GLAM/Newsletter/May 2026/Single
May Global GLAM Call Recording and June Call Announcement
In May we had three great presentations from members of the community at the Global GLAM Call. First, a demonstration of a bulk upload feature on Wikimedia Commons that had been rediscovered at a hackathon in the Netherlands earlier in the year. Followed by a presentation of the recent developments on the Open Heritage Statement and how to request Translation Admin priveleges!
The recording is already online on the event page.
June Call Announcement
This month, on 23 June, we will have the next Global GLAM Call, and the agenda is already filling up! There will be important introductions about the hackathon coming up at Wikimania, info from the hackathon that took place in Milan, and much more. Remember to register in advance. There will be simultaneous interpretation (languages to be confirmed).
Celebrating #1Lib1Ref Australasia
Australia and New Zealand report
Wikimedia Australia (WMAU) and Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand (WANZ) ran #1Lib1Ref Australasia from 15 May to 5 June 2026, the Southern Hemisphere window of the global "One Librarian, One Reference" campaign. The two chapters partnered for a second year, pooling staff resources, training, sharing workshops and inviting library and information professionals across both countries to add citations to Wikipedia.
Organisers in both countries drew on their partnerships within the GLAM sector to promote the campaign, with a particular focus on libraries. Both the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) and the Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa (LIANZA) helped get the word out. Targeted messaging called on Librarians and Information Professionals as the perfect people to get involved and help ‘improve the internet’ while contributing to free and accessible knowledge for all.
The recent rise in the use of AI models to access information online supported our call to action. The need for verified, trustworthy information has never been greater, and Wikipedia relies on volunteer editors to keep content relevant and reliable. The campaign included a mix of online and in-person sessions:
- Intro to Wiki Referencing online workshop, 21 May, co-led by Pru Mitchell (WMAU) and Tamsin Braisher (WANZ).
Pru is a librarian and educator from Australia, and Tamsin is a researcher and Wikimedian in Residence in New Zealand. Together they guided participants on the best ways to enhance Wikipedia’s references, covered the basics for beginners, and also explored using some of Wikipedia's automatic citation tools to streamline editing.
- Cite Right drop-in editing workshops online on 22 May, 29 May and 5 June.
WMAU held three hands-on drop-in editing sessions for new editors to drop in, chat, learn and edit together! In small groups, new editors were guided on how to add references and citations to Wikipedia. Editors were encouraged to share their edits and screens during the calls to receive feedback.
- Five in-person events across Australia and New Zealand, including Melbourne, Canberra, Dunedin, Ōtautahi Christchurch, and Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland were held in Libraries, led by local wikimedians for their colleagues.
A video was made of the Introduction to Wiki References session and is available on YouTube and Wikimedia Commons.
Across the three weeks, the Outreach Dashboard recorded 37 editors, 210 articles created, 4,540 articles edited, 11,700 edits, 4,170 references added, 485 Commons uploads, 1.32 million words added, and 2.91 million article views!
This year saw impressive growth compared to 2025, with increases in all areas. The number of articles edited, number of total edits, and number of words added all more than doubled.
| 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | |
| Articles created | 9 | 112 | 210 |
| Articles edited | 299 | 908 | 4.54K |
| Total edits | 853 | 4.82K | 11.7K |
| Words added | 61.4K | 500K | 1.32M |
| References added | 945 | 2.61K | 4.17K |
Both WMAU and WANZ are thrilled with how #1Lib1Ref Australasia grew in its second year, and we want to thank every librarian, information professional and new editor who gave their time to add references and strengthen Wikipedia.
Sophie Sparrow (WANZ) & Ali Smith (WMAU)
GLAM Connection: Fashion, History, and Biodiversity in May
May was packed with activities, new batch uploads, and even a brand-new resource to pitch GLAM partnerships to potential institutions!
This new presentation resource focuses on introducing how a GLAM partnership works, breaking it down into its four key stages: political, legal, technical, and outreach.
Eva Klabin Fashion Collection: New upload from Casa Museu Eva Klabin
The Eva Klabin House Museum brought a new part of its collection to Wikimedia Commons! This batch aligns with their exhibition "Beleza habitada: Eva Klabin, moda e memórias" (Inhabited Beauty: Eva Klabin, fashion, and memories). To make things even better, this outreach initiative also led to a Wikipedia edit-a-thon.
