GLAM/Newsletter/June 2023/Single
CEE Spring Campaign 2023, Albania and Kosovo
CEE Spring in Albania and Kosovo
In 2023, Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group joined the CEE Spring Campaign to distribute information about history, culture, traditions, and people in order to increase the quantity and quality of free knowledge of the Central European Eastern region in the Albanian language for 2 months.
This year, the campaign has increased the quantity of CEE Spring-related content on Wikipedia and diversified the topics covered.
Even on our end, our Group included new topics not translated into many foreign languages.
We also invited and encouraged the participants to write about different topics from all the regions within the CEE Campaign and address gaps in SQ Wikipedia's coverage.
Statistics from this campaign are as below:
- Editors: 6
- Articles created and edited: 65
Social media
- We have a public Telegram channel (language used mostly Albanian) if you want to join and discuss Wikimedia projects.
If you want to see more about our activities, you can:
- Like our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter or Instagram
Donation of images from the National Centre for Biological Sciences
The Archives at NCBS, Bangalore received a donation of material from the family of Leslie Coleman (16 June 1878 – 14 September 1954) - and by Indian Copyright Act (life+60 years), most of the material is in public domain. Anyone is welcome to import material of interest from the archives into Commons - Category:Leslie Coleman with the template NCBS-media for any article development.
Native Brazilian photographer wins Wiki Loves Folklore Brazil 2023
During the months of February and March of this year, Wiki Movimento Brasil (WMB) organized Wiki Loves Folklore 2023 in Brazil. That was the first time this contest was organized in the country and brought beautiful images to highligh the Brazilian culture. The winning picture is a photograph submitted by a Native Brazilian photographer of the Xakriabá people and depicts a pajé of the same people dancing and singing during the ritual of the Toré in the Xakriabá Indigenous Land in São João das Missões, municipality of Minas Gerais.
The winner photographer, with two more images in the top 10, is Edgar Kanaykõ Xakriaba, born, raised and resident of the Xakriabá Indigenous Land. His fantastic photographic work is the central topic of his Master Thesis in Social Anthropology at Federal University of Minas Gerais, titled "Etnovision: the indigenous look that crosses the lens" (2019), where he discusses photography as a tool for indigenous struggle and resistance. Edgar uses his talent to record his community, other indigenous peoples and their protests all over Brazil.
You can check the contributions from Edgar here and also an interview he gave to WMB about his works. Other wonderful images of this contest are available in Wikimedia Commons and can be used freely by anyone!
Feminism, science and politics - the legacy of Bertha Lutz
In June, another Brazilian collection was recognized as Memory of the World by UNESCO and it is on Wikipedia.
Bertha Lutz was a Brazilian biologist, congresswoman, and feminist. She was one of the founders of the Brazilian Federation for the Advancement of Women (FBPF) and contributed to the grantee of the women's vote in Brazil.
The recognized collection gathers photos, documents and newspaper articles distributed at four institutions. Two of them are on Wikimedia Commons.
- Celebrating the recognition Centro de Memória Unicamp uploaded the images from its collection:
- Brazilian Federation for the Advancement of Women Fund under the custody of the Brazilian National Archives is on Wikipedia since 2017.
Large upload by Museu da Capitania de Ilhéus
Museu da Capitania de Ilhéus uploaded more than 1,300 pages of historical documents about the territory of Ilhéus while Brazil was part of Portuguese Empire. These documents are under the custody of the Torre do Tombo National Archive, in Portugal, and help us to tell the History of Brazil Colony (1500-1808).
Large upload from Musica Brasilis
The project Musica Brasilis provided more 755 new sheet music by 130 Brazilian composers, from 14 Brazilian states. Among them:
- 20 composers from the State of Pará, among them: Antonio Cyrillo Silva, José Marsicano, Meneleu Campos, Ulisses Euclides do Couto Nobre, and Waldemar Magalhães Lima,
- 13 women:
GLAM WikiCon 2023
GLAM WikiConference 2023 organized by Wikimedistas de Uruguay has place and date! It will happen in Montevideo, Uruguay, 16-18 November.
The application for activities to the program may be submitted HERE. This submission form will be available from June 20 - August 6.
