GLAM/Newsletter/June 2017/Contents/Belgium report

This Month in GLAM – Volume VII, Issue VI, June 2017

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Belgium report

GLAM seminar Sharing is Caring

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Sharing is Caring - Brussels Extension

On 20 June 2017 we organised as the closing event of the project Wiki Loves Art 2016, the photo contest in museums and heritage libraries to get more images of artworks, historic museum pieces and the exterior/interior of institutions itself on Wikipedia. In July-August 2016, anyone interested could go to the participating museums and heritage libraries and take photos for on Wikipedia and beyond. We organised the project to get better Wikipedia articles and more online visibility for the participating institutions, and to have extra attention for the Belgian cultural heritage on Wikipedia. Wiki Loves Art also has been organised to show cultural institutions how easy it is to work together with Wikipedia and Wikimedia, and that collaboration is possible.

Sharing is Caring is a conference platform focused on collaboration and sharing in the cultural heritage sector, bringing together practitioners, researchers, and users of culture. In analogy to the TED conferences and local TEDx extensions, the format is spreading from the core-event in Denmark to other countries, where local extensions address the topics that are close to their heart and their community. After the first extension in Hamburg, Wikimedia Belgium and PACKED vzw framed their closing event for the Wiki Loves Art 2016 within this platform as ‘Sharing is Caring – Brussels Extension: Opening up with Wikimedia’.

The ’Sharing is Caring – Brussels extension’ conference introduced the Belgian heritage sector to the possible applications of the various Wikimedia platforms for opening up digital collections. The conference showcased examples from museums, libraries and archives from Belgium and abroad. Besides showcasing Wiki-GLAM cooperations, the goal of the conference was to find motivated individuals and institutions with whom to organise content donations, promote reuse and remix.

At the seminar we had speakers from multiple fields in the GLAM world sharing their experiences and best practises with Wikipedia and Wikimedia. Visitors at the seminar came from various parts of Belgium and from the various GLAM fields. More information about the seminar can be found at the page WMBE: Sharing is Caring Brussels 2017 and the website. (photos)