-
Hat - Adriana Mode. -
Luggage set - Goyard. -
Coat - Zulnie David.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
19th and 20th-Century Criminal Cases: CMU sample upload
The Centro de Memória-Unicamp (CMU) completed an exciting sample upload to Wikimedia Commons, featuring 19th and 20th-century criminal cases from the Campinas Registry Court. Their goal is ambitious: uploading nearly 4,000 documents over the coming months! To boost this initiative, the institution is offering a transcription course on Wikisource this June. Don't miss out!
-
Homicide criminal case. -
Bodily injury criminal case.
Open-Licensed Amazonian Plants: Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi
The Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi shared a massive new batch of images on Wikimedia Commons! The selected collection includes around 9,000 herbarium specimens (exsiccatae) from the institution's collection, bringing their total to over 19,000 uploaded items. And stay tuned: more uploads are expected in the coming weeks!
-
Diospyros inconstans (Ebenaceae). -
Tapura guianensis (Dichapetalaceae). -
Cordia nodosa (Boraginaceae).
New Wikimedian in Residence
New Residency in Montpellier
Nicolas VIGNERON started in June a new role as Wikimedian in Residence for 18 months at the University of Montpellier. Beside some content improvment on the Wikimedia projects, this residence will focus on training the doctoral student, the research fellows and the university librarians around the question of human and environmental health.
Connecting the Arctic and Sicily through Wikimedia Projects
The Gabetti Collection on Greenland Goes Digital: More Than 200 Historical Documents Online
_(20672486936).jpg)
Among the winners of Wikimedia Italia’s MAB 2026 grant program is the Italian Institute of Germanic Studies (IISG), with a project aimed at enhancing and promoting rare materials preserved in the Giuseppe Gabetti Collection. The collection documents Greenland expeditions in the early twentieth century and the scientific relations between Italy and the Nordic countries.
The project aims to publish on Wikimedia Commons a corpus of images including maps, plates, photographic documentation, portraits of explorers, geographers, scientists, and public authorities, as well as watercolor landscapes. The materials will be accompanied by descriptive metadata and structured data linked to Wikidata.
Two activities connected to the Wikimedia project took place during May:
- 7 May: a study day on Greenland organized in collaboration with Sapienza University of Rome. Part of the event was dedicated to presenting and promoting the Wikimedia project.
- 25 May: IISG hosted a meeting with Camillo Pellizzari and Alessandro Marchetti, Italian members of DARIAH’s DH Wiki Working Group. The initiative focused on Wikidata and data round-tripping and was open to researchers and scholars affiliated with the Institute.
Below are statements from Dr. Eleonora De Longis, Head of the IISG Library and Historical Archives, and Alessandro Marchetti, Italian member of DARIAH’s DH Wiki Working Group, regarding the events.
“The conference held on 7 May – Global North, Global South, Global Arctic. History and Present Shocks – provided a valuable framework for placing the Wikimedia project of the Italian Institute of Germanic Studies within a broader discussion about the Arctic in the emerging global order. My presentation – The Wikimedia Project and Italy-Arctic Relations – sought to do two things at once: look back a century and look forward toward open access.
Looking back, I showed that the cultural and scientific relationship between Italy and Greenland did not begin with the geopolitical shifts of recent years. It has a history of at least a century, and Giuseppe Gabetti was one of its most significant figures. At the center of the presentation was Lauge Koch’s Map of North Greenland, an impressive eighteen-sheet cartographic work personally dedicated by the Danish geologist to Gabetti in November 1932—just months after the foundation of IISG and at the height of the sovereignty dispute between Denmark and Norway over Eastern Greenland.
Looking forward, I presented the project that IISG and Wikimedia Italia are developing through the MAB 2026–2028 grant: the publication on Wikimedia Commons of a substantial selection from the Gabetti Collection—more than 200 high-resolution files, structured metadata on Wikidata, and further work on OpenStreetMap relating to historical place names.
What emerges is a dual mission. On the one hand, bringing into the digital public domain a largely invisible heritage that tells the story of an extensive network of scientific exchange. On the other, recognizing that those same maps—named in Danish, often omitting Indigenous Inuit toponyms—were also instruments of sovereignty, and that open access can now become a small act of restitution toward the communities represented.
