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GLAM/Newsletter/May 2026/Contents/Mexico report

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Mexico report

How the cultural, governmental, educational, and museum sectors contributed in unison to Wikimedia projects

By Christian (WMMX)

How the cultural, governmental, educational, and museum sectors could contribute in unison to Wikimedia projects

Group photo

Since 2011, WMMX has been building a strong relationship with leader sectors in the country, due to that the reputation of the chapter is known around the cultural and governmental sector. Although working with federal and regional agencies is important, the development of local and hyperlocal strategies is crucial in a large, populous country like ours.

Guava fields at Calvillo

For that reason this year for our participation at the contest Wiki Loves Folklore 2026, we organized an Editathon co-hosted by the National Museum of Magical Towns (MUNPUMA), the government of the municipality of Calvillo, the Secretariat of Tourism, the Autonomous University of Aguascalientes and the Technological University of Calvillo, the main universities in Aguascalientes State. 'Magical Towns' (in Spanish: Pueblos Magicos) is a programme run by the Mexican government dedicated to promoting the country's most historically and aesthetically significant towns.

This co-work not only lasted for the editathon, is a long term work that includes:

  • The government authorities' commitment to be jury for the national contest and also to be sponsors of the prizes for both categories: photograph and video.
  • The temporary exhibition of twenty national winner photographs of the contest at the lobby of the National Museum of Magical Towns.
  • Local tours offered to wikimedians by the Tourism Secretariat for visit the local fields and manufactures of guava-based products like jams, juices, and sweets at Calvillo, known as the Guava Capital of the World due to its climate and fertile soil that produce some of the sweetest and most famous guavas globally.

Also, around $1500 USD were sponsored by the government of Calvillo in order to offer catering for 60 people at the Editathon, the prizes for the contest and the hotel rooms for Wikimedia México.

Traditional embroidery from Calvillo

This is an achievement to share because it was an activity where more than one institution contributed in unison for the planning and development of the collaboration activities.

As part of the results and the investigation about references with the Secretariat of Tourism to write Wikipedia articles we found enough information to improve after Wikivoyage about 177 magical towns in Mexico, it means 31 States and the capital city.

Through this co-working hundreds of images were donated to Wikimedia Commons in order to show how a lot of these Magical Towns were established or how the heritage looks there.

Welcome to Wikimedia Commons another twenty old and rare books for public domain from the Library of Franz Mayer Museum

Palestra Farmaceutica chimico-galenica

In order to celebrate the International Book’s Day in collaboration with the Franz Mayer Museum for second year, close to 5000 high resolution images of twenty old and rare books from France, Netherlands, Spain, Germany, Italy, England and Mexico were released on Wikimedia Commons, that includes L'asino d'oro by Nicolo Machiavelli, a book from 1550; the Atlas Minor of Gerard Mercator; Histoire des croisades pour la delivrance de la terre sainte from 1675; Pharmacopedia matritensis regii, ac supremi hispaniarum protomedicatus autoritate juffu atque auspiciis elaborata; Histoire de la conquête du Mexique, ou de la nouvelle espagne; Thesaurus, hispano-latinus, vtrivsqve lingvae dives opvm, olim a P. Bartholomaeo; Die Ehr vnnd mänliche Thaten, Geschichten vnnd Gefährlichkeiten des streitbaren Ritters vnnd edlen Helden Tewerdanck to named some of them.

Group photo

This donation is part of our GLAM activities with the Franz Mayer Museum. In a show of their commitment to this work, the museum has made these gems from Mayer's personal library available to the whole world. Mayer was a German-Mexican financier, photographer and collector that decided to donate his collection to Mexican people and which is preserved in the museum that bears his name.

What will happen with this donation? We at WMMX will support the process of improving, creating, and illustrating articles based on the donated materials. We will create and extend elements in Wikidata, and we plan to continue digitizing and releasing their collections for integration into Wikimedia projects.

If you want to learn more about this Wikimedia Mexico initiative, we invite you to double check the donation category: Fondo Antiguo Biblioteca Museo Franz Mayer


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