Half done in 2023
Half done in 2023
It is mid year and we feel like we are half done with it :-) After few months of absence of reporting now we summarize most of the first half of 2023. Following our January presentation at Museum of Contemporary Art we had multiple follow-ups there and at University of Zagreb in Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, but also a meeting at National and University Library with tentative collaborations for 2024 #1lib1ref.
WikiSPORE and work with students
In mid March, we did a lecture and practicum demo in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb, at department of Information and Communication Sciences inside of Virtual Museum program. We were teaching students on Wikimedia ecosystem with insights into Wikidata, Commons and ... Wikispore! As they got informed and practiced basics we look forward to reconnect after exam season is over (individually) and see some again together after summer break in new academic year.
#1 A+F work
On the May 18th we did first outreach and education in the Art+Feminism mode with the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb, as a MeetUp on the opening of the exhibitions of ‘The visible ones’ (Croatian: Vidljive) and later in June on the exhibition of Sanja Iveković: Works of Heart (as hybrid tutorial), focusing on female contemporary artists and their works in collections of institutions, but also how biographical articles are made on different Wikipedias.
experiments in 20 years of Mi2 and abcDNK.hr
After a several months of on and off experimental work with wikimediating early history of Multimedia Institute in Zagreb, we concluded the first phase and presented the work and related topics on June 14 in hybrid way...with recording and essay available for now (just) in Croatian on abcDNK.hr, where we hope to advance this work. We also currently try to facilitate *(in consultation with WMDE) for abcDNK.hr to migrate both of its website and archive of independent culture onto MediaWiki and potentially switch from custom solution to either Semantic Media Wiki and/or Wikibase, but considering the early stage of Wikibase.Cloud support we are not progressing fast and far. More updates after the summer!
If you're interested in our work, please get in touch at: GLAM@mi2.hr and https://w.wiki/uQT or follow via #GLAMwikiCROATIA #GLAMwikiHR on: FB +Insta. +T and Mastodon.Social ! <3
Museum tour, WLM, handouts and image donation
Factory museum tour
A wikipedian meet-up ended spontaneously in a guided tour through the factory museum of the pliers factory Knipex in Wuppertal. The team got a lesson about numerous facets of Bergisch economic history, which nowadays seem less spectacular in view of technical progress, but still constitute the "feeling of home" of the Bergisch people.
Cooperation with Graveyard Association for Wiki Loves Monuments
In a Digital Salon the collaboration with the Curatorship of Intangible Heritage Cemetery Culture in Germany was featured and discussed. Volunteers from WLM together with GLAM experts from Wikimedia Germany explained the concept of WLM, Wikipedia and Wikimedia commons to interested participants from the association.
Handouts for dealing with paid editing in the GLAM field
A workshop on dealing with paid editing in the GLAM field was held in Kassel in June. The team developed handouts that are available below on the project page on paid writing. This is in continuation of the upload of coins and paintings by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in August 2022. More images will be uploaded later this summer.
Image upload of the State Institute for Music Research
The State Institute for Music Research, an agency of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which operates the Berlin Musical Instrument Museum, has uploaded a first batch 422 images of musical instruments. More images will follow later this summer.
Wiki Exploration Programme GLAM activities
Wiki Explores Darjeeling
One of the main focuses of the 25th Wiki Explores Programme was GLAM. Museums have always been covered right from the very beginning of this programme. But, during Wiki Explores Darjeeling, we documented ten museums from the Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts. The complete list of museums covered is as below -
- Darjeeling Himalayan Railway Museum - Sukna
- Darjeeling Himalayan Railway Museum - Ghum
- Himalayan Tibet Museum - Darjeeling
- Himalayan Mountaineering Institute - Darjeeling
- Roy Villa - Darjeeling
- Tibetan Refugee Self-Help Centre Museum - Darjeeling
- Rabindra Museum - Mungpoo
- Gouripur House - Kalimpong
- Lepcha Museum - Kalimpong
- Tharpa Choling Monastery Museum - Kalimpong
West Bengal Wikimedians User Group obtained permission from the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute to photograph the exhibits displayed in their museum. Dr. Hrishikes Sen helped with the consent. Other museums didn’t need prior approval for documentation. Amitabha Gupta and Sumit Surai were responsible for the documentation.
