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Latest Wikipedian in Residence at Smithsonian; paid Wikipedian in Residence positions listed

Wikipedian in Residence at Smithsonian Archives

Participants at the Smithsonian Archives' "She Blinded Me with Science" Edit-a-Thon.

The Smithsonian Archives announced Sarah Stierch as their Spring 2012 Wikipedian in Residence (press release) from March to June. Stierch previously served as the first Wikipedian in Residence at the Smithsonian's Archives of American Art last year, and takes on the position while completing her Master's degree in Museum Studies, and serving as a Wikimedia Fellow.

Stierch kicked off the residency by hosting an edit-a-thon, “She Blinded Me with Science,” held Saturday, March 30th. The to-do list for the event provides a window into the kind of content the Archives can offer, and lists some of the article improvements from the edit-a-thon.

Wikipedian in Residence opportunities

Two paid opportunities for Wikipedians in Residence were posted in March, by non-profits Consumer Reports and the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC). OCLC serves libraries, with offerings like the well-known WorldCat catalog; Consumer Reports publishes the eponymous magazine, among other services to provide useful, unbiased information to consumers. Because neither organization exactly fits the "GLAM" designation, these opportunities reflect an exciting expansion of the Wikipedian in Residence concept to encompass other kinds of organizations that share Wikimedia's core values. (Wikimedia Australia has also been breaking ground in this area, engaging with organizations like the Australian Paralympic Committee.)

Read more about both positions on the Wiki Strategies blog, or go straight to the listings at Consumer Reports (based in Yonkers, New York) or OCLC (based in San Mateo, California).

New partnerships with Indianapolis organizations

In mid-March, The Indiana State Library and Historical Bureau hosted US Cultural Partnerships Coordinator Lori Phillips for a Research Roundtable about Wikipedia. A cooperative project is now in the works that will utilize the cultural research that goes into the creation of the state’s historic markers. A unique community initiative is being discussed that will solicit feedback from the Wikipedia community for updates to the existing historic markers; this potential project would be further supported through the use of QRpedia codes.

A second Indianapolis historical institution, the Indiana Historical Society, has also embarked on a new GLAM collaboration. In early March Lori Phillips met with the newly titled Wikipedian of the Society, who is also the former Director of Education for IHS. Together they discussed methods for the long-term cooperation with Wikimedia that this position will support. The core goal of the project is to cooperate with the Wikimedia community in order to distribute the IHS's abundance of digitized and on-site resources throughout the encyclopedia. The Wikipedian of the Society will also be on hand to take requests for information that can be found within the institution's vast archives. Further details on this cooperative effort will be available as this ongoing project progresses.

Children's Museum begins "Wikipedia Image of the Week" series

The Children's Museum's Red Alaskan King Crab was the third object featured in the Wikipedia Image of the Week blog series.

In an effort to bring awareness to collections images uploaded to Commons, The Children's Museum of Indianapolis has begun a blog series titled "The Wikipedia Image of the Week." The concept was inspired by the "Open Access File of the Day" series managed by Wikipedian in Residence on Open Science Daniel Mietchen. Through this blog series, curators provide further contextual information that can be used to knowledgeably distribute the images throughout Wikipedia. In addition to sharing the museum's Wikipedia collaboration, the blog challenges the online community to think of articles that the images belong in.

US Cultural Partnerships report

In addition to work mentioned throughout the This Month in GLAM report, additional work by the US Cultural Partnerships coordinator included...

  • In early March, a guest talk was given to Andrew Lih’s USC Online Journalism Seminar discussing the role of citizen curation and cultural narratives in Wikipedia and museums.
  • Assistance has been provided to a number of cultural institutions, including the Birmingham Museum of Art. GLAM-Wiki volunteers will soon be facilitating an image donation with this art museum and library. Other partnerships are not yet public knowledge.
  • Coordination continued for the American Association of Museums conference, Wikimania, and MuseumNext in Barcelona. The MuseumNext organizers requested a US delegate to be a part of a Wikipedia Lounge, an informal space for conference attendees to mingle with five Wikipedians from the five top-represented countries at the conference. A talk about QRpedia is also included in the program, to be led by Alex Hinojo with support from Lori Phillips.
  • The GLAMcamp DC report was completed and is now available for review. It includes details on the planning process, the outcomes of the event, feedback from attendees, and lessons learned from the event's successes and challenges.

News in brief

  • 56 GLAM proposals submitted to Wikimania. The Wikimedia movement's active engagement with the GLAM universe has grown at an astonishing pace since the first Wikipedian in Residence position was established in 2010. This year, the annual Wikimania conference will have a GLAM track; submissions closed this month, and there are 56 GLAM-related talks and panels being considered for inclusion. Browse the submissions and add your support to the ideas you like best.
  • Updates to the GLAM:US portal. Updates have continued on the GLAM-Wiki US portal on the English Wikipedia. Cultural professionals and Wikipedians have updated the GLAM Connect page with information by state, individual GLAM contacts, and online and outreach Wikipedians available for assistance. If you're interested in assisting US-based cultural institutions, please add yourself to the list of volunteers!
  • Wikipedian in Residence, QRpedia featured in the Technology in the Arts blog. Lori Phillips was interviewed for a two-part series in Carnegie Mellon University's Technology in the Arts blog, discussing the concept of Wikipedian in Residence and the role of QRpedia in the museum setting.
  • Wikipedian in Residence panel ranked top pick for AAM conference. The Wikipedian in Residence panel at the American Association of Museums conference was listed among the top “futurist” picks by the Center for the Future of Museums.
  • The volunteers of WikiProject Oregon have been active in outreach lately, exploring opportunities with the Oregon State Archives (OSA) and the Oregon Historical Society. Their crowning achievement this month: after some discussion revealed that the license applied by the OSA to the Oregon Historical County Records Guide was almost, but not quite, compatible with Wikimedia Commons policy, LittleMountain5 persuaded them to make a modification. Discussions have begun about a mass upload. See the discussion, or check out the photos that have been uploaded so far.
  • A very Wikipedian March for Simmons College library students. In March, the NARA Wikipedian in Residence, and current student at the Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science, Dominic McDevitt-Parks hosted two events on campus.
    • On March 13, he gave an informal talk and question-and-answer session in front of other students.
    • March 27 saw local Boston Wikipedians and a few GSLIS students come together for a Women's History Month editathon ([1]). Outcomes included 8 new or expanded articles, including first edits by new contributors.

