GLAM/Newsletter/March 2021/Contents/Sweden report
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GLAM in Sweden in March
Working life museum courses
Following the tradition of giving courses to volunteers at working life museums every now and then it was time again this March. In two training sessions the volunteers learned both to edit articles and to upload files to Wikimedia Commons. This round had 12 eager students learning about conflict of interest and the necessity of providing sources while trying to improve the articles about their museums and adding images from their collections.
Students writing articles on cultural history in cooperation with the Nordic Museum
Upper secondary school students has to have a special project during their final year. In this case, students from Enskilda Gymnasiet in Stockholm and Anderstorpsgymnasiet in Skellefteå are writing Wikipedia articles on different topics connected to cultural history. The articles were published in February on Swedish Wikipedia, and have gained quite some attention since. The article on the the feminization of the teaching profession became the best new article of the month, and the article "shirt" became the best improved article. The Nordic Museum provides good sources from their archive and library, as well as providing topics for articles and support throughout the process. Wikimedia Sverige supports the students with the Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons knowledge needed, teaching them how the platforms work. This is a very successful cooperation and we hope to be able to do it again next year.
Structured data about old music
Structured Data on Commons, when added to files from GLAM collections, is a huge step towards making them more searchable and easier to analyze. That's why Wikimedia Sverige is making a focused effort to add SDC to some of the collections that we have previously uploaded as part of our partnerships. Recently we have been working on sound recordings from the Swedish Performing Arts Agency, converting data from the file descriptions such as performance date and artist to structured data statements.
Which GLAM collections do you think should have more structured data added?
Musical works from Swedish Music Heritage
There has previously been an upload from Swedish Musical Heritage with about 700 Swedish composers to Wikidata. We have made an upload and just over 5000 works are now connected to these composers. The website for Swedish Musical Heritage also has musical notes for many of the works. One goal is to increase information and availability for these musical notes that are not any longer in copyright and are public domain marked.
Wikimedia Wikimeet India – on SDC and GLAMs
The Wikimedia Wikimeet India 2021 took place in February, and we took it as an opportunity to share our experiences from working with Structured Data on Commons. We see a lot of potential in SDC for GLAM collections, as it makes them easier to search, discover and analyze. The goal of our workshop was to showcase SDC and the different tools available for working with it, hopefully inspiring other Wikimedians to include it in their outreach and partnerships with GLAM organizations.
Refining open GLAM data with OpenRefine
OpenRefine is a fantastic piece of software that volunteers and professionals alike use to clean up their datasets and upload them on Wikidata. It's not surprising that more and more GLAM experts want to include it in their workflow, and Wikimedia Sverige is here to help. We are currently working with two Swedish GLAMs, the Nationalmuseum and the National Historical Museums of Sweden (an umbrella organization for several museums), on a larger project to align their authority data with Wikidata. This will include including the Wikidata ID's of historical people relevant to the museums' collections, such as artists, craftsmen and donators, in their own systems, as well as creating items for any of those that are not yet on Wikidata. OpenRefine is an obvious tool to analyze and work with the museums' large datasets, so we had a class to introduce the project group to it. It was exciting to see them go from loading their datasets into OpenRefine to finding problematic areas and duplicates in their data, to reconciling their entries and crafting Wikidata schemas. Hopefully they will be able to not only apply these new skills in their own work, but also to share them with other GLAMs!
Code4Lib – talking Wikidata and libraries
In March, Wikimedia Sverige participated in the Code4Lib conference, focusing on open technologies in libraries, museums and archives. We were there to talk about our partnership with the National Library of Sweden. We talked about the library's investment in Linked Open Data and our work to upload parts of its catalog to Wikidata. It was great to listen to other participants talk about Wikidata and see their enthusiasm for its possibilities.
Library pod participation
The regional library of Västerbotten dedicated an episode of their pod (in Swedish) to Wikipedia and Libraries. During the episode two of the librarians who participated in the training sessions for librarians last year talked about editing and organizing events and Axel Pettersson from Wikimedia Sverige talked about #1lib1ref, knowledge gaps, #WikiGap, the community and what a local chapter does.
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