GLAM/Newsletter/March 2014/Contents/Germany report
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GLAM ship; Open GLAM hackathon; Science 2.0 conference; GLAM meetup
GLAM ship
Preparations continued this month for the joint exhibit by Wikimedia Deutschland and the Open Knowledge Foundation Deutschland on board of the exhibition ship MS Wissenschaft, which will tour German and Austrian rivers from May till September with a themed exhibition about the digital society. The OKF exhibit will feature open data about public transport in Berlin, while the Wikimedia one will invite visitors to explore Wikipedia articles geolocated along the route of the ship. For further information, see a recent blog post, an English summary page and a Wikimania submission.
Additionally, Wikimedia and OKF Germany are collaborating with Wikimedia and OKF Austria and the Austrian Science Fund to organize a panel discussion on Open Science while the ship is in Vienna in September.
Open GLAM hackathon
Wikimedia Deutschland is co-organizing a GLAM hackathon in Berlin, for which cultural institutions are liberating some of their data, and developers are invited to build apps, mashups, visualizations or other tools or services on top of that. Registration is open, the website is online. About a dozen GLAM institutions have already made data available for this purpose. The coders, game developers and designers meeting in Berlin in the end of April will have a lot of GLAM data to play with. There are still capacities for coders to join the quest. The four challenges they meet will reveal the rich sparkling of treasures from the depots of the participating museums and archives. Expect to read more about this next month.
Science 2.0 conference
From March 26-27, the Science 2.0 conference took place in Hamburg. Its focus was on how Web 2.0 tools and networks impact on the habits and workflows of researchers and was organized by the Leibniz research network Science 2.0, of which Wikimedia Germany is a member. A survey on the matter found that most researchers read wikis (presumably largely Wikipedia) on a regular basis, while only a few do actually contribute. Some, however, participated in a Wikimedia workshop that took place on the day prior to the conference. See also this more detailed report.
More volunteers focussing on GLAM-activities
Back in the times of fairy tales, a dog, a cat, a donkey and a rooster were heading towards Bremen to become musicians. Over the last weekend in March, almost 30 GLAMsters, a.k.a. volunteers active or interested in becoming active in GLAM-matters, gathered in Bremen to exchange their experiences and knowledge on how enhancing the cooperation in between GLAM institutions and volunteers from the Wikiverse. It was an amazing concert, read more in the blog post.
Even though these regular meetings of GLAMsters have increasing numbers of participants, we still found it could be more. And we feel an urge for more easily accessible information on how to do the GLAM thing. Quick finds how to argue to motivate GLAM institutions to open their mind to the spirit of free knowledge and free licenses. Easily reportable explanations to copyright issues. Knowing what event formats there are and which turnouts they might give. How to set up a project and how to get it funded. Having showcases at hand to illustrate the aim. … We would not be Wikimedians if not coming to the conclusion that all the information could be gathered and structured easily by composing a Do-it-Yourself-Handbook on Wikibooks. Please join us completing it, e.g. with links to information sites you consider helpful, translation won't be a problem.
