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The Near East: from Leiden to Wikipedia

Spring 2019 saw a remarkable Dutch GLAM project: the NINO Wiki project of Dutch orientalists. In this project the Netherlands Institute for the Near East (NINO) is trying to give a boost to the information about Dutch (and Belgian) egyptologists, assyriologists and archaeologists – including photographs in the collections of NINO, many of them long forgotten portraits. This was also a way to celebrate the foundation of the chair of Assyriology in Leiden 101 years ago, in 1918.

The Netherlands Institute for the Near East is shaping this project in several ways: organizing three writing sessions together with volunteers from the institutes, digitizing parts of the photographic collection and writing and improving articles in several language versions of Wikipedia. Starting point was a working page in Wikidata, in which an inventory was made. By making Wikidata entries for Dutch and Belgian orientalists and institutes, all partners could easily get an overview.

The first writing session was held on 19 March 2019. Several egyptologists and assyriologists were present, and Wikipedian Hanno Lans gave a general introduction to Wikipedia and the Wikidata project on researchers from the Netherlands. The second, more practical session, was held on 17 April. Carolien van Zoest (NINO) coordinated this session. The third NINO-Wiki meeting will be held on 15 May in Leiden.