      Both events were hosted with help from the Student Chapter of the Society for American Archivists and co-chairs Amanda Strauss and Camille Torres, and Wikimedia NYC helped fund the editathon.

  • Wikipedian in Residence speaks at the New England Archivists spring conference. Dominic McDevitt-Parks served on a panel about various publishing methods available to archives, from the traditional to the unconventional. His talk addressed how "to leverage the power of Wikipedia and Wikimedia to provide wide access to archival materials" (session descriptions). At least one tweeter in the audience was a fan of the idea.
  • GLAM-Wiki social media takes off. Don't forget to follow the GLAM-Wiki US Facebook page and the @glamwiki Twitter, which serves the global GLAM-Wiki community.


QRpedia goes to Church

St Paul's Church in the centre of St Paul's Square

On 23 March, St Paul's Church, in St Paul's Square, in Birmingham's historic Jewellery Quarter, became the first church in the world to use QRpedia. This came about when, a week before, Wikimedia volunteer and QRpedia activist Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing) was early for a Wikipedia training session he was to deliver at the nearby Royal Birmingham Society of Artists. As Andy explains:

“ It was a lovely evening, so I sat on a bench outside the church, listening to the birds singing, when a man came out to put away a free-standing noticeboard. It suddenly occurred to me that the board could be displaying a QRpedia code, linking to the Wikipedia article about the church, or the square in which it sits. I approached him - he turned out to be their "Church Watch", or curator, Dennis Cluley - and introduced myself. When I described the project, he readily agreed that we should collaborate on it. ”

However there was a problem. Andy continues:

QRpedia code added to other interpretive material alongside James Watt's pew
“ I told him that the article about the church was bound to exist in lots of languages as it has links with James Watt and Matthew Boulton. But when I got home and checked it was only in English! ”

Andy made an urgent appeal on the GLAM project's cultural partners mailing list and within a few days the article had been translated by volunteers from around the world, into another ten languages (although more are still welcome!). The church now displays QRpedia codes linking to the articles about itself and the square, as well as Matthew Boulton and James Watt (each alongside the location of their respective private pews), and the artists who designed and made its east window (Benjamin West & Francis Eginton). Codes for the architect who added its spire (Francis Goodwin), and its famous organist (James Stimpson), will be added shortly.

The entire project cost £0.40. Andy is now looking for other notable churches, and other venues, with an interest in participating in QRpedia.

Historic Coventry edit-a-thon

Participants editing Wikipedia (it was more fun that it looks!).

On March 31, 14 Wikimedians and a number of new editors came to Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry for a day of editing, uploading and collaborating on topics related to the history of Coventry and the museum's current exhibition of watercolours depicting Coventry and Warwickshire.

Attendees were given a guided tour of the museums exhibition of watercolours.

Following an introduction from the organisers, the attendees split into groups to be given a guided tour of the the watercolours exhibition and the on-site Coventry History Centre. The main focus of the day, however, was editing and using the many sources provided by the museum, experienced Wikimedians began work on articles as the 3 newbies were given training on how to edit the site with a several even starting work on articles.

After lunch, editing continued with new articles including:

The museum also donated a further 9 images of their collections to Wikimedia Commons during the event. The full collection of all images donated so far can be found on Wikimedia Commons.

The day was invaluable for the partnership with The Herbert. Not only were several new articles written but the new editors will help to keep the the ball rolling. There are plans for another event later in the year, aimed at non-editors.

News in brief


Figueres Edit-a-thon; GLAM workshop for museum professionals and educators

Women's History Month edit-a-thon at Figueres

Catalan Wikipedians during the Edit-a-thon

WikiWomen's History Month is a wiki-coordinated program of distributed events and editathons focused on WikiProject Women's History, to be held throughout the world in celebration of International Women's Day and Women's History Month during March 2012. This project is welcoming everyone, especially new Wikipedians and Wikipedian-wannabes looking to contribute on women in history.

In Catalonia, we joined the project, and we prepared a Wikipedia edit-a-thon in order to improve the biography of w:en:Ángeles Santos Torroella (Portbou, 1911). She is a living Catalan surrealist painter who is more than 100 year old!. So it was a good reason for an edit-a-thon. So, on March 24, a little but encouraged group of 8 Wikipedians coming from different cities of Catalonia attended the event. The activity took place at the Empordà Museum, located in Figueres, the birthplace of Salvador Dalí.

Anna Capella, Director of the museum, generously helped us at the museum library with loads of documentation and good advises and a keynote about the artist's life. Museum professionals are a needed piece on this kind of projects, as they can give us the best existing resources about their local artists. Their expertise mixed with Wikipedia reach is the best cocktail to improve the online presence of our heritage and artists.

We had some newbies, including a Grammar teacher and some art historians, who also came by and helped us. After a whole morning of typing and reading, the Catalan Wikipedia entry was 15 times bigger!!! We are now very proud of Ángeles Santos biography in Catalan. We are still working on it, and on the forthcoming weeks we will translate it to English and Spanish. Some French friends already offered themselves for translation, via Twitter. You are also invited to translate it to your own language!

Our edit-a-thon was one of the 2 European activities related to the project coordinated and leaded by the great Sarah Stierch. The other one was held in Warsaw a couple of weeks ago. Let's close the gender gap!

Glamwiki workshop inside a train!

Wikipedia presentation to 125 teachers

On March we went to Vilanova i la Geltrú a city situated 40 km south-west of Barcelona, promoting the educational branch of the glamwiki projects. Our strategy was to organize 2 events: one aimed to educators, teachers, and the other one to museum professionals who work in the educational department.

