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Guinea-Bissau Heritage from Commons to the World

1973: a young Dutch physician involved in a revolution in Africa

Map of Guinea-Bissau

In 2015 Roel Coutinho, a well known Dutch virologist, entered my office in a Leiden library. He was carrying a box with photographic slides, contact prints and negatives. He asked if I was interested in the photographs, and he explained that they were made in 1973 and 1974. "The only time I ever took photos in my entire life". He then told me about the last anti-colonial revolution in Africa, namely the uprising of the people against the colonial Portugese powers in Guinea-Bissau in the early 1970s. Coutinho was a young doctor from the Netherlands, in his twenties. He had sympathy for the struggle against Portugal, he liked the adventure and he decided to travel from the Netherlands to Guinea-Bissau.

Surgical operation by a Cuban doctor in Sara, Guinea-Bissau (1974)

He was head of a small hospital in the Senegalese border town Ziguinchor (Senegal), lived between the rebels, learned the local language and in March/April 1974 walked for a month through the liberated areas of Guinea-Bissau. During this trip he also took photographs of the bush hospitals, met Cuban doctors working there and photographed the life of the population who were under constant danger of being bombed by the Portuguese. These photos are special for two reasons: they give a unique insight in daily life during a revolution, and furthermore there are some people to be seen in the photos who later played an important part in the government of independent Guinea-Bissau: the later first president and prime-minister of the country.

750 images to Wiki Commons

Chico Mendes marriage in Ziguinchor. Right, smiling, the later first president of Guinea-Bissau Luis Cabral

We decided to digitise all 750 photos and make them available via Wikimedia Commons, with descriptions in English, Dutch and Portuguese. In that way we would be sure the heritage of the revolution in Guinea-Bissau would not be buried in a Dutch library, but also be available for people in Portugal and Guinea-Bissau. All photographs were digitised by a professional company and uploaded to Wikimedia Commons by our Leiden Wikipedian in Residence. A Portuguese speaking student assistant added descriptions, in cooperation with Roel Coutinho. Assistance from librarians at the African Studies Centre in Leiden was instrumental. The images were published in Commons under a Creative Commons license, so every photograph could be used easily by others. The Coutinho collection was now out in the open.

Usage inside and outside Wikipedia

The photographs were soon used on diverse platforms. As expected the (rare) photos of the later first prime-minister of Guinea-Bissau, Chico Mendes and the later president of G-B, Luís Cabral (indeed, brother of the even more famous Amilcar Cabral who was murdered in January 1973), were instantaneously used. To our surprise one of the other photos was used in the German language Wikipedia as an illustration of the article about the jet injector (Impfpistole). Other photos were used in research publications about daily life in times of war. A Belgian professor e-mailed for permission to use the photo of a breast-feeding mother in a book about breast-feeding. Sure!

  • Luís Cabral
    Luís Cabral
  • Coutinho vaccinating
    Coutinho vaccinating
  • Carrying a wounded person
    Carrying a wounded person
  • Francisco Mendes
    Francisco Mendes

Publication of the diary in Portuguese

When Coutinho mentioned that he had kept a diary during these years (1973-1974) we looked how we could make this rare document available. In 2022 the African Studies Centre in Leiden published the Dutch edition of Coutinho's diary from the 70s, together with an introduction (looking back in retrospective) and 40 photographs. The booklet is freely available. Two years later the book was translated in Portuguese by Arie Pos and subsequently published in December 2024. It may come as no surprise that this publication is also openly online. Several paper copies have been sent to Bissau, so as to make this part of the revolutionary heritage of Guinea-Bissau available to the people of the country.


Wikimedian in Residence at the Qemal Baholli Public Library in Elbasan (October - December 2024)


From October to December 2024, Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group hosted its second Wikimedian in Residence, Beneta Dhima, in collaboration with the Qemal Baholli Public Library in Elbasan, Albania.

During this period, Beneta created 47 new articles, edited 114 existing ones, made 337 total revisions on Wikipedia, and uploaded 51 photos to Wikimedia Commons.

She focused on enriching articles with verifiable information, content and promoting knowledge about local culture, history, and heritage specifically about Elbasan area.

The partnership with the library provided access to reliable sources from the collaboration between public institutions and the Wikimedia movement.

Below are some valuable uploads from the library.

Social media

If you want to see more about our activities, you can:


Wikipedia on Aruba project has officially begun!

Short introduction

My name is Ginelly Quandt and as the Wikipedian in Residence, I am thrilled to embark on this journey to build a vibrant Wikipedia community in Aruba.

After returning to Aruba from my studies in the Netherlands, I began volunteering with a local NGO dedicated to preserving and protecting the Culture and Heritage of Rancho, the oldest neighbourhood in Oranjestad. Over time, I transitioned into a project leadership role, organizing cultural events and educational programs aimed at community participation in conserving our local heritage.

Post-COVID-19, I chose to continue my studies at the University of Aruba, which I now balance alongside my role as Wikipedian in Residence, working closely with my colleague Ricardo Arends, who serves as the project coordinator. This collaboration allows us to bridge academia, cultural preservation, and Wikimedia’s mission to make knowledge freely accessible to everyone.

The Caribbean is a region full of untold stories and unique heritage that deserves to be shared with the world. While Aruba is widely recognized as a tourist destination, there is so much more to its cultural and living heritage that remains unexplored. Through this project, I look forward to collaborating with local institutions to preserve and showcase our history, language, and culture on a global platform

What is the project about?