The collaboration with Wikimedia Italia is much more than support: it is a cultural infrastructure for the democratization of knowledge.” Eleonora De Longis
“The presentation delivered together with Camillo Pellizzari stems from work developed over recent years within the activities of Wikimedia Switzerland and DARIAH’s DH Wiki Working Group. It was in this context that we came into contact with the Italian Institute of Germanic Studies, and the initiative was also conceived as an opportunity to give back and express our gratitude for the Institute’s hospitality.
We provided training with particular attention to Wikidata, Wikibase, and so-called data round-tripping, namely the mutual enrichment of data between Wikimedia platforms and external authority files or databases.
The session included both a practical introduction to the Wikimedia ecosystem for cultural heritage—with examples drawn from Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons—and reflections on the future of data round-tripping and on the interaction between Wikimedia knowledge graphs and bibliographic and archival authority systems.
Many cultural institutions, libraries, archives, and research projects operate through distributed infrastructures and repositories that are often disconnected from one another. In this context, the experience developed within the Wikimedia ecosystem—including through organizations such as Wikimedia Italia and Wikimedia Switzerland—demonstrates how interoperable tools based on Wikidata and Wikibase can provide concrete solutions for connecting heterogeneous datasets, improving metadata quality, and facilitating collaboration among institutions, without necessarily requiring migration to centralized platforms.” Alessandro Marchetti
From WikiVerismo to Wikipedia: an Edit-a-thon on Contemporary Italian Literature at the University of Catania
On 28 May, the Department of Humanities of the University of Catania hosted Paper Voices, Digital Voices, a training and editing event dedicated to Wikipedia and collaborative knowledge production.
The initiative grew out of WikiVerismo, a wiki project developed within the Authorial and Digital Philology course taught by Professor Milena Giuffrida. Created as a teaching and research tool focused on Sicilian Verismo authors such as Giovanni Verga, Luigi Capuana, Federico De Roberto and Luigi Pirandello, the project provided a natural bridge between academic work on texts and contribution to Wikimedia projects.
The day opened with a seminar led by Giovanni Pennisi, Wikimedia Italia Regional Coordinator, and Giuseppe Arena (University of Catania), introducing participants to Wikipedia's editorial principles, its role in knowledge dissemination, and current discussions around Wikipedia, artificial intelligence and digital literacy. The session highlighted the importance of reliable sources, verifiability and collaborative editing in ensuring high-quality content.
In the afternoon, participants took part in a hands-on edit-a-thon supported by volunteers from the Wikimedians in Sicily community. Students and attendees worked on creating and improving Wikipedia articles related to contemporary Italian literature, gaining practical experience with Wikimedia projects while contributing new content to the encyclopedia.
The event forms part of a broader programme of media and digital literacy activities promoted by the Department of Humanities through projects such as Pirandello Nazionale and Verismo Digitale. It was also included in the University's teacher training programme in Literary Studies, bringing together students, educators and Wikimedia volunteers around a shared goal: improving the representation of literary topics on Wikipedia and strengthening digital skills through collaborative knowledge production.
The organising committee included Milena Giuffrida, Giuseppe Palazzolo, Claudia Cantale, Giuseppe Arena and Giovanni Pennisi.
How the cultural, governmental, educational, and museum sectors contributed in unison to Wikimedia projects
How the cultural, governmental, educational, and museum sectors could contribute in unison to Wikimedia projects
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.
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.
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
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.
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
Setting up your own platform (part 1): from wish to the creation of a wiki
This report documents the steps that have been taken to set up our own wiki, including our motivation and reasoning, and what preceded it. It has been described from my perspective as Wikimedian in Residence, and is written on request, as well as there is a need to share experiences how things have been done.
Since April 2025 I am a Wikimedian in Residence (WiR) at Maastricht University (UM) in the Netherlands (announcement). Very soon I learned that within the university there is a long standing wish (10+ years) to have a timeline website that describes the history of the university that makes it insightful how the university developed since it was founded (this year 50 years ago). Until now, sources about the university are often only offline, sparse and diffusive available, and I experience the university as a large chaotic organisation where a publication that would document and describe the past could offer significant benefits. Within the university there are limited resources available and they did not have the time or knowledge how to set up such kind of a website. However, they were inspired by two Dutch language timeline websites, one created by Ghent University called UGentMemorie, the other created by Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam called Geheugen van de VU (Memory of the VU).
