GLAM/Newsletter/December 2023/Contents/UK report

This Month in GLAM – Volume XIII, Issue XII, December 2023

UK report

2023 in Review

Khalili Foundation: December 2023

The Musa va 'Uj article passed Good Article review, becoming the eighth Good Article from this project. The Empire of the Sultans article was nominated for DYK review and has passed! It should be linked from the English Wikipedia home page some time in January.

Persian Wikipedia chose two Khalili Collections images as Pictures Of The Day: an illustration from the Anis al-Hujjaj on 2nd December and a Talismanic shirt on 14th December.

I joined a second online meeting of the Wikimedians of the Islamic Civilization User Group. During this two-hour session, the group translated English phrases into Arabic; these phrases are names of Khalili Collection art works or names of the type of object. There was some debate about how "pop-up book", "sabre hilt", and "falconry gauntlet" could best be represented in Arabic, especially the default form of the phrases to be used in Wikidata. This work makes the digitisations shared on Wikimedia more accessible to Arabic readers and also makes Wikidata/Wikimedia better able to describe objects from other Islamic collections. The participants also transcribed lines of text from calligraphic works (see the "Inscriptions" field). Many thanks to Michel, Sandra, and the other participants.

Katy (at the Khalili Foundation) and I have arranged an edit-a-thon at SOAS, London on 11 January. This is a free public event that just requires registration on EventBrite.

I have continued work on the article about the Heaven on Earth: Art from Islamic Lands exhibition. I have also worked on categorising images on Wikimedia Commons: 48 images that were uncategorised now have category tags, and Khalili Collections images are visible in 60 more categories.

I have scheduled a Hajj-relevant image as Picture Of The Day for English Wikipedia on 14 June, the first day of the 2024 Hajj.

The one upload this month was a cropped version of a previously-uploaded image. There were no new translated articles this month. GLAMorgan reports 5,161,982 image views in December, from 90 different wikis.

Khalili Foundation: Year in Review

Increasing use of Khalili Collections images, a rush of translations from English into other languages, and images featured on the home page together made this a record year for image views and for page views. This was also the year this partnership expanded into events, with two edit-a-thons and a webinar for the Wikimedians of the Islamic Civilization. Waqas Ahmed, Executive Director of the Khalili Foundation, made a presentation to Art UK using this project as a case study of successful sharing of cultural heritage on Wikimedia. I spoke to the board of Wikimedia UK at their meeting in London about how this project improves the cultural diversity of Wikipedia and demonstrates both quantity and quality of shared material. As part of the Khalili Foundation's World Festival of Cultural Diversity, this partnership raised the profile of cultural diversity on Wikipedia by greatly improving some relevant articles.

Fifteen new articles in English, Indonesian, Urdu, Malay and Spanish
One Good Article (Musa va 'Uj)
One Honourable Mention in Wikimedia UK's Partnership of the Year awards.
Two edit-a-thons (hosted by Wellcome Collection and Khalili Research Centre, University of Oxford)
Two Featured Image awards: one on English Wikipedia and another on Arabic Wikipedia
Two Featured Article awards: Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam in English Wikipedia and Urdu Wikipedia, getting 52,771 page views over the course of the year
Three articles featured in Did You Know? (Musa va 'Uj, Falnama, Gulshan-i 'Ishq)
Substantial rewrites of the articles Cultural diversity, World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development, Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, and Falnama. These articles are collectively getting more than 10,000 views per month.
90 Wikimedia projects using images from this partnership, up from 81 last year
58,849 page views of English Wikipedia articles about the Khalili Collections (the overview article, the 8 articles about individual collections, Musa va 'Uj, and Khalili Imperial Garniture)
21,653 page views of English Wikipedia articles about Sir David Khalili and the Khalili Foundation
78.5 million image views across all Wikimedia platforms

The coming year

As more media coverage of Sir David Khalili's autobiography, The Art of Peace emerges, and more recognition accrues to the Khalili Foundation's cultural diversity and interfaith work with its partner organisations, it will be a priority to work with the Wikipedia community to get this third-party coverage summarised in Wikipedia.
The short article about the Musa va 'Uj has attracted a great deal of attention. There are more paintings and art works that merit an article of their own.
Metalwork of Islamic countries is a huge topic which lacks a Wikipedia article, and for which the Khalili Collections catalogues have an enormous amount of information.
There are other art exhibitions that do not yet have Wikipedia articles.
There is scope to upload more images to add to the 1,500 that are already shared on Wikimedia.
Documenting more paintings in Wikidata and Commons for the Sum of All Paintings project.
Further raising the profile of cultural diversity on Wikipedia by recognising volunteers who create or improve articles to fill cultural gaps.
Working with partner organisations including Art UK to improve their representation of the Khalili Collections and diverse visual art generally.