GLAM/Newsletter/May 2021/Contents/UK report

This Month in GLAM – Volume XI, Issue V, May 2021

UK report

British Library, Khalili Collections, University of Edinburgh Library

British Library

May was the third month of my residency. We were pleased to see some connections come to fruition, such as the Urban Tree Festival, and ongoing bookings for the upcoming Wikipedia Wednesdays series for British Library staff.

Placements

We are delighted to welcome our new placement student, Dominic Kane, an MA student from the Digital Humanities course at UCL. Dominic will be with us throughout June, assisting with the India Office Records project.
We were also happy to assist the Endangered Archives Project with their hosting of two interns in early May. Hope.rc and 77Hudsoj did great work bringing previously uncovered heritage to light through their edits.

Projects

IFLA’s Wikidata office hours ran throughout June and we were pleased to see contributions and support from a wide range of users and experts, given to an international audience.
Work continues on preparing uploads for the India Office Records Wikisource contributions, including useful conversations and action regarding the potentially harmful content therein.

Events

We hosted the Urban Tree Festival Wikithon, which was a thoroughly enjoyable event. As of 25th May, the statistics were very encouraging, with 11 editors contributing at least 12 articles, editing 48, adding over 12k words and a number of images to Commons.
The Library’s internal Wikipedia speakers will begin in early June.

Khalili Collections

A new article about the mahmal (a tradition associated with Hajj pilgrimage) was published and passed Did You Know review, as did an article about the Khalili Collection of Islamic Art. This brings the total number of new articles produced by the project to 26, and the number of articles through DYK to 17. There were no new image uploads this month, but a bulk upload of around 700 images of Islamic art is in preparation. For the first time, I was able to go to London to meet with Sir David Khalili and some staff and to consult some publications. This was a chance to demonstrate in person how the Wikidata and Commons representations of the collection offered new ways for the public to explore it, including Histropedia timelines and Wikidata maps.

University of Edinburgh Library

In May we welcomed our Wikimedia intern, Josh Jackson, who will be working with us over the summer to explore how the Library can better engage with Wikimedia projects. A more detailed report will follow in August.

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