Documenting Future Museums
Two of these museums, viz. Roy Villa, and Gouripur House, are still under renovation. They used to be the local residences of Sister Nivedita and Rabindranath Tagore. We have documented the current situation and the renovation process. These images and videos will help evaluate the restoration process once completed.
Current Status
The uploading of the photographs and videos is going on now.
Conclusion of Mini Grants; Second #1Lib1Ref Campaign; Wikisource Workshop in Bali
Conclusion of GLAM Mini Grants
Continuing the news from April, the three groups who received grants from GLAM Indonesia has finished their activities.
- Museum Musik Indonesia (Indonesian Music Museum) created a book with the stories of their 20 best collections: File:20 Koleksi Unggulan Museum Musik Indonesia.pdf.
- Sanggar Seni Karawitan Laras Siwi (Laras Siwi Karawitan Art Studio) organized a workshop of Karawitan and uploaded 52 pictures, 2 music audio, and 20 videos including 2 full performances and 2 practice sessions.
- Mandailing Manuscript Digitalization digitized 3 rare Mandailing (of North Sumatra) manuscripts with more than 250 pictures and upload them to Commons.
Did you know, the Mandailing people wrote their manuscripts on processed tree barks, and this made the manuscripts very rare and the art is almost lost in modern day.
Second #1Lib1Ref Campaign of 2023
After the first campaign in January, this may we opened our second #1Lib1Ref campaign of the year. This time we invited not just librarians, but also Wikipedians, to add references to Indonesian Wikipedia articles. They could add references using CitationHunt or other methods. They started by enrolling in Outreach Dashboard
By June 15th, 19 participants have added more than 1100 references in 3 weeks, with the top 3 contributors over 770 references in 620 articles!
Wikisource Workshop in Singaraja, Bali
At the end of the month, the Denpasar Wikimedia Community organized Wikisource training in Singaraja, north of Bali. The 15 participants were introduced to WikiPustaka (Balinese Wikisource), and how to proofread books using two writing systems: Balinese script and Latin. Soon, there will be two competitions in Balinese Wikisource, one by Wikisource Loves Manuscripts and another one by the Balinese Wikimedia Community. Stay tuned for future reports!
TCI and Turin Academy of Science
2023 mission accomplished for TCI
The uploading of the 1000+ images that the Touring Club Italiano planned to share in 2023 on Wikimedia projects has been completed. The images are mainly about the documentation of the Italian environment in the mid-twentieth century, but there are several images that concern Italy in the 1920s and 1930s, and some agricultural or naturalistic themed shots of non-European countries.
This is the second part of a three-year project started in 2022 which deals with digitizing and sharing parts of the exceptional historical archive of Touring Club Italiano. In 2022 TCI published on Commons several historical maps made for Enciclopedia Treccani in 1930s and the whole Atlante Tematico d'Italia. TCI material currently totals 3 millions of views every month.
Millon archive con Commons
The Academy of Sciences of Turin begun to share on Wikimedia Commons a first selection of photographs by Henry A. Millon], an art historian and expert on Italian Baroque and Renaissance architecture. Over 5,000 images of buildings and architectural drawings will be shared on Commons at the end of the project.
The fund is much larger, as explained on the Academy of Sciences website: 176 boxes, 30 notebooks and 9 drawers of slides, for over two thousand photographs and sixteen thousand slides which was delivered from the National Gallery of Art in Washington to Turin.
Elena Borgi, director of the Academy, explains:
- In 2017 Henry A. Millon decided to donate to the Turin Academy of Sciences – of which he was a member since 1978 – his archives. We choose to digitize these materials for several reasons: to protect them, make them usable and enhance them. Protect because photographs and slides are very sensitive to thermal and hygrometric conditions, as well as mechanical damage due to consultation. Fruition depends from the use of obsolete and uncommon tools, that are needed to view slides; sharing photos online can lead to a better use of these contents which, closed in an archive, would be meaningless.
CEE Spring Campaign 2023, Albania and Kosovo
CEE Spring in Albania and Kosovo
In 2023, Wikimedians of Albanian Language User Group joined the CEE Spring Campaign to distribute information about history, culture, traditions, and people in order to increase the quantity and quality of free knowledge of the Central European Eastern region in the Albanian language for 2 months.
