newsletter shall be published.

The following have expressed interest in working as GLAMs with WikiAfrica:

  • South African Heritage Resource Agency, South Africa
  • Name your hood, South Africa
  • Curate Africa, South Africa
  • IZIKO Museums of Cape Town (14 museums in the Cape Town area) www.iziko.org.za, South Africa
  • Western Province Government – Department of Heritage, South Africa
  • Western Province Government – Department of Museums (in charge of 26 museums in the Western Cape), South Africa
  • First Floor Gallery Harare, Zimbabwe
  • National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe
  • National Archives of Namibia, Namibia
  • National Herbarium of Tanzania (http://vimeo.com/11736032), Tanzania
  • TARA – Trust for African Rock Art, Kenya, www.africanrockart.org
  • Kuona Trust, Nigeria www.kuonatrust.org
  • National Commission of Museums and monuments, Nigeria, http://www.nigerianmuseums.org
  • Digital Archive,Rock Art Research Institute, Origins Centre, Wits University, South Africa, www.SARADA.co.za

African GLAMs: Cultural Institutions Contributing to Wikipedia and Wikimedia Projects with African Contents

  • NEW Abasuba Community Peace museum http://www.abasuba.museum
  • GALA-Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action http://www.gala.co.za
  • The Archival Platform http://www.archivalplatform.org
  • M-Net African Film Library http://www.africanfilmlibrary.com
  • Out in Africa Film Festival http://www.oia.co.za
  • Encounters Documentary Film Festival http://www.encounters.co.za
  • Africa Centre is a cultural platform based in Cape Town supporting and producing cultural projects and initiatives. In 2011 the Africa Centre adopted the CC BY-SA on its online documentation and in November launched a call for a Wikipedian in Residence in charge of contributing to WikiAfrica and coordinating more GLAM outreach in Africa.
  • doual'art: a cultural non profit organization focussed on contemporary art and urban research in Douala. Since 1991 doual'art produces public art and collects documentation about its city. doual'art provides all of its online documentation in CC BY-SA: project descriptions, artworks descriptions, biographies of artists and experts.
  • Chimurenga is based in Cape Town. The Chimurenga Library is a repertoire of magazines which influenced writing and thinking in Africa; the website is in CC BY-SA.
  • Kër Thiossane, an art centre, residency space and training facility based in Dakar. The centre provided training to intellectuals, artists and authors in Dakar on how to contribute to Wikipedia and wiki websites.

Wikimedia chapters supporting the collaborations with institutions in Africa and with African contents

  • Wikimedia Kenya
  • Викимедија Србије (Wikimedia Serbia)
  • Wikimedia CH
  • Wikimedia España
  • Wikimedia Italia

Wikimedia representation at Intelligent Info conference; editing workshops

Intelligent Info conference

John Vandenberg presented at the Intelligent Info conference in Sydney on Collective stewardship of knowledge: Wikipedia and beyond, focusing on the training programme with the State Library of Queensland, and Pending Changes, and wikidata.

Attendees were primarily librarians. John talked with staff of State Library of New South Wales.

Liam Wyatt went into the State Library of New South Wales the following week to talk with their staff.

Hervey Bay & Gympie workshops

In May, User:Lankiveil and User:Shiftchange took off on the latest chapter of Wikimedia Australia's regional workshops programme, this time visiting Hervey Bay and Gympie. The regional workshops programme is an effort to bring Wikimedia projects “to the bush”, giving people living in regional areas access to training and support getting started with Wikimedia projects, and at the same time expanding the coverage of regional Australia on those projects. They were accompanied by Ruth Gardiner and Michelle Swales from the State Library of Queensland, who are the chapter’s much-valued Queensland partner in the regional workshops programme.

First up on 23 May was Hervey Bay, a seaside city of 76,000 people about four hours drive north of Brisbane. Joining us for the session were Hervey Bay locals, as well as interested members of the public from the nearby smaller city of Maryborough (pop 22,000). The session itself was held at the University of Southern Queensland campus, and was organised by representatives of the Fraser Coast Regional Council.

The following day, after a frantic drive southwards in order for User:Lankiveil to catch the first game of the 2012 State of Origin series, was the Gympie workshop. Gympie is a town of around 11,000 people situated on the Mary river, that boasts some of the richest history of any town in Queensland. Also attending our session in the council-owned Old Bank Building in the historic heart of Gympie were locals from the nearby towns of Curra and Kilkivan.

Attendees learned the basics of Wikipedia article creation, drafting their first articles in user space, learning the intricacies of markup and referencing, and interacting with the Wikimedia community. They also participated in a session on Wikimedia Commons, uploading free images of local landmarks and features. A number of the articles created have since found their way into the mainspace, including:

A special thanks must go to all the members of the community who edited and polished these articles, including (in no particular order), User:Mattinbgn, User:99of9, User:John Vandenberg, User:Saberwyn, User:Markhurd and User:Melburnian.

The next stop in the chapter's regional workshop tour will be in June, John Vandenberg and Siska Doviana (Wikimedia Indonesia) will be going to Hughenden and Charters Towers.


Open Access developments: politics and software

Open Access and governmental politics

The month started with David Willetts — Minister of State for Universities and Science of the UK — announcing an advisory role for Jimmy Wales in the country's scholarly publication system to Open Access. This was put into perspective by a special report in the Signpost. Towards the end of the month, a petition was launched towards U.S. President Obama with the aim of getting him to issue an open-access mandate for publicly funded research (see Signpost coverage).

Open Access Media Importer

Work on the Open Access Media Importer continued (GitHub repository), such that the pipeline from crawling PubMed Central to uploading to MediaWiki exists in a rudimentary form. It has already been used to generate a set of all freely and openly licensed papers on PubMed Central that are linked to malaria (cf. the Wikipedia circle on this page).

JATS-to-MediaWiki converter

Work has begun on a JATS-to-MediaWiki converter (GitHub) that would allow the XML of suitably licensed articles from PubMed Central to be imported into a MediaWiki instance.

Conferences

Talks on Wikidata and on OKF's School of Open as well as a workshop on Open Data and education were given during the Open Data Week in Nantes. Open Data was also an emerging theme during the MuseumNext conference (see Spain report).

Open Access File of the Day

The following files have been featured as Open Access File of the Day in May:

June's GLAM events

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Silesian museum night 2012 at Slezské zemské muzeum, Opava, Czech Republic
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Lange Nacht with Wikimedia presence at Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, Germany
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GLAMcamp London, London, UK
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World War I edit-a-thon, London, United Kingdom
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