On Saturday we presented Wikipedia and its related values, and how to use it in the classroom to 125 teachers from the County Educational Resources Center. The presentation emphasized the possibilities offered by this tool in the classroom: education for democratic values, critical thinking, students acting as an active constructor of knowledge, motivation, resources used to work on basic skills, including inclusion issues. Some of the attendees were so impressed that repeated the second day.

Glamwiki ideas workshop inside a train

The second presentation was held at the Catalonia Railway Museum. Our presentation was the main activity of a seminar called Conversations at the Station, where museum experts from all over Catalonia discuss annually and work together to share common challenges. This year's theme was Wikipedia + museums + education = success. This meeting was specifically focused for museum professionals who works in the education department of museums, but with special interest in local museums. About 60 professionals attended.

First we explained some #glamwiki successful projects that encouraged museum professionals to open the museum to their community, using Internet and Wikipedia as a way to improve their online network. Later during the day, a High School teacher who is also a Wikimedian presented her recommendations about how can museum educational departments incorporate Wikipedia into its catalog of activity proposals for schools.

After a break full of questions and rich conversations, we did a Wikipedia projects workshops inside the trains of their permanent exhibit. Using the same system that we did at GLAMcamp DC, participants formed groups of 3-4 people and thought and proposed Wikipedia activities that could be implemented at their museums.

This workshops was very useful, because, apart from Wikipedia, we discussed interesting topics, such as the role of intellectuals, the aesthetic experience of students in a museum, the relationship between experts and disclosure or dissemination of the new tasks of cultural managers. Soon I'll blog with the conclusions of this talk.

Nearly 200 people between the two days, many outcomes and proposals for implementing Wikipedia on their forthcoming projects, so we believe that this week at Vilanova will become a breeding ground for future Wikipedians very motivated, as they arise immediately applicable ideas and keep in touch with them to keep it in good company.


New partnerships and progress of many projects

Partnership with the National Museum of the Middle Ages

Signing of the partnership with the Musée de Cluny

On March 21, Rémi Mathis has signed an official partnership with the National Museum of the Middle Ages, better known as Musée de Cluny. This museum, located in Paris, has a very important collection related to the Middle Ages, especially the famous series of tapestries called The Lady and the Unicorn.

We have been working on this partnership for several months. We have worked to suggest to the museum, not only giving cultural material or open their doors for the wikimedians, but to have a project for all the staff of museum to contribute on Wikimedia projects.

The project is to encourage all the staff of the Museum, from the curators and librarians up to the guides and other employees, to contribute about the Middle Ages and the museum. Wikimédia France will organize some workshops during which employees will learn how to contribute.

In the future, we want to organize the same type of workshops with the Society of Friends of the Museum.

The second part of the partnership is to help the Museum to insert Wikimedia content into their upcoming new website. Related to our future GLAM Toolbox, we want to discuss and make some tools for Museums and especially to involve the circulation of content between the Wikimedia projects and the museum website.

Wikimedia France help regional Archives on Wikisource!

Example of manuscript corrected on Wikisource

Since January, we have helped the Departmental Archives of the Alpes-Maritimes (South East of France) to contribute on Wikisource. The vice-director of the archives has asked us for a project to edit a corpus of old religious documents of the 18th century, about 8,000 manuscripts pages talking about life and descriptions of the villages. This is a very interesting corpus. The Archives work with some students in paleography directly on Wikisource. They upload the manuscripts and correct them with the help of the volunteers of Wikisource and Wikimédia France.

It is the first time that we have some Archives working on Wikisource and it is very rare to have a big corpus of manuscripts. The communication about this project was very well received by the Archives community.

The description of the project and press release are available on Wikisource.

Conferences, panels and workshops this month

  • March 2: conference by PierreSelim et Léna in the "Archives and Libraries" department in the University of Toulouse-Le Mirail
  • March 7: Panel about scientific editions in the university of Angers. Adrienne talked about the collaborative creation of knowledge on Wikipedia
  • March 19: Sylvain helped a group of librarians to discover MediaWiki and the collaborative work
  • March 21: Adrienne talked about "Museums and digitization of cultural content" in the "Rencontres de l'Orme" in Marseille (the "Rencontres de l'Orme" are a big annual conference about education and culture)

Progress of the projects

  • PierreSelim is working on the description templates for the photographs of the Muséum de Toulouse. Some of the photographs are the only illustration of a species! The Museum asked us to retrieve back the descriptions of the files, because of the good job made by Commonists. Crowdsourcing works!
  • Adrienne was in Lyon on March 26, to meet the Cultural Department of the City, and about ten cultural institutions of the City (Museums, Archives, Libraries). She presented the principle of the GLAM projects to involve the institutions of the city to contribute to the Wikimedia projects and open their contents.
  • We have had our first contacts with the Quai Branly Museum, a museum specialized in indigenous art, cultures and civilizations from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas, to imagine some ways of collaboration.
  • The project to merge all the parts of the Trutat's photographs is in good way, the institutions are very positive to share on Wikimedia Commons all the photographs.
  • We are preparing a workshop about the public domain for lawyers and GLAM, together with the Open Knowledge Foundation. It will be held in Paris on April 27.