This year, the campaign has increased the quantity of CEE Spring-related content on Wikipedia and diversified the topics covered.
Even on our end, our Group included new topics not translated into many foreign languages.
We also invited and encouraged the participants to write about different topics from all the regions within the CEE Campaign and address gaps in SQ Wikipedia's coverage.
Statistics from this campaign are as below:
- Editors: 6
- Articles created and edited: 65
Social media
- We have a public Telegram channel (language used mostly Albanian) if you want to join and discuss Wikimedia projects.
If you want to see more about our activities, you canː
- Like our Facebook page, follow us on Twitter or Instagram
A new book, new Wikipedia articles, videos and further images on Africa
Book by photo donor Roel Coutinho on Guinea-Bissau
Dutch medical professor Roel Countinho, who donated 760 photographs of Guinea-Bissau and Senegal (1973-1974), was prompted by Jos Damen, ASCL head librarian/project leader, and me to write a related autobiographical account on the liberation movement PAIGC. Using his own photographs for illustrations Coutinho published his book titled in Dutch De vrijheidsstrijd van Guinee-Bissau door de ogen van een jonge dokter, Roel Countinho (2022, translated title: The struggle for independence in Guinea-Bissau, seen through the eyes of a young doctor, Roel Coutinho. PDF in Dutch at Leiden University). A translation into Portuguese of this memoir is in the offing.
New Wikipedia articles on Africa
This year we tried to provide missing Wikipedia articles on various Africa-related subjects in six languages, including:
- biographies of award-winning Africanists (29). The Wikipedia requirement of notability (e.g., winning an ward) effects a bias against Africa-based Africanists who tend to win less awards than their equally gifted colleagues located in the US and Europe.
- biographies of Boer generals of the Second Boer War (1899-1902) in South Africa (18).
- descriptions of African studies journals and organisations (6).
- descriptions of African settlements, clothing, and food (9).
- new project writing biographies of African film makers in English (2).
"New old" videos and further images on Africa
Dutch law professor Emile van Rouveroy van Nieuwaal of the African Studies Centre Leiden turned documentary film maker when he performed field work in Africa, for instance on native law systems in Togo and Burkina Faso in the years 1970-2010. Some of the videos he created assisted by his son filmmaker Maarten van Rouveroy van Nieuwaal are now being made available on Wikimedia Commons.
We persevered in our constant endeavour to upload encyclopedic public domain images on Africa to Wikimedia Commons.
Report on the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections Conference 2023 and Auckland suburb updates
SPNHC2023
Ambrosia10 received a rapid grant to attend the annual conference of the Society for the Preservation of Natural History Collections held in San Francisco and hosted by the California Academy of Sciences. The conference was held from May 28th until June 2nd. While at the conference she presented two papers. The first was titled "Names, dames and campaigns: a botanical case study in digitally narrowing the gaps". This presentation outlined how Wikidata was used by researchers into flowering plant genera named after women to collate and link their research. This presentation's slides and script can be found here. The second presentation was titled "Reuse in the Wiki world empowers engagement with Natural History Collections" and outlined examples of active engagement by natural history institutions with the Wikiverse and encouraged other natural history institutions to also actively with various Wiki projects. The slides and script can be found here.
Ambrosia10 has written a detailed conference report which can be found here. This report outlines her pre-conference social media posts and the resulting meeting of Ambrosia10 with the Head of Mineral, Meteorite and Rock collections, National Museums Scotland. It goes on to give her overall impressions of the conference, personal conference highlights, a summary of Wiki related conversations with attendees, post conference social media outreach undertaken and the resulting engagement and finally the anticipated follow up actions by Ambrosia10 as a result of her attendance at this conference.
The formal report back to the Wikimedia Foundation giving impact metrics and a financial report can be found here.
Auckland War Memorial Museum suburb project updates
We're half-way through the Auckland War Memorial Museum suburb project, and to mark this two new pages for major sub-regions were created: East Auckland and the Pōhutukawa Coast. One of the project's aims to make local history resources more accessible to teachers and students across Tāmaki Makaurau. With the creation of these two articles, now over 70% of students in the Auckland Region can now access an updated page on the general area where they live. As a part of this work, 17 suburb articles were also greatly expanded, including some of the highest priority areas like Howick, Bucklands Beach, Flat Bush and Pakuranga: areas which have high concentrations of schools.