So when I proposed the idea that I would create a timeline website for Maastricht University, this was received with great enthusiasm and got all the approvals needed to start the project.
Phase 1: disappointment
Spoiler: This phase has ended in a failure. If you want to stay positive, read only the 1st paragraph, skip the rest of this phase and continue reading at phase 2.
This phase is characterised by two main activities: the search for information to be used in the website and finding the right software/platform to build the website in. Finding information went very prosperous. Within two months I had collected a huge amount of information from books, articles, archive documents, and more, in such a way that I could draw the outline of the website and would have been able to start to work on the content. I also invented a name for the website: UMemory. Within the university it is a bit of a habit to use the abbreviation (UM) in various places. Also, within two months, I had created a poster with many events/changes that had taken place in the past 50 years to give an impression about what the website would contain, and this poster was spread to various people within the university as some pre-promotion of the website to come. The poster, as well as the idea of the website, was very well received everywhere I came.
For finding the software/platform to be used, a meeting was organised with multiple people from the Maastricht University Library to talk about what possibilities there are to set up the website. I described there a little bit my first ideas. I thought it would be the best to do something similar as UGentMemorie, with a main body of text and on the right side some metadata. It would be nice if such metadata could come from a underlying database. As the university is bilingual and internationally orientated, we would have a page in English and a page in Dutch for each subject, as such is common for various parts of the university website. What options/routes were suggested?
- We could Omeka S; software is a content management system for online digital collections. The University Library uses this software for the website digitalcollections.library.maastrichtuniversity.nl, where it hosts the Special Collections and some other materials that have been made publicly available.
- We could use WordPress, which is used for hosting the website of the University Library, and they have a lot of experience with.
- I suggested we could also a wiki environment, as that is what I am used to and have a lot of experience with.
(Note about another option: More than 6 months later I learned that the university also has a self hosting team that can easily create basic websites for projects and teams, but nobody had told me about it. Diving into what is possible with it, it appeared that this option only creates very simple websites, with very limited possibilities to change something, which made it unhandy to use.)
Besides me, nobody in the library had wiki experience and they wanted to go for Omeka S, as that is the software they have experience with. I have also some experience with Omeka S, and knowing this software, I saw there were possibilities to use it for the website. Omeka S is itself only not that suitable to build a website, so the technical person in our team indicated that he needed to go look for a way to present the data from the Omeka S database to a web format. I suggested that perhaps other organisations have done something similar, and the technical person would go look for a way to do it. Despite various attempts to get clarity on the status, I haven't heard anything regarding if a way to do this was found, until months later I got the reaction that the technical person did not have much time to work on the project, and was asking me (via another person) if I still wanted to continue this route. This tasted to me as a lack of interest to work on the project, so I indicated that seeing the situation, that it would be better to go for another route.
Another route (Wordpress) also meant that the technical people from the team were replaced by other technical people from another department of the library. Various weird things happened. For example, I had to hear from a colleague, that he had heard from another colleague, that she had heard from another colleague that a meeting had taken place about my project, while I wasn't even informed that a meetings was organised. When I asked for the outcomes, no answer. At some point an inventory was made to get an idea what was needed for the website (without telling me this happened, without asking me any questions), something I also had to hear from another colleague. I asked the colleague who had made the inventory what the outcome was, and he indicated that I should ask a particular colleague, but asking that particular colleague it appeared that she wasn't even involved at all and had no idea about the project. Not being informed, no clear progress, no project path, etc., around the end of October 2025 I realised that this is not going well, and I started to ask the supervisors for help. First I asked my mentor who supervises my WiR position, then no action was taken. I also asked the team leader, but she was ill that period and no action was taken. And third I asked the manager for help, but no action was taken. Much waiting, not being able to continue, and the weird things that happened. I tried to stay positive, but in December I got depressed and got ill because of the situation. I then decided that very soon something needs to happen, or I would cancel the project. And something happened, a fantastic colleague stood up and started to help me (and said some angry words to colleagues who had failed to do their work), which brought the project back to life. Suddenly, in a very short period of time things were possible, a Wordpress installation created, logging in made possible, first setup, etc. At first it seemed a lot of progress was made, but three months later was the page structure still not ready, still unhandy to use, and still missing basic functionality, and with bugs. (And then a simple OpenStreetMap map with the buildings of the university had still to be figured out.) In March I concluded that this is not going to work, but how can I end this?
