GLAM/Newsletter/August 2017/Contents/WMF GLAM report
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GLAM-Wiki team, Wikimania, and updates
Onboarding a Team
The second expansion to the GLAM-Wiki team at the Wikimedia Foundation after the addition of User:SandraF (WMF) as part of the Structured Commons project, came with the addition of Ben Vershbow (User:BVershbow_(WMF)) as Lead Programs Manager for the Community Programs team. Though Ben will support all of the GLAM, Education, and Wikipedia Library teams, Ben’s background over the past decade-plus is in large part in the cultural heritage sector, working at both the Institute for the Future of the Book, and more recently leading the New York Public Library Labs.
Ben brings a deep network within libraries, museums, and digital humanities, and will be helping the team to evaluate, prioritize and advance support of the larger cultural heritage community. It’s exciting to have additional minds working on the GLAM-Wiki program space!
With Ben and Sandra on board, we are beginning to evaluate the where we want to focus GLAM-Wiki support, in light of the movement strategy process.
Wikimania and Structured Data on Commons Offsite
Ben, Sandra and Alex all attended Wikimania, the preconference for Wikimania and an off-site for the Structured Data on Commons project. The conference offered a great opportunity to learn from, reflect on, and gauge the interest of for various needs within the GLAM-Wiki community.
Alongside our own presentations, we noticed a number of trends in the conversation:
- The Library space was vibrantly represented by the community, in part being supported by the great work being done in the Wikipedia + Libraries User Group
- Wikidata use for cultural heritage applications has an ever-increasing global community that will be really well situated to advance GLAM-Wiki into a closer working relationship with GLAMs and other heritage communities. One of the highlights in this, was the gathering of folks for the Cultural Heritage + Wikidata “Birds of a Feather” session.
- Structured data on Commons saw a lot of support from both GLAM-related and other contributors within the Wikimedia community.
- The Wikimedian in Residence Birds of a Feather session was well attended, and highlighted how diverse and challenging the role of “Wiki(p/m)edian in Residence” can be for practitioners, and how challenging it is to make sure that new roles successfully join the community of WIRs. As an outcome of the meeting, a group of WIRs are proposing a user group that can help with onboarding and developing best practices for the roles.
- To find notes and slide decks related to GLAM-Wiki sessions, see the notes page on the Wikimania Wiki.
Following the conference, the Structured Data on Commons team gathered for an offsite that reflected on what we learned over the course of the conference, and worked on a shared plan going forward. We were very happy to share with the team working on the project its importance for institutional partners and how they work with the Wikimedia community. At the meeting, we also saw some of the early outcomes of the meta:Research:Supporting Commons contribution by GLAM institutions being led by User:Jmorgan (WMF).
Updates will soon be made to the Structured Data on Commons portal at commons:Commons:Structured data. We recommend everyone to also subscribe to the Structured Data on Commons newsletter!
Other updates
Other work by the team, has included collaboration, outreach and consultation on:
- Reviewing grant requests to the Community Resources team at the foundation
- Supporting and consulting on several incoming contacts from external orgs to WMF
- Revising the Edit-a-thon training-- feedback still welcome
- Development of upcoming blog posts for the WMF blog on several different community-led projects.
- Review of contextual materials for the Wikimedia Strategy Process
- Short visits with Europeana and DPLA, to better understand how Structured Data on Commons, and Structured data more generally will impact their work. For a report on the Europeana visit, see the section in the Wikidata report.
- Followup from several Wikimania conversations.