The suburb project's editing focus is now on improving the two remaining sub-region articles, five regional centres outside of the city, and 19 remaining suburbs with significant student populations.
Critters and Wikinerds
Giantflightlessbirds published an article in Forest and Bird magazine about the seven-year collaboration between the Radio New Zealand show Critter of the Week and a group of Wikipedians, who ensure that there is a reasonable-quality Wikipedia article about each week's featured species. The Critter of the Week WikiProject now has an annual prize for volunteer editors, CC-licensed graphics in Commons, a mailing list, and a dozen volunteers, with regular training sessions and an annual in-person meetup planned.
- Dickison, Mike (Winter 2023). "Let's talk about critters and Wikinerds". Forest & Bird 388: 28–30.
GLAM outreach activity at University of Nueva Caceres: Digitization, workshops and proofread-a-thons as future collaboration
GLAM outreach activity at University of Nueva Caceres: Digitization, workshops and proofread-a-thons as future collaboration
Filipino Wikimedians based in Naga City were back at the University of Nueva Caceres Museum for its quarterly GLAM outreach activity, a pre-launching event in the museum which will be reopened to the public in time for the 75th foundation anniversary and founder's day on July 11th, after the closure of the museum during the pandemic.
Engineering and Architecture students and the museum staff, learned about Wikisource, an open online library, and its edition in the Bikol language as well as how the project contributes in the quest for the greater Bicol identity and Filipino identity.
GLAM institutions (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) provide the bedrock for verifiable information in Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia.
The Bikol Wikipedia Community, PhilWiki Community, and Commons Photographers User Group have previously conducted activities during the Wikimania satellite celebration in Naga City last August 2022 and Wikimedia Forum held in March 2023 to establish collaborations with the second oldest university museum in the Philippines after that of University of Santo Tomas in Manila.
The museum curator Juan Paolo Suzara, who is also the president of the newly formed Naga City Museums Association, and long-time Wikipedia contributor Irvin Sto. Tomas, an Ed.D. Filipino Language and Literature student at UNC Center for Lifelong Learning, have identified feasible collaborative projects including digitization, workshops and proofread-a-thons.
The Philippine Wikimedia Community Inc. president Maffeth Opiana and board treasurer Marife Altabano reiterated their support to efforts that will make rare publications be more accessible thru open sources like the Wikisource.
Displayed in the university museum are artifacts from the pre-colonial to the post-colonial Bicol, and the collections of Ignacio Melition, its former curator.
Written on the wall in one section of the museum are the words of Dolores Hernandez Sison, during her investiture as the 2nd University President on March 5, 1977, "This realization of identity is imperative if the Bicolano, no matter what his station in life may be, is to contribute to the continuing search for national identity. It is only through finding himself that a Bicolano can be a true Filipino."
Dr. Jaime Hernandez (11 July 1892 - 11 July 1986), the founder and the first university president, served as the first Auditor General of the Philippines under President Manuel Quezon, and as Finance Secretary under three Presidents: Sergio Osmeña, Manuel Roxas and Ramon Magsaysay.
GLAM-Wiki workshops for the Czartoryski Library; Work on the GLAM-Wiki Project Page Continues; End of Internship within the "Praktykuj w Kulturze" Program
GLAM-Wiki workshops for the Czartoryski Library
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GLAM-Wiki Workshop Czartoryski Library
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GLAM-Wiki Workshop Czartoryski Library
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GLAM-Wiki Workshop Czartoryski Library
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GLAM-Wiki Workshop Czartoryski Library
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GLAM-Wiki Workshop Czartoryski Library
We learned from conversations with employees of The National Museum in Krakow that the Czartoryski Library is planning a renovation, and as a result, it will be closed for approximately two years. Moreover, next year marks the 160th anniversary of the transfer of the library's collections from Paris to Krakow.