48 Italian GLAMs

39 Italian GLAMs Share Their Knowledge on Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Projects

39 Italian GLAMs have joined Share Your Knowledge and contribute to Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects by adopting the Creative Commons attribution share-alike license on a selection of their contents. The institutions involved have different sizes, focuses and contents; among them, 35 Italian GLAMs contribute to Wikipedia with African content within the project WikiAfrica. There are the magazines Africa e Mediterraneo, Assaman: Rivista italo-africana and Nigrizia; the publisher Epoché edizioni and the online radio Afriradio; two African film festivals Festival del cinema africano di Verona and Festival Cinema Africano Asia e America Latina and Cinemafrica-Africa e diaspore nel cinema; The Artistic collections of Castello Sforzesco - Extra-European Collections of Milan, Fondazione Alessandro Passaré and the art organisation A-POIS. Art Projects to Overcome Impossible SItes which have implemented projects in Senegal and Morocco; lettera27 Foundation, Officina GRIOT and Fondazione ISMU; the NGOs Medici con l'Africa Cuamm and COSV. Fondazioni4Africa has joined the project with contents produced by their projects in Senegal and Uganda supported and implemented by Fondazione Cariplo, Compagnia di San Paolo, Fondazione Monte dei Paschi, Fondazione Cariparma, AMREF ITALIA onlus in partnership with AMREF Uganda, AVSI, COOPI, CESVI, Associazione Good Samaritan, Fondazione Piero e Lucille Corti, The Permanent Centre for Education, ACRA Associazione di Cooperazione Rurale in Africa e America Latina, CISV Comunità Impegno Servizio Volontariato, COOPI Cooperazione Internazionale, COSPE Cooperazione per lo Sviluppo dei Paesi Emergenti, Istituto di ricerca CESPI Centro Studi di Politica Internazionale, AST Associazione dei Senegalesi a Torino (in collaboration with the association Trait d’Union) and Associazione Stretta di Mano. The Italian association of Vétérinaires Sans Frontières has involved VSF-E Vétérinaires Sans Frontières Europa to contribute with the documentation of their activities in Africa. Contribute to Share Your Knowledge also Associazione Amici del Museo delle Grigne Onlus with the entire Pietro Pensa Archive and the contemporary art centres Careof with the DOCVA Archive, Connecting Cultures and Kunstverein Milano.

Wiki Loves Monuments supported by 8 Italian GLAMs

8 Italian GLAMs support Wiki Loves Monuments and contribute with their documentation in Creative Commons attribution share-alike to Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects: Gruppo Archeologi d'Italia, Liber Liber, and 6 ecomuseums: Ecomuseo delle Grigne, Ecomuseo Val Taleggio, Ecomuseo del paesaggio di Parabiago, Eumm-Ecomuseo Urbano Metropolitano Milano Nord, Visitadda-Distretto Bioculturale dell'Adda, Ecomuseo Tra il Chiese, il Tartaro e l'Ozono.

Gianni Caproni Museum of Aeronautics

An informal collaboration between the Wikimedia projects and the Gianni Caproni Museum of Aeronautics (Museo dell'Aeronautica Gianni Caproni) of Trento, Italy, has been started this March. MLWatts, a Wikipedian who worked for the museum on a voluntary basis in summer 2010 (doing some historical research, digitizing and filing photographs, and attending to other similar tasks) kept in touch with the museum's staff all trough 2011 and recently involved the insitution in a collaboration with the Italian Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and other projects (which will soon come to include the English Wikipedia as well). The aim of such a collaboration is to improve the quality of the articles related to the museum itself as well as those related to the development of early Italian aviation – a development which was strongly influenced by aeronautical engineer and industrialist Gianni Caproni. So far, the Italian article about the museum has been greatly improved and the English one has been put under creation. Several pictures have been added to the museum's cateogry on Commons and, as future steps, new articles on the Caproni topic will be created and improved on it.wiki and en.wiki.

Although the Wikipedian concerned collaborated with the museum and acted as an intermediary between the institution and the Wikimedia projects, the cooperation has not yet been formalized by an agreement between Wikimedia Italia an the Gianni Caproni Museum. However it is possible, and even likely, that the collaboration will become an actual residency during the summer of 2012.

News in brief

  • Share Your Knowledge press conference: Press conference has presented new cultural institutions involved in Share Your Knowledge and WikiAfrica, within the Festival di cinema africano, dell 'Asia e dell' America Latina, Milan, 25/03/2012.
  • Training for Wikipedians in residence, March-May 2012, Milan. Three months side-by-side training for Wikipedians in residence, lettera27 Foundation in collaboration with Wikimedia Italia.
  • Francis Awinda presents WikiAfrica at the Lagos Black Heritage Festival, 02-09/04/2012.


Leipzig Book Fair; More on the Long Nights

Kafka, "Das Schloss", 1926. One of the items from Wikisource that were on display at the stand of the Leipzig University Library during the Leipzig Book Fair.

Wikipedia Academy

Leipzig Book Fair

From March 15-18, the Leipzig Book Fair was held in Leipzig, The event is traditionally accompanied by numerous public reading events all across the town. This year, this included a public reading of the book "Alles über Wikipedia und die Menschen hinter der größten Enzyklopädie der Welt" (All about Wikipedia) on March 16. On the fair itself, the Leipzig University Library presented its "global digital library" project, which contained two items from Wikisource - Kafka's "The Castle" and a page from Meyers Blitz-Lexikon. Their stand was also visited by several Wikimedians, one of which volunteered to help out with the reception of visitors at the stand.

More on the Long Nights

As announced in January, planning is underway for GLAM:Wiki participation in the Long Nights of the Sciences that are being held in multiple cities throughout the year. The first such partnership will take place on June 2 at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, the second on June 29 in the Leipzig University Library. At the museum, the focus will be on exploring links between Wikipedia and the Tierstimmenarchiv (animal sound archive), in the library on a hands-on workshop. Ideas, suggestions and other forms of participation are still welcome.


GLAM in Russia / GLAM в России

Read this report in English or Russian.
Video of the first Russian GLAM report on a wikimeetup
Видеозапись первого доклада на русском языке на викивстрече о GLAM-инициативе
Interactive map of Russia taking part in WLM 2012. Blue: regions with a coordinator; orange: regions with prepared monument database but without a coordinator yet
Участие России в WLM 2012, интерактивная карта; голубым цветом обозначены регионы, для которых уже найден координатор, оранжевым цветом обозначены регионы с подготовленной базой списков монументов, не обеспеченные региональными координаторами

First GLAM report on a wikimeetup in Russia

On 2012-03-09, Ushinskiy public library in Moscow hosted a wikimeetup and a ceremony of awarding users who had achieved notable success in 2011 (authors of Articles of the Year, leaders by number of edits, featured articles or featured lists, most active patrollers, etc). Besides the award ceremony, “Wikipedia: Truth in numbers” film was shown in Russian, and reports about law-making activities of Wikimedia RU and GLAM initiative in Russia were given; the report about GLAM was first of a kind, and it was a start of open preparation of Wikipedia Loves Monuments in Russia; the activists are now calling for regional coordinators and discussing the competition of 2012.