The goal of this pilot project is to establish a Wikipedia community in Aruba and other Dutch islands. Our focus is to promote the Papiamento/u language through the Wikipedia platform and showcase our heritage and culture to a global audience. To achieve this, we will organize edit-a-thons, writing events, photo walks and more, providing the community with opportunities to learn about the Wikimedia platform. Additionally, we aim to collaborate with local institutions, supporting them in making their collections more accessible and visible to the public.

This project is an initiative of Wikimedia Nederland in cooperation with Bibliotheca Nacional Aruba, Archivo Nacional Aruba, Monumentenfonds Aruba and UNOCA, and is funded by the Fonds voor Cultuurparticipatie

Do you have questions or want to be kept informed of progress? If so, please contact Michelle van Lanschot, project coordinator Wikimedia Netherlands, at vanlanschot@wikimedia.nl or follow the project page on meta-wiki which is continuously updated with new information.


Wiki Loves Maranhão


Maranhão is the eighth largest state of Brazil. It is part of the Northeast Region and it contains 217 municipalities. Its capital is the island of São Luís, the only Brazilian state capital founded by France. The state has some great assets listed as UNESCO World Heritage: Historical Center of São Luís (1997), Lençóis Maranhenses National Park (2024), and Bumba meu boi (2019).

The northern portion of the state is a heavily forested plain traversed by numerous rivers, occupied by the eastern extension of the tropical moist forests of Amazonia. The north-central and northeastern portion is home to a tropical moist forest ecoregion dominated by the Babaçu palm. The southern portion is occupied by the Cerrado savannas. The state is also occupied by several plateau escarpments, including the Chapada das Mangabeiras, Serra do Tiracambu, and Serra das Alpercatas.

The cuisine of Maranhão has been influenced by French, Portuguese, African, and Indigenous traditions. Its seasoning is distinct, featuring ingredients such as cheiro-verde (a mix of cilantro and green onions), ground cumin, and black pepper. In Maranhão, fish and seafood play a significant role, including shrimp, sururu (a type of mollusk), crab, siri (a smaller crab species), hake, curimbatá, sorubim, and various freshwater and saltwater fish.

The Bumba Meu Boi of Maranhão is a cultural festivity deeply rooted in the city of São Luís, the capital, as well as in the countryside. A tradition that has persisted since the 18th century, it gathers locals and visitors across the state during the months of June and July. It is a popular celebration enjoyed by children, adults, and the elderly, with groups performing in neighborhoods, city squares, and even shopping malls. Whether in the old or new parts of the city, groups from all over the state come together in various festival sites (arraiais) to celebrate until dawn.

Knowledge gap

Despite the great cultural diversity, more than half of the cities in the state have five or fewer photographs on Wikimedia Commons, and 49 of them do not have a single image. The information gap on Wikidata includes 1,129 people without any data on their ethnicity and a significant disparity between the number of men registered on the platform (1,038) and women (263), with only one transgender woman recorded.

On Wikipedia, most articles about the municipalities contain around 10,000 characters (90 of them) and have 10 or fewer references (122 of them). There are no good or featured articles related to Maranhão.

Wiki Loves Maranhão is an initiative organized by Wiki Movimento Brasil (WMB), with support from the Wikimedia Foundation. It aims to highlight Maranhão's cultural, historical, and natural heritage on Wikimedia projects, including Wikipedia in Portuguese. In 2025, Wiki Movimento Brasil (WMB) will mobilize volunteer editors, institutional partners and Maranhão communities to improve coverage of this state on the internet! And GLAM institutions are important partners for filling in the image and content gaps.


Main GLAM activities in 2025

Lusophone GLAM Campaign

ALONG THE YEAR

The Lusophone GLAM Campaign aims to enhance collaboration between cultural institutions and Wikimedia in Portuguese-speaking countries, with a particular focus on African countries. By fostering partnerships and driving digitization efforts, the campaign seeks to improve access to and preservation of Lusophone cultural heritage on open, collaborative platforms such as Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata. A longer term vision for this initiative is to develop and implement it as a network of partners, creating a self-sustaining collective of GLAM institutions that can thrive with our guidance and for which we can act as a helpdesk for inquiries and technical requests. There are intrinsical risks in any project to foster Wikimedia engagement where little engagement has previously occurred, and we see value in both achieving our goals and in documenting this process for further rounds of partnership building across the Portuguese-speaking world.


Wiki Loves Folklore Brasil

FEBRUARY / MARCH

Wiki Loves Folklore (WLF) (Wiki Loves Popular Culture, in Portuguese) is an annual competition organized by members of the Wikimedia community around the world. Participants take photographs, record videos and audios of various manifestations of Brazilian popular culture from their region or places they have visited, then upload them to Wikimedia Commons. The contest aims to give visibility to the intangible heritage of the participating countries, encouraging people to record them in some media and to publish these images, videos and audios under a free license, so that they can be used not only on Wikipedia, but anywhere and by anyone.

At left, the winner of WLF Brasil 2024: Cavalhadas de Pirenópolis, GO, by Michelly Matoss.


Every Book Its Reader

APRIL

Every Book Its Reader (#EveryBookItsReader) is a campaign to increase quality content about books, literary works, and their authors specially in Wikipedia. The campaign name is the third law in Ranganathan’s five laws of library science. The overall campaign has been planned and organized by nine volunteer Wikimedians, who are passionate about books and stories. In Brazil, the campaign is organized by Lilian Viana (Library of ECA/USP) and Stela Madruga (Library of IME/USP).


