GLAM/Newsletter/July 2019/Contents/Indonesia report

This Month in GLAM – Volume IX, Issue VII, July 2019

Indonesia report

Cultural Gardener Summer Project in Indonesia

Wikimedia Taiwan–Wikimedia Indonesia collaboration

In the early 2019, Wikimedia Indonesia was contacted by Shangkuanlc (from Wikimedia Taiwan). He said that there would be a pilot project to documenting objects in the National Museum of Indonesia and enriching the contents in the Wikimedia projects related to the museum. This will be participated by students from National Chengchi University and National Cheng Kong University. The project was intended to be a summer project, when the students are free from their university activities and are able to stay overseas for at least one month. After further discussion, the project would happen in July 2019 and three students would be flying to Indonesia.

The National Museum of Indonesia was chosen because of its uniqueness of placing the objects in the courtyard. The students, guided by their professor in the university, were trying to find out the reason behind the object placement, and create a short documentation video to explain their findings to the public. In addition, the students also took photograph of the statues inside the museum, uploaded the photographs to Wikimedia Commons, and also created Wikidata items for each objects.

Outcomes

After visiting the museum and interviewing several sources, including the museum staff, they were able to produce a video, explaining the background of the museum, how they engage with the visitors, and how GLAM project have impact in the museum and/or other institutions in Indonesia. A 5-minute video can be watched here.

The team also successfully uploaded 196 photographs of museum objects to Wikimedia Commons, and created 182 new Wikidata items, completed with the corresponding statements and object inventory numbers from the National Museum of Indonesia.

Gallery

Statue of Vishnu
The Type of Scene Statue
Status of Male Head
Relief of Sudhamala Statue
Statue of Bhairawa Buddha
Visiting Library of the National Museum of Indonesia
One of the books in the museum library

Future activities

This August, Wikimedia Indonesia will start its digitization activities in Museum Uang Sumatera and Pusat Penelitian Kelapa Sawit. These institutions have signed agreements and agreed to open their collections to Wikimedia Commons.