RIA Novosti

Collaboration with RIA Novosti (see previous report) resulted in uploading new photos. Some of them are related with International Women’s Day:

Первый доклад о GLAM на викивстрече в России

9 марта 2012 года в Библиотеке имени Ушинского в Москве состоялась викивстреча с награждением участников, достигших больших успехов в 2011 году (авторов Статей года, авторов наибольшего количества правок, наибольшего количества избранных статей и списков, наиболее активных патрулирующих и так далее). Награждение было совмещено с просмотром фильма «Википедия: истина в цифрах» на русском языке и чтением докладов о правотворческой деятельности Викимедиа РУ и об инициативе GLAM в России; прочитанный доклад стал первым в своём роде и послужил точкой старта открытой подготовки к конкурсу «Википедия любит монументы» в России; на данном этапе ищутся региональные координаторы и обсуждаются ключевые положения конкурса 2012 года.

РИА Новости

В рамках совместного проекта, описанного в прошлом отчёте, загружены новые фотографии, некоторые из которых связаны с празднованием Международного женского дня:


GLAM in Bulgaria / GLAM в България

Read this report in English or Bulgarian.
The Director of the Bulgarian Archives State Agency (BASA) with Bulgarian Wikipedians at the press conference on March 13, 2012
Председателят на Държавна агенция "Архиви" с български редактори на Уикипедия на пресконференцията на 13 март 2012

The first GLAM collaboration in Bulgaria: Archives State Agency

On March 13, 2012, the first partnership between a Bulgarian GLAM institution and volunteers from the Bulgarian Wikipedia officially started with a press conference, well covered in national media.

The collaboration with the Archives State Agency of the Republic of Bulgaria started back in November 2011, initiated by the Agency after its Director, the historian Assoc. Prof. Martin Ivanov, visited the CITRA congress in Toledo, Spain, and heard of the successful experience of NARA. Through continued discussions both on- and offline, a framework for joint activities was elaborated and the legal setting of the partnership defined. The final decision was for a six-month agreement for collaboration, signed by the Director of BASA and the individual Wikipedians, with an option for renewal. On March 13, five volunteers from the Bulgarian Wikipedia signed the agreement. Thus they are granted pay-free access to the documents in the Archives, and to the content digitization with their own equipment.

Besides the documents which they personally digitize, the volunteers are also given the right to upload to Wikimedia Commons any documents that had already been digitized by the officers of the Agency. The digitization of the Archive fonds has started recently, so in contrast to other existing partnerships, there is just a small number of documents that can be readily used. The Wikipedians, however, are given the freedom to personally select documents that are usable for illustration of encyclopedic articles. The only restriction imposed is related to copyright: only documents will be digitized that are unambiguously within the public domain, already free of copyrights.

The photo of the Bulgarian actress Milka Lambreva (1893-1943) was one of the first to be digitized within the partnership
Снимката на българската актриса Милка Ламбрева (1893-1943) беше една от първите, дигитализирани в рамките на сътрудничеството

Първо GLAM сътрудничество в България: Държавна агенция "Архиви"

На 13 март 2012 официално стартира първото за България сътрудничество между българска GLAM[1] институция и доброволци от българската версия на Уикипедия. Началото беше съпроводено с пресконференция, добре отразена в националните медии.

Сътрудничеството с Държавна агенция "Архиви" започва още през ноември 2011 година по инициатива на Агенцията, след като председателят й, доц. д-р Мартин Иванов, посещава конгреса CITRA в Толедо, Испания, и чува за споделения успешен опит на Американските национални архиви. В продължение на няколко месеца текат обсъждания, онлайн и наживо, относно съвместните дейности, които могат да бъдат реализирани, както и правния формат, в който сътрудничеството да се оформи. В крайна сметка решението е да се оформят подписани от председателя и отделни уикипедианци индивидуални шестмесечни споразумения с опция за продължаването им при желание. На 13 март споразумения подписват петима потребители. Те получават право на безплатен достъп до документите на ДА "Архиви" и не дължат такса за дигитализирането на съдържание със собствена техника.

Освен дигитализирани от тях документи, те имат право да качват в Общомедия и всякакви вече дигитализирани от служители на ДАА. Особеност в случая обаче е, че по дигитализацията на архивните фондове в Агенцията се работи сравнително отскоро и все още няма много документи, които могат да се използват наготово дигитализирани, какъвто е случаят при други вече съществуващи сътрудничества. На уикипедианците обаче е дадена пълна свобода сами да подбират документите, които могат да използват за илюстриране на статиите в енциклопедията. Единственото ограничение е от авторскоправен характер: ще бъдат дигитализирани само документи, които са недвусмислено в сферата на общественото достояние и вече свободни от авторски права.

Бележки

  1. ↑ GLAM: Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums - галерии, библиотеки, архиви, музеи

Open Wiki GLAM of Serbia Conference, The internal meeting

By MikyM, Nikola, Nena, ...

The representatives of Wikimedia Serbia organized a conference on February 24, 2012 named Open Wiki GLAM of Serbia, as a part of a project of the same name, intended for GLAM institutions. With the goal of promoting Wikimedia projects and developing cooperation between Wikimedia chapters, the event, held in Belgrade, gathered about 70 representatives of libraries, archives, museums, galleries, foundations, state institutions and organizations. Beside the presentation by the hosts, the conference program included lectures by special guests from India, Italy, France and Czech Republic, who shared their knowledge and experiences with the audience.

The audience had the pleasure to see presentations by the director of Ebart media archive, Velimir Ćurgus, and the director of the digital library Rastko, Zoran Stefanović.

Conference program was divided into six parts, which are further explained.

Wikimedia projects as a means of communication, information and education

Wikimedia Foundation is, according to the latest top list by The Global Journal, among 100 best organizations in the world. Although Wikipedia is one of the most visited sites on the web, many people don't know how Wikimedia projects work and how they can be used correctly. That is why Wikimedia Serbia thought that the conference should start with the success story of Wikimedia projects, with a special glance on Wikipedia, as the most successful project of Wikimedia Foundation.