WikiCon Brasil 2025

JULY

The first ever conference for the Brazilian community occured in 2022, in São Paulo city, and gathered wikimedians from all across the country for a program designed to strategically strengthen Wikimedia outreach in Brazil. Wikimedia against misinformation was the main topic of this event because in recent years Brazil and the world have been suffering from misinformation: misleading, fabricated, exaggerated, manipulated or false content circulates on the internet, aimed at obtaining financial or political gains. Threat to open knowledge, the circulation of false information threatens the strengthening of reliable communication in the political and social spheres.

In 2025, the second edition will happen in the city of Salvador, the capital of the state of Bahia and one of the oldest and first planned city of Brazil. Some of our GLAM-Wiki partners will also attend to the event and present joint activities.


Wiki Loves Monuments Brasil

SEPTEMBER

Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM) is an annual photo competition organized by members of the Wikimedia community around the world. Wiki Movimento Brasil organize the national phase of Wiki Loves Monuments contest since 2019.

During this period, we invite anyone who has photographs of their own, current or from other years, which depict monuments and historic buildings, to upload these images to Wikimedia Commons. With this simple act, each photographer contributes to increasing the visibility of the built heritage of Brazil's cities, reinforcing their historical and cultural importance and, most importantly, preserving local memory and recording the passage of time.

At right, the winner of WLM Brasil 2024: Museu de Arte da Pampulha, Belo Horizonte, MG, by Rkieferbaum.

You may want to check the map with the listed / historical assets we've gathered along the years:

> > > LINK HERE < < <


Exploring Wikidata & Building Community for Cultural Heritage Professionals

A Beginner's Guide to Wikidata for Cultural Heritage

A Beginner's Guide to Wikidata for Cultural Heritage

At the end of last year the WMDE team digitales Kulturgut, which supports use of the Wikimedia Projects to build linked open cultural heritage data in Germany, published a new guide to help cultural heritage professionals get to grips with wikidata: A Beginner's Guide to Wikidata for Cultural Heritage. It's a curated collection of some great pre-existing resources, broken down into modules, with different styles of presentation to suit different learning styles. We eventually hope to produce equivalent content in German language, and extend the curriculum. For now we hope this offers an easy way to get started with the practicalities of using wikidata as an institutional/GLAM employee or digital humanities researcher. Take a look - all feedback welcome!

For more of our learning resources for German cultural heritage professionals, check out our page on meta: WMDE Offene Kulturdaten - Lernressourcen

Welcome WikiKult - a new community of practice for cultural heritage professionals

Since our kick-off last year (read about it here) our German language community of practice for cultural heritage professionals working with the wikimedia projects to build Linked Open Data has been taking shape. Meeting monthly with rotating moderation, we've established a name and a homepage –WikiKult - Offene Kulturdaten– and, heavily inspired by the LD4 Wikidata Affinity Group, have recently started hosting presentations from community members who use wikidata and/or wikibase in their work. Our goal is to connect, learn, and collaborate on challenges we can’t tackle alone. Everyone welcome :)



Celebrating Public Domain Day 2025 in Indonesia

Each year, we celebrate Public Domain Day, which falls on January 1st, by collaborating with partners on activities that explore the idea of open culture and cultural freedom. This year, Wikimedia Indonesia and Creative Commons Indonesia held a series of events to celebrate International Public Domain Day 2025. These activities included a walking tour and a meet-up, both in collaboration with the Wikimedia Jakarta Community, and a small, fun challenge called Kurasi Digital, or Digital Curation.

For about a month, we hosted Kurasi Digital, a challenge that invited the public to respond to and recreate new works from public domain materials scattered across the internet. Participants could present their work in various forms, such as digital exhibitions, photo essays, articles, annotations on public domain works, derivative works, and so on. The results were quite interesting. Here are the top three creators who participated in the challenge

Abrid Madilantoro: Javart Nouveau: Javanese Decorative Asset (First winner)

Abrid drew inspiration from the illuminated manuscript Chronicle of a Javanese Court in Yogyakarta (1800–1849), also known as Wedana Renggan, to create decorative assets. The manuscript's illuminations share stylistic similarities with the 19th-century European Art Nouveau movement, which Abrid termed "Javart Nouveau."

Yolanda Wahidatunisa: Warisan André Derain: Melacak Jejak Fauvisme di Era Digital (Second winner)

Yolanda conducted a study of the works of André Derain, a pioneer of Fauvism, a visual style that uses bright colors and expressive lines. In Derain's works, color no longer functions merely to depict objects realistically, but rather to convey feelings and moods. Yolanda presented Derain's works in the form of portraits, still lifes, and landscapes.

Arya Danendra Kurnia Dipraja: (Impresi) Hindia Indah (Third winner)

Arya compiled a collection of paintings from several painters, ranging from European descendants to indigenous people who visited and stayed in the Dutch East Indies and created paintings in the Mooi Indie style. He intentionally collected these curated paintings to tell a story while conveying an impression: Beautiful Indies.

And here are some of the documentations from the walking tour. We explored some of historical sites in Jakarta such as National Archive Building, Chinese neighborhood in Glodok, and several museums around Old Batavia.


New Wikimedia Italia Grant for GLAMs

Drawing by Domenico Piola

Since 2021, Wikimedia Italia GLAM grant has supported cultural institutions in Italy in making their digitized heritage freely accessible online. Organized in collaboration with ICOM Italy and Creative Commons Italy, the initiative promotes the open reuse of public domain images and content under free licenses.

