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WMF GLAM report

Ramping up structured Commons, #1lib1ref success, and other updates

By Astinson

At the Wikimedia Foundation, the big focus has been on the Structured Data on Commons Grant, and getting that started, and supporting the #1lib1ref campaign.

Structured Data on Commons

In January, we announced the receipt of the Structured Data on Commons grant from the Sloan Foundation. The Grant, which allows for $3 million over the course of three years, helps us support both the software devlopment side of commons and the development of

However, in addition to the software, we are beginning to develop the team of folks. This will include several positions that would be a good fit for folks familiar with GLAM-Wiki, Commons, Wikidata or all three:

  • Program Manager -- whose main responsibilities will include coordinating efforts among various participants and stakeholders in the project and reporting to Sloan about our progress. More information can be found on Greenhouse.
  • Another GLAM-Wiki strategist focus on structured data. (See the job posting on Greenhouse).
  • Community Liaison -- who will be interfacing with the Commons and Wikidata communities on the project.

Keep an eye out for these position descriptions as they become available from WMF, and if you know folks working in the GLAM sector who would be a good fit, let us know.

Before the team comes onboard, I am beginning to schedule opportunities for talking with various communities, that have a deep understanding of Outreach Parnter and stakeholder need for Structured Data on Commons, including:

  • The International Coordinating Team for Wiki-Loves Monuments (already talked with)
  • European GLAM-Wiki Coordinators (see meeting agenda)
  • DPLA -- this relationship includes talking with their staff soon and providing a 2 hour workshop/talk on Wikidata + GLAM at their annual meeting
  • Smithsonian -- supporting some initial Collaboration alongside Wikimedia D.C. around how we could enable more data sharing through Commons
  • Europeana -- through Liam, I plan to do outreach with Europeana to better understand how we can be more intertangled with and compatible with their needs.

If there is a particular organization or partner network who you think would benefit from being on our contact list, let Alex know (astinson@wikimedia.org).

1lib1ref: Smashing Success!

We ran year two of #1ib1ref this year, with the help with volunteers in over 18 languages! The outcomes were over 3x last years recorded edits using the hashtags tool: 4,171 edits from 741 contributors to 2,588 pages. See the outcomes from last year by comparison!

We are in the process of doing some deeper and more complex analysis of the campaign and its outcome. We have some preliminary lessons from the campaign:

  • Three weeks gave most participants enough time and communications to run small workshops if they didn't have them planned before the beginning of the campaign. We saw a steady flow of workshops discussed on Twitter throughout the campaign, with a burst of them towards the end.
  • Coverage in Library publications was not as striking this year, as in previous years. But we got some great support from close allies of the movement, including individual GLAMs that have worked with Affiliates, OCLC, IFLA, Biodiversity Heritage Library, and a number of regional library networks.
  • The invitation to more community affiliates to lead their own sub-campaigns, in their own languages and geographies, worked moderately well this year. The number of impacted language communities doubled, but we still didn't reach critical mass in a number of languages for growing the campaigns there. We will need to work on guidance and support for community leaders to build better network impact.

We will do a more thorough report about the other outcomes in the campaign, including some highlights from blogposts and other resources created during the campaign.

We plan to host the campaign again in 2018, and if you are interested in supporting it in your language or context, make sure to join the Wikipedia + Libraries Facebook group: we plan to use that as a coordinating hub for social campaigns around librarians.

Other consultations/support include

  • Development of next steps with IFLA and ICOM -- we are trying to develop a better understanding of the next projects for cooperation -- its beginning to look like it might be in the space of Wikidata
  • Development of the Met press release and project communications
  • Triaging several requests from North American GLAMs to the glam@wikimedia.org OTRS queue
  • Several other requests related to WMF Grants
  • Support of the Movement Strategy Process
  • Supporting the hiring process for the Lead Programs Manager
  • Developing European Coordinators Meeting program
  • Beginning preparations for Wikimedia Conference

Other WMF updates


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