All projects have been presented, with their purposes explained. Participants were able to see the projects' development and success statistics, and get acquainted with their uses in schools, education and communication.

Ways of protecting intellectual property on the Internet and Creative Commons licenses

In her bilingual Serbian-English presentation "Digital rights, Creative Commons licenses and Knowledge Society", Nevenka Antic, lawyer from Belgrade, Wikimedian, Wikipedian and Creative Commons Serbia Legal Project Lead, briefly explained the legal context of the Open Wiki GLAM project with examples of best practices as well as the legal nature of the Creative Commons licenses and their role in Knowledge Society building and improving. This presentation started with an introduction to crucial terms of copyright. Than, it raised the issue explaining copyright function, protection and limitations, and how it deals with human rights and public interest through legislation and everyday practice. To raise it completed, it explained the legal position of Cultural Heritage Institutions and their role in realization of public interest. At the end, it explained the nature of the Creative Commons licenses comparing at the same time their advantages with traditional methods of transfer of copyright ownership and illustrated some examples of successful Open GLAM practices.

Fast and Free CC Licensing

Presentation

Importance of having cultural heritage on the Internet and ways of their presentation

One of the special guests of the conference was Zoran Stefanovic, director of the Rastko digital library. The presentation began with the story of the Electronic library of Serbian culture, a project that has emerged in the mid 90s of last century. A pioneer in this field, as one of the few digital base in this part of Europe, it quickly became synonymous for an archive of digitized works of Yugoslav and Serbian literature. The social circumstances that have occurred in this region greatly influenced the development of cultural digitization. Zoran mentioned temporary stagnation of the project in the first years of the new millennium, and its rapid recovery efforts to continue with its mission. Also mentioned is the link between Wikimedia projects and project Rastko, and the possibilities for mutual cooperation with Wikimedia.

Wikisource: Digital treasury

Wikisource has been presented. It highlighted Wikisource content should be free and accessible. In particular, it compared Wikisource's textual relation with photos of other digital content resources. The interface of Wikisource for the use or re-use has been elaborated. Finally, it presented links between Wikisource and other Wikimedia's projects.

The auditors have been especially interested in Wikisource's metadata issues.

Digitization technology of QR codes and their application in GLAM institutions

Following preceding sessions, this-one addressed the direct implementation of wiki projects in GLAM institutions' practice using of QR codes. The history of evaluation of these codes with a related video of their function in everyday life has been presented. It also presented QR-pedia website as well as its functions. Than it mentioned best practices such as museums and galleries located in Derby and Indianapolis. These examples made the session completed.

See successful QR codes practices in Derby and Indianapolis.

Stories of successful cooperation

Success story from France: Adrienne Alix

Adrienne Alix

Adrienne Alix speak about the history of GLAM projects in France and made a focus on threee parnterships : the French National Library, that gave more than 1500 digitized books to the French Wikisource (about 50,000 pages). The idea of this partnership was to observe the methods of collaborative work on Wikisource. This was our first major partnership with a cultural institution and served also to test our own methods, with successes and difficulties.

The second project was the partnership with the City of Toulouse, a global partnership signed by the mayor, which allow us to contact all the cultural institutions to make projects as they - and we want. A very rich experience, that has started two years ago and continue to grow every day.

The third project is the "Wikimedian in Residence" in the Palace of Versailles, our first experience of residence, during 6 months, in the most important palace in France. An occasion to explain the Wikimedia projects for all the staff of the Palace and facilitate photography and contribution in collaboration with the staff by the contributors. Then she explained the principles of GLAM partnerships in France: openness, consideration of issues of museums, experimentation

Success story from Wikimedia Czech Republic: Aktron

Wikimedia Czech Republic is a small Wikimedia Chapter. Therefore it can't show success of the very same league like the WM FR or WM DE can. Aktron spoke about Czech GLAM and cooperation with small and large institutions. Members of the GLAM group successfully started to cooperate with several institutions, mostly smaller ones, but negotiations with those on national level are also proceeding. Aktron spoke about some basic ways how GLAM insitution can help us and what can they get by return. He especially pointed out the Probošt's mechanical Christmas crib in Třebechovice pod Orebem, an object currently in a museum which is deeply interested in cooperation with Wikimedia Czech Republic.

Aktron spoke about ways how GLAM institutions can and do cooperate with Wikimedia. They can provide us with free media (and museums have lots of them), or they can help us to improve Wikipedia articles, or help us to improve our project by giving us a piece of code or offer us partnership in their own project (Polytématický strukturovaný heslář). Some insitutions can offer us their own publications that can be used by devoted wikipedians when writing articles about important topics. And when it comes to photographies - already mentioned - Wikimedia Czech Republic and Czech GLAM succeeded to gain a certain number of unique illustrations: ranging from Probošt's mechanical Christmas crib in Třebechovice pod Orebem to Malostranský archiv Jaroslava Fragnera (Czech architect) or an archive of Czech composer, Bohuslav Martinů.

The internal meeting

The second day of the GLAM conference, Wikimedia Serbia organized an internal meeting. The event took place at EUnet bringing together members of Wikimedia Serbia and their guests from India, Macedonia, Italy, France, Hungary and Czech Republic to discuss the GLAM issues.

Wikimedia Serbia prepared questionnaires to be filled in by guests in order to elaborate the conference in details and evaluate its results. The results were positive, mostly and participants continued exchanging opinions and experiences regarding the relationship with the Institutions.

The current practice has been presented and the future cooperation has been discussed. All the participants pointed out the interest of the Institutions is crucial for achieving desired effects. The method of the first successful GLAM action has been especially discussed.

The meeting ended with the conclusions of representatives from Hungary and Macedonia, whom this was one of the first steps in introducing with GLAM Wiki programs.


First Latin American GLAM-WIKI conference hosted in Santiago

Official poster
Official poster
Participants at GLAM-WIKI Santiago 2012.
Introducing Wikimedia projects to the audience.
Ryan Kaldari at GLAM-WIKI Santiago 2012.