The GLAM grant is open to cultural institutions of all sizes, both public and private, across Italy. While primarily aimed at museums, archives, and libraries, it also welcomes proposals from organizations managing cultural collections. The grant provides funding between €2,000 and €8,000 for projects that facilitate the online sharing of cultural heritage materials through Wikimedia platforms and other open-access initiatives.

3D scan of a skeleton of a purple heron

Over the years, the grant has supported 30 projects from institutions across Italy. Some have focused on multimedia contributions, such as the Museums of Strada Nuova in Genoa and the high school Aldo Capitini in Perugia, which uploaded images to Wikimedia Commons, enriched Wikidata, and expanded Wikipedia entries. Others have enabled the release of entire book scans, like the Archiepiscopal Library of Brindisi (medieval manuscripts and incunabula) and the University of Turin's Economics Library (local history texts). The initiative has also supported 3D digitization projects at the Natural History Museum of Pisa and database integrations with OpenStreetMap by the CNR Library in Bologna.

The 2025 call for proposals is open until March 1st.


3 Million Dutch Cultural Heritage Images in Commons & 400,000 RCE images now in higher resolution & Usage of DBNL in Dutch Wikipedia articles

3 Million Dutch cultural heritage images in Commons

Lizzy Jongma at a GLAM-Wiki-UK-conference in 2013, speaking about opening up museum collections

Dutch GLAM institutions (libraries, archives and museums) were quick to join the open access movement. From 2000 onwards Dutch museums, archives and libraries made millions of images from their collections available online - no watermarks, open access. That was far from usual practice at museums at the time. I still vividly remember a meeting for cultural institutions in Florence in 2015. Lizzy Jongma of Rijksmuseum Amsterdam enthusiastically explained why the Rijksmuseum had decided to publish all images of art works from the Rijksmuseum that were in the Public Domain in high resolution on their website. As I was sitting in the back of the large room (an amphitheater, with at least one thousand attendants) I could closely watch museum directors shaking their heads in disbelief. Their first question was of course about "the business model". Jongma explained that Rijksmuseum wouldn't need to handle thousands of invoices of EUR 40 each anymore, and could diminish staff at that department from 30 to 5. The rest of the staff could be employed elsewhere in the museum, e.g. digitizing materials. Cheaper, and more beneficial to the world. At the same time, this would improve attention for the Rijksmuseum collections. "And these Chinese mugs might even have their Rembrandt colours improved - because they can now download highres originals."

Images copied to Commons on a large scale from 2009

Dutch GLAM institutions were helpful in bringing millions of images to Wikimedia Commons. My rough estimate is that 3 million images were brought to Commons during the years 2009 up to 2024. Most of the time the two parties formed a kind of alliance, in which the museums, archives and libraries make images available and facilitate the process of uploads by Wikimedians. To show this, I will give seven typical examples of Dutch GLAM taken to Commons in the following overview.

Dutch GLAM to Commons

Institution Date Example Number / usage (1-1-2025)
Tropenmuseum Amsterdam 2009-2010 51,935 images; usage: 34,739
Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands (Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed) 2012-2013 486,362 images; usage: 54,601
Naturalis Biodiversity Center 2015-2016 277,704 images; usage 33,856
Amsterdam City Archives (Stadsarchief Amsterdam) 2016-2018 24,909 images; usage: 8,602
Dutch National Archives (incl. Anefo) 2017-2018 531,292 images; usage: 244,521
Rijksmuseum Amsterdam 2018-2019 545,860 images; usage 95,234
Leiden University Libraries 2010- 193,900 images; usage: 15,586
More than 50 other collections 2010- est.: 1 Million images

2,1 Million images from these 7 GLAM institutions were brought to Commons. These images are now used 487,000 times across Wiki. That's not bad at all. My rough estimate is that there are currently (Jan. 2025) 3 million Dutch GLAM images uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. Thanks to Wiki-colleagues Multichill, Basvb, Husky, Jan Arkesteijn, Hansmuller, Fæ, Olaf Janssen, Vera de Kok, Mr.Nostalgic, Clausule, Spinster, 85jesse, MichellevL, Jane023, Robotje, Ymnes, Alexis Jazz, Kleon3, Mdd, Wikimedia Netherlands and many others.

400,000 RCE images now in higher resolution

Dutch windmill in Arkel - now available in higher resolution

Way back in 2011 the Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (RCE, Government Service for Dutch National Heritage) made 450,000 images of Dutch heritage available under a Creative Commnons license. These images were copied to Wikimedia Commons in 2012 and 2013. RCE later uploaded another 500,000 images to the RCE website, a.o. of shipwrecks and of Dutch cultural heritage in Africa, Asia and South America. The RCE website now holds almost 1 million images. However, the images uploaded 13 years ago were in low resolution. 400,000 of the RCE images uploaded in 2012 are now upgraded to higher resolution, thanks to Mr.Nostalgic who performed this task in the last months of 2024. By the way: RCE is currently making structured data available for these images, and is also making suggestions for uploading the next half a million images to Commons. Go for it!


Usage of DBNL in Dutch Wikipedia articles

Usage of DBNL in Dutch Wikipedia articles, per september 2024

The Digital Library for Dutch Literature (DBNL) is a frequently used source in the Dutch Wikipedia.

In this article in Dutch, we look at how often DBNL is referred to in which Wikipedia articles, and which DBNL pages are cited most often. We also search for Wikipedia articles that are entirely or largely based on DBNL.

