GLAM/Newsletter/November 2017/Contents/Serbia report

This Month in GLAM – Volume VII, Issue XI, November 2017

Serbia report

Two Wikipedians in residence and one edit-a-thon

Edit-a-thon that broke the record

Wikimedia Serbia and the Museum of Yugoslavia have organized edit-a-thon for writing the biographies of notable persons from the period of Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia on Serbian Wikipedia. The edit-a-thon was held on November 29th - symbolically on the former Republic Day, at the Museum of Yugoslavia.

Sixteen participants contributed to Serbian Wikipedia that day - six employees of the Museum (who learned to edit Wikipedia the previous day) and ten volunteers of Wikimedia Serbia and editors of Wikipedia.

There were 50 articles written, and the Museum has released 69 archive photographs for illustration and use in wiki projects. The Historical Archive of Jagodina joined the campaign, by having donated 60 political posters from the history of this city and its surroundings for wiki projects.

The media also showed great interest in this event, which resulted in 31 announcements, including the TV O2 prime time news.

Cooperation between Wikimedia Serbia and the Museum of Yugoslavia is the result of successful workshops for representatives of museums, archives and libraries, that were held at the Ministry of Culture in early October.

Two Serbian museums welcomed their first Wikipedians in Residence

The internship program in two museums simultaneously started at the end of November and will last until the end of December.

The Museum of Yugoslavia will host Dušan Ružić, while the National Museum in Leskovac opened its door for the fellow - Wikipedian, Stefan Mitic.

Both interns will work on digitizing materials, setting up digitized files on wiki projects, writing articles, and also holding workshops on editing Wikipedia for museum employees, as well as a presentation on the Wikimedia Free knowledge movement.

Although only one internship program was planned for this year, which happened in the Historical Archives of Subotica, Wikimedia Serbia managed with a good allocation of funds to organise these additional two programs, the results of which will contribute to the global movement of dissemination of free knowledge.