Wikimedia Chile, the local chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation, hosted on March 15th the first GLAM-WIKI conference in Latin America. The event took place on the San Joaquín Auditorium of the Duoc UC Institute in the Chilean capital, Santiago.

More than 80 people attended to the event, including several representatives from cultural and academic institutions of the country. People from institutions like the National Library and Archive of Chile, the Council of National Monuments, the Museum of the Memory and Human Rights, the Archives of the University of Chile and the Pontifical Catholic University took part of the conference.

The event was opened by Osmar Valdebenito, president of Wikimedia Chile, explaining to the audience what Wikipedia and the Wikimedia Movement means and why it is important for the institutions to engage with its volunteers. "Our cultural heritage belongs to our people, and we want to feel part of it" explained Mr. Valdebenito, before introducing to some of the most known GLAM agreements in the past years around the world. Cultural institutions "should leave their prejuices behind and take a chance", finished Mr. Valdebenito.

Roxana Donoso presented her experience leading the engagement of the Library of the National Congress with Wikimedia projects. Several projects have been developed by the Library of the National Congress since 2009, especially on Wikisource. The two main projects, the Enciclopedia Chilena and Hansards of the Legislative Bodies between 1810 and 1845 have uploaded more than 20,000 pages to the Spanish Wikisource, increasing several times the number of proofread and validated pages. She highlighted how the participation of volunteers can help a cultural institutions to innovate, to improve their work and to promote their mission.

After Mrs. Donoso's presentation, Sarah Stierch and Ryan Kaldari presented different GLAM experiences, mainly in the US. Experiences at the National Archives or the Children's Museum of Indianapolis were explained to the audience. A video of Wiki loves arts was presented and also other activities that will take part in Chile this year, like Wiki Loves Monuments.

At the end, a discussion panel was hosted. It included Melanie Dulong de Rosnay (Creative Commons France), Beatriz Busaniche (Wikimedia Argentina), Claudio Ruiz (Derechos Digitales and Creative Commons Chile) and Roxana Donoso (Library of the National Congress). Although all of them agreed in the main reasons why a cultural institution should participate at Wikimedia projects, there were interesting differences in the main difficulties to overcome before make that kind of agreements. While Mrs. Busaniche explained that there were a lot of problems because of lawyers and other museum authorities trying to keep their contents for commercial or other restrictive purposes, while Mr. Ruiz explained that one of the main problems is the law itself. Although the new law about intellectual property solved a lot of problems, it doesn't address all of them. One of those cases is the problem of orphan works, especially those created at the middle of the XX century, where it is not clear if they are on the public domain or still under copyright protection. Also, Ruiz addressed the problem of public domain works that have been released with copyright notice, with the main example of Memoria Chilena (website of the National Library), and hoped that it could be solved soon.

The event was highly successful and had a lot of appearences at the Chilean press, including La Segunda newspapers and popular websites like Radio Biobío and Terra.

Documentation

More images are available at Wikimedia Commons.



Students and members of Wikimedia México at the Museo de Arte Popular

On 3 March 2012, Mexico had its first ever edit-a-thon, held at Museo de Arte Popular (Popular Art Museum) in the historic center of Mexico City. While a number of edit-a-thons have been held in various institutions, one important element of this success of this event was that it involved the participation from two of Mexico’s major institutions of higher education. Students from ITESM-Campus Ciudad de México and the newly formed student group at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana-Iztapalapa joined with Wikimedia México to create seven new articles, five in Spanish and two in English. These include Palo fierro (ironwood carving), Carlomagno Pedro Martínez (ceramicist), Colorantes naturals (natural dyes), Cerámica de Mata Ortiz (Mata Ortiz ceramics), Familia Soteno (Soteno family) with the two in English being Alfeñique in Mexico and Linares family (alebrijes and cartonería).

This collaboration among the Wikipedia groups not only made this event a success, but it also allowed for members of these groups to connect face-to-face and discuss future events with mutual support.


55 GLAMs contribute to African contents on Wikipedia

55 GLAM contributing to African contents on Wikipedia

WikiAfrica is currently involving 55 institutions in Africa and with African contents in contributing to Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects. The institutions have been presented March 25th 2012 in Milan within a conference of the Festival del cinema africano dell'Asia e dell'America Latina. Other major institutions with contents related to Africa are already contributing to Wikipedia, such as The National Archives, the British Museum and the British Library.

Potential GLAMs - Still in Talks

  • Nairobi Railway Museum willing to collaborate with Wikimedia Kenya to have their content on Wikipedia.
  • Kenya National Archives

African GLAMs: Cultural Institutions Contributing to Wikipedia and Wikimedia Projects with African Contents

  • NEW GALA-Gay and Lesbian Memory in Action http://www.gala.co.za
  • The Archival Platform http://www.archivalplatform.org
  • M-Net African Film Library http://www.africanfilmlibrary.com
  • Out in Africa Film Festival http://www.oia.co.za
  • Encounters Documentary Film Festival http://www.encounters.co.za
  • Africa Centre is a cultural platform based in Cape Town supporting and producing cultural projects and initiatives. In 2011 the Africa Centre adopted the CC BY-SA on its online documentation and in November launched a call for a Wikipedian in Residence in charge of contributing to WikiAfrica and coordinating more GLAM outreach in Africa.
  • doual'art: a cultural non profit organization focussed on contemporary art and urban research in Douala. Since 1991 doual'art produces public art and collects documentation about its city. doual'art provides all of its online documentation in CC BY-SA: project descriptions, artworks descriptions, biographies of artists and experts.
  • Chimurenga is based in Cape Town. The Chimurenga Library is a repertoire of magazines which influenced writing and thinking in Africa; the website is in CC BY-SA.
  • Kër Thiossane, an art centre, residency space and training facility based in Dakar. The centre provided training to intellectuals, artists and authors in Dakar on how to contribute to Wikipedia and wiki websites.