The most important points (as of September 5, 2024) from this article are:

  • 18,458 distinct Wikipedia articles together contain 30,768 links to 27,875 distinct pages in the DBNL.
  • These references are mainly to DBNL author pages (16,591 URLs), followed by texts (13,835 URLs) and titles (240 URLs).
  • The article De groote schouburgh der Neder­lantsche konstschilders en schilderessen contains the most links to the DBNL with 442, followed by the article Schilder-boeck, with 70 DBNL URLs.
  • The table of contents of the Algemeen letterkundig lexicon is referred to no less than 229 times from Wikipedia, with the PDF of De eerste Surinaamse sportencyclopedie (1893-1988) by Ricky W. Stutgard in second place, with 147 references.
  • There are 17 Wikipedia articles that were written (almost) entirely on the basis of DBNL content. In other words: they owe their existence to a large extent to the DBNL.
  • The underlying raw data used in this article is available on GitHub.

See also


Student led Edit-a-thon

Student led Edit-a-thon at Auckland Museum

The Wikipedia summer students have been working hard, and have collectively created 25 new articles and added 739 references! They also hosted an edit-a-thon, 'Stub It Out: Developing Tāmaki's Wiki Stub Articles' at the Auckland Museum research library.

  • Students giving an editing presentation to attendees
    Students giving an editing presentation to attendees
  • New Wiki editor learning how to make their first edit
    New Wiki editor learning how to make their first edit
  • Setting up userpages
    Setting up userpages
  • Explaining to what a stub article is
    Explaining to what a stub article is
Auckland Museum staff at 1Lib1Ref event January 2025

The students led a group of 23 mostly brand editors, in a brief presentation, explaining the rules and guidelines of Wikipedia. They then taught attendees the basics of editing, how to make citations and save their edits. Once everyone was confident to make their first edits, the students helped the new editors to pick topics from a list of stub articles they had prepared. With support from the students, attendees quickly got on to researching and editing, making use of the library resources. By the end of the session, 16 articles were improved, 45 edits were made and 1.65K words were added. Attendees then came together for kai, many reflecting on how fun editing was!

The Auckland Museum WiR (Winnieswikiworld) has been making progress on the content projects, WikiProject Migrants of Colour Stories Aotearoa and Wikiproject x Online Cenotaph. As part of the later project, a page was created for the New Zealand Liberation Museum after staff were encouraged to upload images of the museum to Wikimedia Commons. Winnieswikiworld also hosted a successful #1Lib1Ref event with Auckland Museum staff. Participants were tasked to add citations and make edits on pages related to Tāmaki Makaurau and Aotearoa, focusing on enriching our local and national content on Wikipedia. In the session, edits were made on 25 diverse articles including, Auckland Art Gallery, Crown Lynn, Women’s suffrage in New Zealand, Hoani Waititi Marae Albert Barracks, Crown copyright, Wi Tako Ngātata and TEV Wahine. Overall it was a great day with new editors leaving feeling accomplished!


GLAM-Wiki 2024 in Poland: Achievements, Collaborations, and Impact

Wikimedians in Residence Online Meeting: Summary and Plans for 2025

  • GLAM logo
    GLAM logo
  • MNK logo
    MNK logo
  • Czartoryski Library logo
    Czartoryski Library logo
  • Polona logo
    Polona logo
  • Mazovian Digital Library logo
    Mazovian Digital Library logo

On January 24, another online meeting of Wikimedians in Residence took place, organized by Kamila Neuman, Open Culture Manager. These regular meetings provide a space for exchanging experiences, discussing ongoing projects, and planning further collaboration within GLAM-Wiki.

The meeting was attended by Wikimedians in Residence: Wojciech Szczęsny (National Library of Poland), Agata Stadnicka (Czartoryski Library), and Grzegorz Gogacz (Digital Mazovian Library).

The main topics of the meeting included a review of the activities of Wikimedians in Residence in 2024 and plans for 2025. Participants discussed reports on past collaborations, new analytical tools, and methods for measuring the impact of GLAM-Wiki initiatives. The conversation also covered the development of partnerships with cultural institutions, support for partner organizations, and the continued expansion of the collaboration network.

Another key focus was planning upcoming activities, including individual meetings, the development of the GLAM-Wiki guide, and the organization of events related to GLAM-Wiki in 2025.

The meeting concluded with setting priorities for the coming months and emphasizing the importance of collective efforts in increasing the visibility and effectiveness of cooperation with cultural institutions.

Summary of 2024: Wikimedia Contributions of Agata Stadnicka, the National Museum in Krakow

  • Jan Matejko - Kościuszko at Racławice
    Jan Matejko - Kościuszko at Racławice
  • Siemiradski Fackeln by Henryk Siermiradzki
    Siemiradski Fackeln by Henryk Siermiradzki
  • Jan Matejko - Ivan the Terrible
    Jan Matejko - Ivan the Terrible
  • Jan Matejko - Polonia 1863 (Poland Enchained)
    Jan Matejko - Polonia 1863 (Poland Enchained)
  • WikiMatejko at Wikimania 2024
    WikiMatejko at Wikimania 2024

Agata Stadnicka, Wikimedian in Residence at the National Museum in Krakow, has been actively contributing to Wikimedia projects by expanding content related to Polish art and cultural heritage. At the end of 2024, she also began her role as a Wikimedian in Residence at the Czartoryski Library, further strengthening her efforts in the GLAM-Wiki collaboration.

Wikipedia Contributions:

  • 12 new articles created, 10 expanded.
  • 5 articles featured in the Did You Know... section.

Most Viewed Articles:

  • Jan Matejko – 139,375 views.
  • Stanisław Wyspiański – 137,306 views.
  • Tamara Łempicka – 67,982 views.