We perceive the temporary limitation of access to the library's collections and the upcoming milestone as an opportunity to instill the idea of open knowledge among the library's staff. Many examples of museums worldwide demonstrate that the closure of an institution's premises can simultaneously open up its collections online. Therefore, just before the approaching changes, we conducted GLAM-Wiki workshops for the employees of the Czartoryski Library and the Education Department of MNK.
Thanks to the invitation to collaborate with Wioletta Matusiak, the Training and Development Manager, it was not a typical training session about Wikipedia and its sister projects. Above all, we employed a workshop method that encourages active participation and full engagement from the meeting's participants, who are experts in collections, cultural educators from the museum, and us – experts in free culture and education from WMPL. Through the merging of these perspectives and drawing inspiration from the presented best practices, we collectively pondered on how the library's involvement in Wikimedia projects could look like, and what form the offering of digital education utilizing Wikipedia and its sister projects could take.
Let's remember that promoting the library's collections is only a small part of the tasks carried out by its employees, who daily work on cataloguing and making the collections available solely for scientific purposes. This fact posed a significant challenge for the workshops because library staff members are very busy, and access to the collections is limited. However, we were determined to show the Library that its temporary closures can also be a new beginning, and that Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects present an opportunity to reach audiences worldwide. Looking at the dynamic process that unfolded during the workshops, I believe that the goal was achieved, and we can expect new, shared challenges in the future, says Kamila Neuman, Open Culture Manager at Wikimedia Poland.
Special thanks to Maria Drozdek for preparing the video recording about the collaboration with the National Museum in Warsaw on the Galeria Faras project, as well as interns Agata Stadnicka and Zuzanna Ligor for researching best practices regarding GLAM-Wiki collaborations with libraries. We would also like to thank Agata and Filip Jankowski for their participation in the workshops.
Work on the GLAM-Wiki Project Page Continues
In May we started the process of rebuilding the GLAM-Wiki Project Page. The aim of this change is to update the content and, above all, improve the clarity of the page while considering user needs. We hope that this will make it easier for us to communicate about GLAM activities, educate about Wikipedia, and engage both experienced Wikipedians and newcomers in GLAM-Wiki projects.
In last two months, the GLAM-Wiki Project Page Team carried out regular online meetings twice a week. The project team consists of Krzysztof Popławski, a Wikipedia editor, and two interns who have been supporting the open culture area for 2 months: Zuzanna Ligor, a student of architecture of information space, and Agata Stadnicka, a graduate in art history.
The involvement and support of Krzysztof Popławski, a long-time Wikipedia editor, are particularly important during the stage of designing the new website. At the recent Wikipedia Conference in Krakow, he spoke about the utility of information in the context of Wikipedia, emphasizing its significance.
One of the outcomes of our work is the development of templates for creating subpages for GLAM-Wiki collaborations, which we will begin working on in July. Simultaneously, we have started intensive design work on the main GLAM-Wiki page, including efforts to develop user profiles for the site.
The work on the redesigning of GLAM-Wiki page is still ongoing and will continue in the coming quarter. However, we hope to be able to gradually showcase its effects in small pieces even before the official completion of the entire project. We already know that it is the biggest project of the year, apart from the GLAM-Wiki collaborations themselves, and we are eagerly looking forward to its final outcome as well.
End of Internship within the "Praktykuj w Kulturze" Program of National Centre for Culture
With the end of June, the first three-month Open Culture internships, carried out within the framework of the National Centre for Culture's "Praktykuj w Kulturze" program, have concluded.
A few words of summary from Kamil Neuman: To be honest, the idea of applying for interns through the NCK program had been on my mind for quite some time, but it was only now that I felt it was the right time to make it happen. When engaging the interns, I knew which projects I wanted to involve them in, and it worked out perfectly that I came across Zuzia and Agata. Zuza Ligor, a student of architecture of information space at the University of Warsaw, and Agata Stadnicka, a graduate in art history from the Jagiellonian University, supported me in the process of designing the new version of the GLAM WikiProject page. In this short period, they were part of the team working on the page, and their knowledge and different perspectives were very valuable and enlightening for both me and Krzysztof Popławski, who is professionally involved in this process.
