GLAM/Newsletter/June 2024/Contents/New Zealand report
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WikiProject Te Papa Research Expeditions and WikiProject IBC 2024
Staff edit-a-thon: On the 4th of June a Te Papa staff research expeditions edition was held at the National Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. This gave Te Papa staff the opportunity to learn to edit Wikipedia articles relating to research expeditions including enriching articles on Te Papa related expeditions and their participants, locations, the vessels used, the species collected, and the publications generated as a result of those expeditions. The dashboard for this event can be found here.
SPNHC TDWG 2024: Ambrosia10 and Avocadobabygirl had their abstract on the Wikidata WikiProject Te Papa Research Expeditions accepted for this conference. Ambrosia10 has obtained funding from Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand to attend and will present this paper in person. She has also received and accepted an invitation from the conference organisers to present at a session attended by all attendees of the conference. This has required Ambrosia10 and Avocardobabygirl to submit an extended abstract for publication in the conference journal.
The start of the International Botanical Congress is rapidly approaching and the participants of this WikiProject have recently completed authoring a conference poster. As we are all Wikimedians the decision was made to add the conference poster to WikiCommons to assist with our outreach efforts for the workshops being planned.
An online onboarding Wikidata workshop has been organised and opened to the general public. It will be held on Tuesday 9th of July at 9pm NZST (GMT+12) (i.e. 2am California, 5am New York, 10 am UK & Portugal, 11 am central Europe, 5pm Singapore, 7pm Sydney, 9pm NZ). Register here: https://tepapa.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUpf--orz8vEt0osKr1N2A6sXm4zyyXlGxe. As at writing over 50 people from over 17 countries have signed up to attend in this event virtually.
Registration has also recently opened for the in person Wikidata workshop taking place at the International Botanical Congress conference on Sunday the 21st of July. Organisers of the WikiProject are in the midst of creating a slide deck for the workshop but have already published both in English and Spanish "how to" documents to assist new Wikidata editors. The English version can be found here and the Spanish version here.
Aotearoa Wikipedian at Large
In the Public Relations Association of New Zealand 2024 awards, the West Coast Wikipedian at Large project won a Gold award. This project, conducted by User:Giantflightlessbirds with the support of Development West Coast, was an attempt to improve the Wikipedia and Commons coverage of significant tourist areas on the remote West Coast of the South Island, with the hope this would increase their visibility for visitors. It was prompted by the study "Wikipedia Matters" by Hinnosaar et al., which demonstrated small improvements in Wikipedia articles of tourist spots led to measurable increases in accommodation nights. Development West Coast in 2020, 2022, and 2023 sponsored a Wikipedian for four to eight weeks who coordinated a team of volunteers, mostly remote, and made trips up and down the Coast to take photos and organise release of photo collections into Commons. The project won a Gold award for "Most Innovative Campaign" and a Silver for "Best Use of Digital and Social Media". Other tourist organisations have since approached Giantflightlessbirds asking about replicating this approach in other areas.
Work continued on the Aotearoa Wikipedian at Large project in Christchurch, with an edit-a-thon in the Christchurch Art Gallery on May 18th focussed on the 2023 exhibition "Ink on Paper", aiming to put the participating artists and every exhibited artwork into Wikidata and (where copyright permitted) Commons, linking them all together—possibly a first in the modelling of an art gallery exhibition on multiple Wikimedia platforms. The Christchurch Art Gallery had been experimenting with open data, making the book about the exhibition available as a free PDF, and the complete list of works available for download – a first for them. The Wikipedian at Large gave a presentation on the project to the entire staff of the gallery, to a favourable reception and questions about what other exhibitions could be amenable to this treatment.
The Wikipedian at Large also ran two workshops for staff of the Christchurch Libraries system and other Christchurch City Council staff: one on Wikimedia platforms in general, and the other a hands-on exploration of Wikidata including how it could be used to develop an organisational Wikimedia strategy. Further Wikidata workshops are planned, as well as online public Wikipedia training, and a 24 hour edit-a-thon in early August covering Christchurch city architecture. The monthly meetups of Christchurch Wikipedians are continuing at Tūranga Central Library cafe.