Most Viewed Articles about the Paintings:

  • Rejtan – 38,285 views.
  • Wernyhora – 13,191 views.
  • Kościuszko pod Racławicami – 12,935 views.

Wikimedia Commons:

  • Total file views: 41.6 million.

Most viewed images:

  • Nero’s Torches by Henryk Siemiradzki.
  • Ivan the Terrible by Jan Matejko.
  • Polonia – Year 1863 by Jan Matejko.

Editing and Wikidata Contributions:

  • 2,249 edits in Wikidata.
  • 81 new images added to Wikidata items.

Events and Presentations:

  • Wikimania 2024 Presentation: Delivered a talk in Katowice about the WikiMatejko editing campaign, organized in collaboration with the National Museum in Krakow as part of the GLAM-Wiki partnership.

Summary of 2024: Polona Resources and Wikimedia Contributions

  • Dobrawa
    Dobrawa
  • Boleslaw I Chrobry
    Boleslaw I Chrobry
  • Mieszko I
    Mieszko I
  • Jan III Sobieski
    Jan III Sobieski
  • Anna Jagiellonka
    Anna Jagiellonka

Wojciech Szczęsny, Wikimedian in Residence at the National Library in Warsaw, has been actively contributing to Wikimedia projects by integrating valuable cultural resources into the digital space. His efforts have significantly expanded the presence of Polona's collections across Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, and other sister projects.

Activity in Wikimedia Projects:

  • Polish Wikipedia: 1,800 edits, 1,257 images added in 851 articles.
  • Foreign-language Wikipedias: 2,600 edits, 2,800 images.
  • Wikidata: 1,750 edits, 1,235 images.
  • Wikimedia Commons: 11,000 edits (categorization, description improvements).

Illustrations from Polona in Wikimedia Commons:

  • Number of uploaded files: 161,000.
  • Inserted illustrations: 5,300 times.
  • Key collections: Scans of Poczet królów i książąt by Jan Matejko, portraits of writers and artists.
  • Views of Matejko’s scans: 2.7 million per month (in 80 Wikipedia language versions).

Article Creation and Expansion:

  • 125 articles (15 new, 110 expanded).
  • Topics: Exhibition at the Palace of the Republic, exhibits, biographies.

Statistics of Files from Polona:

  • Total in Wikimedia Commons: 1,068,217 files (record among Polish institutions).
  • Files used in articles: 18,200 (6,100 unique).
  • Number of illustrated pages: 13,400.
  • Total views: 72 million.

Growth in Resource Usage:

The monthly number of file views increased 3.5 times (from 3.4 million to 12.2 million) due to a large number of added illustrations and their strategic placement in popular articles across different language versions. Files from Polona are present in about 90 language versions of Wikipedia and related projects. The number of used illustrations more than doubled (from 7,700 to 18,200), as did the number of illustrated articles (from 6,100 to 13,400).

Summary of 2024: Contributions of Wikimedian in Residence Grzegorz Gogacz

  • Portrait of Józef Bohdan Zaleski
    Portrait of Józef Bohdan Zaleski
  • Portrait of Eugenia Kierbedziowa
    Portrait of Eugenia Kierbedziowa
  • Portrait of Enrico Ferri
    Portrait of Enrico Ferri

Grzegorz Gogacz, Wikimedian in Residence at the Warsaw Public Library – Central Library of the Masovian Voivodeship, has been actively involved in integrating valuable historical resources into Wikimedia projects. His efforts have focused on expanding the visibility of 19th-century press illustrations of Warsaw, improving metadata, and supporting educational initiatives related to open knowledge.

Collaboration with Wikimedia Commons:

  • Number of uploaded files from the Warsaw in 19th-Century Press Illustrations collection: 479 files.
  • Images used in articles: 2,644 articles across 79 language versions of Wikipedia.

Editing Contributions:

  • 650 categories assigned to newly uploaded images.
  • 1,000 edits in Wikidata.

Events and Outreach:

  • Workshops: Training session for library staff.
  • Conferences and projects:
    • Participation in IMPACT24 - contribution to the Szyfrodziewczyny project – editing Wikipedia entries, promoting the Digital Mazovian Library.
    • Presentation on file categorization at Wzlot 2024.

Viewership Statistics:

  • Total number of views: 12,041,373


Wikimedia Serbia: Advancing GLAM collaborations and digital heritage

Wikipedian in residence projects

Wikimedia Serbia has been successfully running the Wikipedian in residence program, collaborating with various cultural institutions since 2014. The collaboration with the Little Theatre "Duško Radović" has been organized, leading to the creation of 61 new articles, 44 improved articles, and 96 illustrated. Additionally, 1.752 files, including programs and posters, were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. This included significant contributions like monographs, theater programs, and posters. This collaboration also provided opportunities for valuable digitization work and content creation, enriching both Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Commons repository.

An another Wikipedian in Residence project began in September with the National Library “Dobrilо Nenadić” in Arilje. This project focused on digitizing important content, such as books, catalogs, and photographs, and resulted in the creation of 60 new articles and 11 improved. During this project, a total of 463 files were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons.

In addition, a collaboration with the Public Library “Bora Stanković” in Vranje was organized, leading to having 30 new articles on Wikipedia and 200 files uploaded to Wikimedia Commons.

Funding and digitization Projects

Wikimedia Serbia in cooperation with Wikimedia MKD applied for funding from the Serbian Ministry of Finance’s program for the protection and digitization of cultural heritage. Also, Wikimedia Serbia applied for funding from the Ministry of Culture Republic of Serbia with the Wikipedian in residence project.