Additionally, the girls took on various tasks and greatly relieved me in many matters. Of course, it was also a time-consuming task for me, and integrating new individuals into Wikimedia projects and work at WMPL comes with a lot of responsibility. However, I feel that it was time well invested, and both sides benefited greatly from it. I am also pleased that the girls had the opportunity to learn about the specifics of remote work, how to use tools that aid in online work, and, above all, get to know our organizational culture, which will serve as a good reference point for them in their search for their professional path.
Knowledge overview; Almedalen week
Knowledge overview
The question of whether Wikipedia can serve as an inspiration for the future knowledge organization of libraries is explored in a recently published knowledge overview (in Swedish). This overview delves into the connection between the mission of libraries and the Wikimedia movement. Alongside the potential synergies in information organization, the report emphasizes the promotion of shared culture memory, the importance of source criticism, and the value of participation as central perspectives.
According to the overview, working with Wikipedia can be a way for libraries to embrace their democratic mission, for example, by highlighting underrepresented groups both as users and in the content of articles.
The knowledge overview is presented by Karolina Andersdotter, a librarian and PhD candidate in information science at Åbo Akademi University. It is made in collaboration with Biblioteksutveckling Sörmland, which investigates how libraries can strategically work with Wikipedia and other platforms to strengthen people's media and information literacy and contribute to a more equitable internet.
Almedalen week
During the Almedalen week, a week where politicians, NGOs, lobbyists and the public meets for a week of talks, seminars, presentations and mingle in Visby Wikimedia Sverige participated as part of the Wikipedia for all of Sweden project. We hosted a seminar about copyright and lost opportunities among research (available on youtube) and a photo booth where people with articles on Wikipedia could drop by to have a new photo taken and uploaded to Commons.
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Andreas Norlén, speaker of the Swedish Riksdag
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Karin Grönvall, National librarian of Sweden
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Wikimedia Sweden volunteers taking a break
Swiss GLAM Programm
International Archive Week 2023
Wikimedia CH launched together with the Swiss Association of Archivists, the awareness campaign to support the International Archives Week 2023.
This year's International Archives Week took place from June 5 to June 9, 2023 and focused on the topic "ArchivesUnited". We aimed to motivate GLAM professionals and our volunteers to support us in improving and completing the presence of Archives on Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata in Switzerland.
Wikimedia CH also organised a GLAM Digital, an online round table about the Swiss Archive Landscape.
Read more about this awareness campaign on the project page.
GLAM-On-Tour Zug
Our 12th GLAM-On-Tour took place from the 29th of June to the 1st of July in Zug. GLAM-on-Tour offers a unique occasion to bring the community in the GLAM institutions.
We got the opportunity to organise this GLAM-On-Tour with the Library of Zug and the Doku-Zug Documentation center.
We welcomed 12 participants. They mainly worked in the German Wikipedia, creating and bettering many articles around Zug and its history. On this occasion, the participants also uploaded photos, available in the following category, and also worked on Wikidata.
For more information about the project and the work done (in German).
Cultural diversity
Khalili Foundation
A Chinese Pilgrimage Scroll image was given Featured Picture status on English Wikipedia. This is the third Featured Picture from the Khalili Collections on English Wikipedia, and the nineteenth Featured Picture award for this project in total. The intention is to have this image appear on the front page of English Wikipedia or Wikimedia Commons during the Hajj, which we did not manage in 2023 but will be able to in 2024. There are coding issues around displaying an unusually tall image on the front page, which I am still seeking help with.
My work this month has mostly gone on 1) expanding a draft on bibliomancy which is about ready to become one, or maybe two, Wikipedia articles; 2) continuing to improve articles related to cultural diversity, including Cultural diversity, World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development, UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity, and especially Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions. The Page Statistics tool lists me as the main author of all these articles, and there are still improvements to do.
I'm always very grateful when volunteers help out with this project, and this month I'm especially grateful to User:M.Bitton, a participant in the Wikipedia Graphics Lab, who created this map of the countries that have ratified the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions, based on my specification. It has been a struggle to find illustrations for this article and this image shows some very relevant information about the subject.
This month, a volunteer translated the Musa va 'Uj article into Spanish (the first Spanish-language article from this project!) This brings to 46 the number of new articles created by this project.