First back to January again, while I had found a solution and a fantastic colleague started to help me, the manager that about 3 months earlier refused to help, now suddenly woke up. It became very clear to me that the manager disliked me, and I basically got the blame for that the project wasn't going well. But when I asked what I should have done better or different, the manager could not indicate anything. And when I indicated that I had asked the manager for help months ago, the manager claimed to have no memory of it that I had spoken with her about the project. In the weeks and months following, the behaviour of the manager went worse and worse, and I felt very unsafe at the workplace. Independent staff who deal with harassment and problems on the workplace have looked into the situation and have concluded that the manager had broken 17 rules and guidelines. With my one-year contract nearing its end, early March it became clear that I wanted to switch departments to get away from this bad situation. Later in March, despite I got zero complaints, all my direct colleagues were very positive about me, and my direct supervisors wanted me to continue, the manager made clear that she refused to extend my contract, and that the timeline project should end (read: at the former department). For me this was disappointing, but also the perfect solution to get rid of the 2nd route that also clearly didn't work.
The sad part: 10 months of time and energy have been lost and wasted...
Phase 2: success
To start with the good news: in April my year contract got extended at another department of the university and I can continue my residency (including permission for my work on the timeline website about the university). I am now also in a much better team with various enthusiastic colleagues. I find it important to mention this enthusiasm, because I have learned that enthusiasm drives innovation and makes things possibly and easier to achieve. As most organisations have zero experience in setting up a whole new project, including a timeline website or a wiki, doing such is for them new and unknown (aka innovative). And then enthusiastic people say "yes, let's try it", while people that are not enthusiastic start by describing all the ifs and buts.
The first question I asked myself is if I wanted to continue working on the timeline website. Thinking about the past year, I realised that working with the content of 50 years university history made me feel happy, as well as that I had put so much time and energy in the project, with a lot of materials collected which I did not want to throw away. With my enthusiasm I certainly go for happiness, but how to proceed?
First I thought about just expanding the content of Wikipedia with history of the university, but soon I realised multiple problems: as WiR I officially work for the university so editing pages about the university would possibly cause a conflict of interest which I want to avoid, many images to be used have an unclear copyright status or unknown author so uploading to Commons is problematic, and to be able to have a good coverage also sources not suitable for Wikipedia should be used. So doing this project on Wikipedia quickly disappeared from my mind.
It is understandable that colleagues prefer to use software that they are known to, but as Wikimedian in Residence I wanted to go back to my roots and may natural habitat: the timeline website annex encyclopedia about the university should be a wiki. Thinking it all through, a wiki serves the best the needs and wishes for such a website. Besides the basic Wikipedia extensions, I identified some needed features:
- own domain name setup
- being able to change the default skin/design
- to structure the wiki, pages are grouped being subpages, so the title should be changeable (for non Wikibase pages).
- account creation control, only university staff editing
- images local upload + usage of images from Commons
- to have a Wikibase where knowledge can be hosted as structured data (like Wikidata)
So how can such a wiki be setup? I researched the various ways of setting up a wiki.
- Option 1: Wiki hosting by the university. I found internal documents with specifications for hosting by the IT department. It appeared that the IT department charges prices to departments that want to host a website, prices that my new department didn't want to pay. Also the maximum capacity the offered for a website was lower in comparison to what a wiki with extensions, pages, images and data would need. They also indicated that I have to make sure myself that all the software updates of MediaWiki and the extensions got implemented, something I have no experience in. It also became clear the university has no experience with wikis, and having experienced the past year with all the disappointments and setbacks, hosting within the university is not a serious option.
- Option 2: Wiki hosting by a professional company. At a trustworthy hosting company, I found pricing for a wiki with Wikibase for € 119 per month. That is something my department does not want to pay. (An overview of hosting companies can be found here.)
- Option 3: Wiki hosting by Wikibase.cloud. This hosting is organised by Wikimedia Deutschland and the focus is on a Wikibase. The focus of the project I work is both pages with text and a database with data. That is possible. One thing is not possible: the upload of local images, meaning that only images from Wikimedia Commons can be used or that images are hosted elsewhere and are linked to only (and not inserted in pages). As many images of the past 50 years of the university are unsuitable for uploading to Commons or would require a lot of work to determine who the rights holders are (without guarantee of getting permission), this option for our project would result in many pages having no photos looking boring and bare. For our project not the best option.