#1Lib1Ref Campaign and Wikimedia + Libraries initiatives

Wikimedia Serbia contributed significantly to the #1Lib1Ref campaign in collaboration with the University Library "Svetozar Marković" and the Wikimedia community of the Republic of Srpska. The campaign, which focused on adding references to Wikipedia articles, will ran from January 15 to February 5. During January, Serbian Wikipedia was improved with 12,517 references added to 2,425 articles. Wikimedia Serbia has also been planning for the 2025 #1Lib1Ref campaign and global coordination efforts.


Swiss GLAM Programme

GLAM Biel/Bienne

Clay mask, Japan
Clay mask, Japan

At the museum Centre d'Art we continued working on Faces and Masks. Participants exchanged on the topic and edited in French and German. We discussed on how the pandemic changed our perception of each other. A mask can be a protection but also a way to hide oneself. The term Social Distancing changed our mindset. From feeling safe and secure eople were alone and often isolated from their loved ones. Young people grew up in a very different way from the years under and above them. Other values suddenly got important. The change on society is quite intense as new research shows. What about the eyes in a mask and in a face? Are they the straight view to the soul as some stories are saying? The different parts of the face are shapening our identity and perception by others.



Decolonization

Decolonising knowledge meeting at ETHZ
Decolonising knowledge meeting at ETHZ

In January the decolonizing project took place with guided museum tours in Zurich. The first tour and editathon was at the ETH where some articles had been created. Allthough Switzerland seems to have had no own colonies scientists had been involved in race theories and exploitation. The results can be found here. The ETH already uploaded themselves their material on Commons. The decolonizing work at the ETH is described here.


3D project

Chorus of souls in the mirrorspace
Chorus of souls in the mirrorspace

Starting the 3D-project on archiving objects and collections leads to a lot of questions on how to store heritage in collections. The aim of the project is to start discussions with cultural institutions on the different ways of archiving in the digital space. On the project page ideas and methods will be presented.


Cairo Geniza

Khalili Foundation

Manuscript fragment written by Maimonidies, from Cambridge University Library

Most of the work over the past month has been on the Memory of the World project, for which there is a separate report.

I spent a day at Cambridge University Library, visiting Professor Ben Outhwaite and Dr Melonie Schmierer-Lee to learn about the Cairo Geniza, 200,000 manuscripts from which are held at Cambridge. We discussed the possibility of using the Geniza materials in Interfaith Explorers to underline the shared history of Jews and Muslims. We also discussed sharing data on Wikidata about treasures of the collection to make the individual manuscripts more visible to search tools. The Geniza is already well-documented on Wikipedia, including the use of digital images from Cambridge, but the collection is relevant to a wide range of topics and so there is scope for more mentions of this very important resource.

I have been invited by the Wikimedia Foundation to speak about the Khalili Collections at the Commons community discussion on 5 February. I am also invited to speak online to Deoband Community Wikimedia, a community group looking to improve coverage of "global Muslim academia, scholarship, history and culture, at a global level, in any language."

There are no new articles or translations this month. The Commons analytics tool reports a total of 4,716,973 image views from 104 wikis.


Wikipedia Day

Wikipedia Day NYC

Wikimedia NYC and Brooklyn Public Library held a meetup, NYC/Wikipedia Day 2025. They held lightning talks, and had partner tables.

Wikipedia Day Utah

Utah Wikimedians, Sundance film festival enthusiasts and friends celebrated Wikipedia's birthday in Park City as part of the Wikipedia Day, Utah/Wikipedia Day 2024

Wikiportraits took photos of notable filmmakers, 2025 Sundance Film Festival



BHL-Wiki Working Group January monthly highlights

Agenda & recording of the January 2025 meeting

The agenda for the meeting can be found at this link. The agenda document gives notes taken during the meeting, action items, as well as the dates of future online meetings and the zoom link to join. Links to the recordings of the previous meetings are also given.

The next BHL wiki working group will be on Monday the 17th February 2025 at 2:00 pm EST.

Meeting with BHL Persistent Identifiers Working Group (PIDs)

The BHL Wikimedian in Residence Tiago Lubiana and the BHL Wiki Working Group chair Siobhan Leachman met with the BHL Persistent Identifiers Working Group (PIDs) to discuss work being undertaken and how best to coordinate approaches.

As part of this discussion a request was made by the PIDs group that the BHL creator id mix'n'match dataset be refreshed. The previous dataset was uploaded in 2018 and contained many now deprecated in BHL identifiers. Tiago has commenced uploading a new dataset for the BHL Creator id into the Mix'n'match tool which will be ready to work on soon.

Wikimedian in Residence

Tiago continues to make wonderful progress in his BHL wikimedian in residence roll. He recently updated both the Wiki and BHL communities with what he's been working on. See his update here.

Scoping group metrics

A discussion was had around the scoping of the BHL Wiki Working Group's impact metrics with JJ Dearborn, the BHL data manager, taking the group through the BHL wiki working group's github repository impact visualisations. She pointed out that for such a newly formed group our impact has been impressive with 97 story points marked as done.

The group was asked to consider other metrics and Tiago and Siobhan added points raised at the recent BHL PIDs working group meeting that are a priority for the PIDs group. The PIDs group was keen to see the impact of their DOI creation work and whether these identifiers were being used in various language Wikipedias and on Wikidata etc.

BHL Data Model for images on Wikimedia Commons

BHL file with structured data added in line with the BHL data model.