Image views usually tail off a bit as universities and schools start their summer holidays. After a record month in May, image views for Khalili images decreased slightly to 4,709,833 in June, according to the GLAMOrgan tool (which misses out some data).
WikiWednesday returns to Manhattan; Wikimedia NYC and Art+Feminism; WikiConference North America 2023; GLAM Wiki 2023
WikiWednesday returns to Manhattan
Wikimedia NYC held a meetup NYC/June 2023
Wikimedia NYC and Art+Feminism
Wikimedia NYC and Art+Feminism got some press coverage, Who Builds The Internet? Meet Wikipedia's Architects, by Gutes Guterman
WikiConference North America 2023
WikiConference North America will be held in Toronto, Canada, from 9 to 12 November 2023. The call for submissions ended June 30. See the website for more information, wikiconference.org/2023
GLAM Wiki 2023
GLAM Wiki 2023 will be held November 16–18, 2023 in Montevideo, Uruguay. The call for scholarship applications ends July 8. The call for program proposals ends August 6. See meta for more information, GLAM Wiki 2023
Flickr Foundation and Wikimedia Foundation partner to build Flickypedia
Flickr is one of the websites most used by Wikimedia Commons users to source openly licensed images. Since its launch in 2013, Flickr2Commons has been a popular tool used by Wikimedia Commons contributors to publish Flickr pictures into Wikimedia Commons. The Wikimedia Foundation is partnering with the Flickr Foundation, a 501(c)3 organization, to create an upgraded version of a beloved tool, Flickr2Commons and giving it a much-needed upgrade. Working title: Flickypedia.
Some Featured pictures from Flickr uploaded with Flickr2Commons:
What it Does
This tool, originally built by Magnus Manske, allows users to easily upload single and multiple files from Flickr to Commons. We want to make sure that this new tool has
- Authentication on Wikimedia Commons
- Checking for Commons-appropriate licensing
- Checking for duplicates
We're also hoping to be able to add a few new features, including more structured data, as we iterate over 2024. We will be looking at the other Flickr-connected tools in the Wikiverse which could use some attention. We've been in conversation with the community here since our initial announcement in early June and will continue the outreach as we work towards creating an alpha version of Flickypedia late in 2023.
Who We Are
The Flickr Foundation is an independently governed non-profit organization, established in 2022. We manage the Flickr Commons program on flickr.com and our mission is to help the images on Flickr be visible in 100 years. We're working with the Wikimedia Foundation's Culture & Heritage team and have started conversations with the Commons photographers user group with more to come in July and August. If you're reading this we'd like to hear from YOU.
Take a look at our project page, say hello on our talk page or drop us a line at hello@flickr.org. We might even see you at the GLAM Wiki Conference in Montevideo, Uruguay. Hope to hear from you!
The call for proposals is now open for the GLAM Wiki Conference
The GLAM Wiki Conference, the Conference on Culture, Heritage, and Wikimedia is now accepting submissions for its program. The call for proposals will be open through July, until August 6, at the end of the day (23:59) anywhere in the world. To submit your session, use this form.
The conference will happen from November 16 to 18, 2023, in Montevideo, Uruguay. The gathering plans to be a place for conversations, exchanges, and strategic thinking for both professionals from heritage institutions and people from the Wikimedia movement working on heritage, as well as anyone interested in the intersection between heritage, the free and open movement, and Wikimedia.
To help with the submission, the objectives of the conference are:
- Identify strategic priorities for the heritage, open culture, and Wikimedia community for the promotion of equitable knowledge, diversity, and inclusion.
- Exchange and build capacity around GLAM Wiki collaborative tools.
- Reflect, discuss, and think about new roadmaps for Wikimedia community tools and platforms, in particular in relation to the release of multimedia content.
- Reconnect after the pandemic, re-network, and rethink among all the people involved in the future of GLAM Wiki and the community of activists and professionals dedicated to open access to heritage.
We encourage the community to submit interactive proposals that actively involve the participants. The list of volunteers part of the Program Committee and working on selecting the proposals is available on this page. They will make decisions based on criteria that will include relevance to the objectives of the conference, importance and interest in the subject matter by the expected audience, among others. Final decisions will be announced during the month of September.
For more information, access the GLAM Wiki 2023 official page.
July's GLAM events
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