GLAM/Newsletter/May 2024/Contents/New Zealand report

This Month in GLAM – Volume XIV, Issue V, May 2024

Normal version • Single page version

New Zealand report

Women in Architecture Edit-a-thon, Wikidata Te Papa research expeditions project and 1Lib1Ref

Contribute —

2024 Women in Architecture walking tour and edit-a-thon

On 18 May 2024, the second New Zealand Women in Architecture edit-a-thon was held at Auckland War Memorial Museum. Originally inspired by the publication of Making Space: A History of New Zealand Women in Architecture (2022) by Elizabeth Cox, the New Zealand Women in Architecture WikiProject has focused on improving the coverage of women working in architecture and landscape architecture in Aotearoa New Zealand. Events related to the project have been produced in collaboration between Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand, Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira, the University of Auckland and Architecture + Women NZ.

The May 2024 event began with a walking tour, where architects including Ainsley O'Connell, Yvette Overdyck and Justine Goode showcased buildings within central Auckland that they had made contributions to, including the Ellen Melville Centre, south atrium of Auckland War Memorial Museum and the Auckland Civic Theatre.

At the same time, an edit-a-thon was held at Auckland War Memorial Museum, led by Women in Architecture WikiProject organiser Lisa Maule, focusing on developing new articles, Wikidata items and improving pre-existing articles on women in architecture. The event ended with a tutorial explaining how to upload the photographs taken during the walking tour to Wikimedia Commons.

The edit-a-thon saw over 17 participants making contributions to Wikipedia, and led to the creation of six new articles and the expansion of 19 articles related to women in architecture, 70 new images added to Wiki Commons of the event, and 26 images from the A+W NZ Awards 2023, many of which have been used to illustrate pages of women architects, including Sarah Treadwell, Raukura Turei and Maria Chen.

Highlights from participants included one person saying they used Wikipedia all the time and now they had a much better understanding, another expressing joy of being able to hear from architects about their projects on the photo walk, and another realising what was possible to add to from their specialist knowledge without contravening the conflict of interest guidelines.

Event dashboard

Wikidata Te Papa research expeditions project

The 26th of May marked the completion of the "in residence" portion of the Wikidata Te Papa research expeditions project. Ambrosia10 has sent 12 weeks based at Te Papa in their Tory Street, Wellington facility undertaking work on the project. During that time she has worked with Te Papa staff, most closely with Avocadobabygirl, to trial the current research expeditions schema proposed by the Wikidata WikiProject Research Expeditions by creating or enriching Wikidata with data on research expeditions undertaken by Te Papa/ Dominion Museum/Colonial Museum and institutional staff while employed at the museum.

The next stage of the project will be to hold two edit-a-thons aimed at improving Wikipedia articles related to the research expeditions collated during the project and to finalise the draft project report which is due at the end of August.

Outreach and events

On the 10th of May Ambrosia10 presented to the natural history team on the Te Papa Research Expeditions Project. The slides for this presentation can be found here.

On the 4th of June a Te Papa staff research expeditions edition will be held at Te Papa. This will give an opportunity for Te Papa staff to learn to edit Wikipedia articles relating to research expeditions including articles on the participants, the locations, the vessels used, the species collected, and the publications generated as a result of those expeditions.

A public Te Papa research expeditions edit-a-thon is also being planned for the 13th of July.

500 new references!

On May 29 2024 Te Papa's Wikipedians and Library team held a day-long session to add as many references as we could. We were joined by Ambrosia10, CopperAlchemy and several brand new editors, including some from the Alexander Turnbull Library.

With the motivation of mutual nerding out, good food, and the goal of beating last year's contribution of 410 references, we had an intense and satisfying day of editing.

The swathe of new editors, 500 article references and over 200 Wikidata references show how momentum has built over the last few years. Dedicated digital outreach resourcing and connections with the local community have also paid off.

Next "New Zealand report" →

← Previous "New Zealand report"