Tiago presented to the group on progress being made on the BHL data model for BHL sourced files in Wikimedia Commons. He has been collating the various discussion documents created by the group on a SDC model and has created a minimum agreed data model for structured data on commons for BHL files.

This minimum data model is version controlled so Tiago can track the edits made both to this model as well as which version of the model was used when adding structured data on commons to BHL files. See this google doc and this sheet for more information.

He also pointed out that of the 300,000 files sourced from BHL on Wikimedia Commons, 60,000 are pdf downloads of publications. Tiago explained that currently there is no structured data way to link the pdf for the work to the Wikicommons image files sourced from that work and vice versa. A discussion resulted amongst the group about ways and methods to solve this issue.

BHL FAQ relating to Wiki work

Members of our working group have been contributing to drafting updates to the BHL FAQ website page for Wiki related questions. See this document for the draft proposed changes.

Achieving the goals of the WMF Q3 Hypothesis statement

The current statement is: “If 3,000 well-described images of South American and/or African species are released to the wider biodiversity community through 2-3 editing events and an on-wiki worklist, XX new images will be utilized on Spanish and French Wikimedia projects.”

The group discussed expanding this to add the Portuguese Wikimedia project to the list.

A discussion was also had about increasing the number of events proposed. The Wikimedian in Residence statement of work sets out a goal of one event being held. Giovanna Fontenelle from the WMF explained that she would be undertaking and supporting the organisation of the editing events associated with the statement of work. It was proposed the events take place at or around the end of March. The expectation is that one event per language would take place and that around 10% of the images would be used, which would mean 300 media files illustrating Wikipedia articles.

The hypothesis will be amended to reflect the discussion from the working group meeting.


Join the Global GLAM Call – Tuesday, February 11th, 13:30 UTC!


📢 Join the Global GLAM Call – Tuesday, February 11th, 13:30 UTC! 🌍✨

Hey GLAM folks!

Our next Global GLAM Call is happening **Tuesday, February 11th at 13:30 UTC, and you don’t want to miss it! 🗓️ This is your chance to connect, discuss, and shape the future of GLAM collaboration.

📌 Register here 👉 event page

💬 Need translation to or from a language other than English?
Indicate it on the event page, and we’ll do our best to support you! 🌍🗣️

Agenda Highlights

  • Quick Welcome & Friendly Space Policy
  • Decision Time: Let’s finalize our 2025 meeting schedule.
  • Updates: GLAM pages revamp
  • Discussions
    • Moving This Month in GLAM to Meta – what do you think?
    • GLAM organizational structure – do we need a working group?
  • Open Floor! Got questions, ideas, or updates? We want to hear from you!

Mark your calendar and join us!💡🎙️

📅 When? Tuesday, February 11th, 13:30 UTC

💻 Where? Register on Meta

See you there! 🚀


To the front page!

This is the fourth monthly report of the ongoing work to improve the representation of the UNESCO Memory of the World international register on Wikimedia projects. This is supported and fully funded by the Khalili Foundation, with the involvement of UNESCO and Wikimedia UK.

Advocacy

At a Wikimedia UK event at the University of Leeds, I presented about the Memory of the World project and led a discussion on ways forward for the work. This led to a follow-up online meeting with John Cummings (former Wikimedian In Residence at UNESCO, now working with UN organisations to share their content on Wikimedia) and an email exchange with Ewan McAndrew (WIR at University of Edinburgh).

A lot of suggestions for the project have come out of these discussions. We talked about international contacts the group could tell about the project, student projects at the University of Edinburgh that might create articles, OpenRefine software that could help with bulk-importing the data set, and Wikiprojects that I can use to engage volunteers. There was a comment that with a scope of 500 articles in 300 languages, this is potentially the biggest GLAM-Wiki project ever. What we can aim to do in the current time-limited project is to make it easier to monitor progress and set in motion activity that creates and improves articles over the next few years.

On English Wikipedia

An African Song or Chant from Barbados

On Commons

A systematic problem on Wikimedia Commons is that categories are applied too broadly. For example, all files relevant to the Rig Veda are included in the Memory of the World category, even though only certain Rig Veda manuscripts have MOW status. The same applies to the Gutenberg Bible. Thus, huge numbers of images that have nothing to do with MOW appear in the Commons category. I have done some edits to improve the situation, talked about this problem at the Leeds event, and will raise the issue with the community to try and get volunteer help. There might have to be a dedicated category for digital representations of MOW inscriptions, but that would be a lot of work so I hope instead we can fix the existing categories.

New articles in other languages

These have been created by volunteers, not always with links to the relevant entry in the UNESCO MOW online register. So there is scope for future work to add them.

Page views on Wikipedia

  • This link shows the popularity (views by humans) of English Wikipedia articles about the Memory of the World programme and International Register (not articles about the individual inscriptions). Following the "All languages" links and summing the numbers, we get 20,042 page views.


Wikidata at WikiLibCon 2025


At this year's Wikimedia+Libraries International Convention 2025 (WikiLibCon25), the Data Partnerships team for Wikidata at Wikimedia Deutschland organized a Wikidata Workshop for Wiki Librarians. The 90-min workshop was well attended, and several librarians were inspired by some of the use cases shared at the workshop.

Apart from the Wikidata Workshop, we were also gave a keynote speech titled: Data Partnerships & Libraries: Joining Forces Against Disinformation and shared the importance of Wikidata data partnerships and how Wikimedian Librarians can use Wikidata in their professional work to fight against disinformation.


Links to presentation decks:
Wikidata Workshop (WikiLibCon25)
WikiLibCon25- Data Partnerships & Libraries


February's GLAM events

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