Wikimedia chapters supporting the collaborations with institutions in Africa and with African contents

  • Wikimedia Kenya
  • Викимедија Србије (Wikimedia Serbia)
  • Wikimedia CH
  • Wikimedia España
  • Wikimedia Italia

News in brief


Australian and New Zealand GLAM efforts

By Wikimedia Australia members, New Zealand Wikimedians: LauraHale, Gaurav Vaidya, Whiteghost.ink, Wittylama

History of the Paralympics in Australia

LauraHale blogged about using Wikinews for the Wikimedians to the Games GLAM collaboration incentive drive on Wikinews's editor blog.

Editor workshops

Tasmania

Participants at the Kingston training day

Leigh Blackall, assisted by Charles Gregory, recently ran two Wikipedia training sessions in the state of Tasmania. The first - Wikipedia training day, Hobart VET - was targetted at the education sector and was held at the Tasmanian Polytechnic in Hobart. It was attended by representatives of various educational institutions, including the State Library of Tasmania, Skills Tasmania, the Department of Education and Independent Schools Tasmania.

The second session was a Wikipedia training day in Kingston and drew a wide variety of participants - from the Australian Paralympic Committee; to a small local history association, the Upper Huon History Group; Legacy Tasmania, an association for Australia's military veterans; and the Female Convict Research Centre, researching the state's convict history.

These were the first editor workshops run in the state of Tasmania and they have proven very successful, with potential scope for future workshops identified. Many thanks to Leigh for travelling down from Canberra to run these events.

Queensland

Wittylama and Whiteghost.ink took Wikipedia to outback Australia this month, running training days for librarians and tourism managers in a remote part of the country as part of a partnership with the State Library of Queensland. The size of Australia has always meant that an effort needs to be made to include people who live in places very far away from the big cities. All public institutions and government take this challenge very seriously; Wikimedia Australia is no exception.

Tambo Public Library

Participants in Tambo and Quilpie were motivated by the possibility of incorporating their extensive knowledge of the local area into the encyclopaedia and some had to travel from even further out in order to join in. The workshops used already existing stub articles about the towns as a medium for learning about editing. The helpfulness of other Wikipedians contributing offsite (especially Mattinbgn) demonstrated the responsiveness of the community and the way that small improvements accumulate for good effect.

Given that all of the learners were women (except for one who found out about the opportunity at the last minute), and also that all of them were newbies, the sessions provided much insight into both the gender gap as well as structuring successful training for these groups.

A photo essay of the trip can be seen here http://www.wittylama.com/2012/03/training-in-the-australian-outback-photo-essay/

ABC releases content to the Commons under CC-BY-SA

The first ever television broadcast by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation

On March 23, 2012, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) released 22 historical videos to Wikimedia Commons showing key events from Australian and world history, from the first World Series Cricket match (find out more about World Series Cricket) to Australia's part in tracking Apollo 11. These videos, made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, are part of an ABC's Open Archives initiative to celebrate the 80th Anniversary of the public broadcaster.

This release is significant not only because it is the first time the ABC has used a free license, but because this is the first time that "packaged" news reports have been shared with Wikimedia. Such audiovisual material is of very high encyclopedic value and is already used in approximately 70 different Wikipedia articles.

The announcement was made simultaneously on the Wikimedia Foundation blog, the Creative Commons Australia blog and by an ABC Press Release. This announcement was also reported on by the tech-news website "The Next Web"[2] and also by the European Commission funded project for open access to television heritage "EU Screen"[3].


Scholarly journal goes wiki; Open Access Media Importer takes shape

The English Wikipedia's article on circular permutation in proteins after the rewrite through PLoS Computational Biology .
Brunfelsia plowmaniana type specimen with QRpedia code in the place where the original image from the paper had the barcode of the New York Botanical Garden, where the specimen is kept. Access stats.

In March, the Wikimedian in Residence on Open Science project focused on the structuring of Open Access materials on Commons, on their use beyond the English Wikipedia and on development of the Open Access Media Importer. Tool testing continued but was hampered by persistent problems with the Toolserver.

PLoS Computational Biology publishes first article destined for Wikipedia

This month saw the publication of the first Topic Page (see January) in PLoS Computational Biology - an article in the journal that had been written specifically for the Circular permutation in proteins entry on the English Wikipedia (see blog post). The article had been drafted in a MediaWiki instance licensed under CC BY. Some screenshots:

A session proposal on the integration of journal and wiki workflows has been submitted for Wikimania.

QRpedia use in scholarly publishing

The press release about a new species of plant described in an article in the open-access journal PhytoKeys contained a QRpedia code pointing to Brunfelsia plowmaniana - the new species that had been diagnosed by way of DNA barcoding. Traffic stats: article, QRpedia. A session proposal on scientific GLAM:Wiki collaboration has been submitted for Wikimania.

Open Access Media Importer

Development on the Open Access Media Importer continued, and the contracts have been signed. Two blog posts detail the progress: the module for crawling PubMed Central's Open Access Subset is now functional and can identify supplementary materials from this set - or articles matching specific search terms - that are licensed compatibly with Wikimedia Commons.
The process works much like apt-get: for instance,
oa-cache list-articles pubmed | grep Malaria | grep 'creativecommons.org/licenses/by/'
finds all Malaria-related papers licensed under CC BY. A session proposal on the Open Access Media Importer has been submitted for Wikimania.

WikiProject Open Access banner at PLoS Medicine
WikiProject Open Access banner at PLoS Medicine
A juvenile Brookesia micra on the head of a match.
A juvenile Brookesia micra on the head of a match.

News

A News section on the homepage of Wikipedia:WikiProject Open Access provides project updates. The March entries were:

Ice age fauna of northern Spain - by Mauricio Antón
Ice age fauna of northern Spain - by Mauricio Antón


Open Access File of the Day

The following files have been featured as Open Access File of the Day in March:

Assessment table

  • The project now has 11 members (up from 8)
  • The project now has 149 assessed articles (up from 144):
Open access articles by quality and importance
Quality Importance
Top High Mid Low NA Total
GA 1 1
B 5 7 2 1 15
C 12 6 7 4 29
Start 2 11 17 21 51
Stub 4 4 4 12 24
List 1 1
NA 2 26 28
Assessed 24 30 30 39 26 149
Total 24 30 30 39 26 149



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