GLAM/Case studies/Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis

In the fall of 2009 Richard McCoy and Jennifer Mikulay pioneered the Wikipedia Saves Public Art project, now known as WikiProject Public Art, as part of their collection care and management course in the the IUPUI Museum Studies Program. The class' final assignment was to locate, survey, and document all of the public art on IUPUI's campus and create the IUPUI Public Art Collection. In total, 40 new Wikipedia articles were created and over 350 images were uploaded to Flickr.

In 2010 Richard McCoy's IUPUI Museum Studies class, aided by teaching assistant Lori Phillips, used WikiProject Public Art's tools to create the Indiana Statehouse Public Art Collection. This collection consists of 37 articles about 42 artworks inside and around the Indiana Statehouse and over 270 images uploaded to Flickr. In 2011 McCoy and his class were awarded Concurrent Resolutions from the State of Indiana for their work.

Representative Tom Saunders presents the Concurrent Resolution to instructor McCoy and his IUPUI Museums Studies Program students

More information

For a student perspective on this project, see these two posts on the IMA's Blog:

• How Wikipedia Can Help us all Care for Public Art by Elizabeth Basile
• Resolving to Care and Document by Rosemary Arnold.

For a summary of the 2010 project, see the blog post on Witty's Blog, New Systems for Documenting Public Art, by Richard McCoy.

See WikiProject Public Art Indy for more information on this ongoing project.

Links

• e-Conversation Magazine, Wikipedia Saves Public Art: An interview with Richard McCoy and Jennifer Geigel Mikulay, conducted by Daniel Cull
• The Chronicle of Higher Education, April 4, 2010 "Scholars Use Wikipedia to Save Public Art From the Dustbin of History"
• technology In The Arts, "Social Media Spotlight: Crowdsourcing Archives with Richard McCoy"