- Option 4: Wiki hosting by Miraheze. Miraheze is a free wiki farm run by volunteers that hosts more than 22 000 wikis and exists since 2010. Many extensions can be installed, and wiki administrators can set many settings according to the project's wishes. Based on the needed features, this option matched the best with our needs.
Within my new department we discussed the creation of a wiki at Miraheze with all the possibilities, limitations and characteristics. Within 10 days I got the approval from my supervisor to setup a wiki at Miraheze with the purpose of building timeline website. Phase 1 took about 10 months with insufficient results, phase 2 took 10 days, and the creation of the wiki itself took 10 seconds.
Phase 3
In a future report (part 2) the next phase of this project will be described: the first settings and infrastructure needed for content creation.
ESEAP Conference 2026 and the NZBSI WiR update
Auckland Museum at ESEAP Conference 2026
_(88).jpg)
Wikimedian in Residence, Anjuli Selvadurai (Winnieswikiworld) and Collection Information Technician, Sophie Elborough (Thewickerwoman) attended the ESEAP Conference 2026 in Kaohsiung, Taiwan from 15-17 May. The conference brought together contributors from across the regions of East, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific to share their work and connect.
The Auckland Museum team presented, Women in Wartime: Collaboration, open access & addressing gender bias. The Women in Red inspired project, Women in Wartime, is a collaboration between Auckland Museum’s Online Cenotaph team and Wikimedia platforms to increase content available about New Zealand women during wartime. They shared how Women in Wartime started as a content project then developed into an event series focusing on GLAM outreach and community building.
Auckland Museum at the Wikimedia Hackathon 2026
Dactylantha attended the Wikimedia Hackathon in Milan, where she worked on the GLAM Tool Hospital, a Phabricator ticket-generation platform designed to support GLAM professionals involved in Wikimedia programmes.
The tool is intended for GLAM contributors who would like to request a new feature or report a bug in Wikimedia-related tooling, but who may not feel confident creating Phabricator tasks themselves or using technical contributors’ task management systems. The GLAM Tool Hospital uses a bot to post tickets on behalf of users, meaning that GLAM contributors are not required to create Phabricator accounts in order to participate in the maintenance pipeline as end users of Wikimedia tools.
In addition to the ticket-creation form, the platform also includes a live tracking board. This allows GLAM users to filter tickets by tool, follow the progress of their own reports in real time and see recurring issues reported by others.
The tool was deployed during the hackathon, but is an early working prototype and feedback at this stage is welcome - particularly if you are a GLAM professional reliant on Tooling. Please feel free to read more about the development of this tool here.
Bioeconomy of Science Wikimedian in Residence update
The month of May was all about presentations and workshops for the Wikimedian in Residence at the New Zealand Bioeconomy Science Institute (BSI).
Aotearoa New Zealand WikiCon presentation in Wellington
Leanne Elder, who coordinates BSI to work with Siobhan Leachman (the NZBSI Wikimedian in Residence), gave a presentation on the WiR collaboration to the wider New Zealand Wiki community at the Aotearoa New Zealand WikiCon held in Wellington on 2-3 May. The presentation slides can be seen below.
Two workshops to BSI staff
In May Siobhan also gave two workshops to BSI staff. These workshops were a key part of the BSI WiR. The first workshop, held on the 15th of May, was at the BSI Auckland site and focused on Wikidata. See the Auckland workshop page for links to the slides and workshop resources.
The second workshop, held on the 20th of May, was at the BSI Lincoln site and focused on the interrelationship between Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata. See the Lincoln workshop page for links to the slides and workshop resources.
Both workshops commenced with a presentation about the relevant platform/s and considerations that should be born in mind when editing. The participants were then taught a number of editing tasks and were given practical examples on how to enrich various Wikimedia platforms with expert information and data sourced from BSI.
Both workshops were successful with new and existing editors improving their understanding of the Wikiverse and learning skills in enriching biodiversity content on various Wikimedia platforms.
Plans for June
The NZBSI Wikimedian in Residence will be complete at the end of June. As a result Siobhan is in the process of drafting and seeking feedback from BSI staff on a draft BSI Wiki engagement strategy. Siobhan will also be drafting a final report on the Wikimedian in Residence to be submitted to both BSI and Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand. The aim of this final report is to give a summary of the impact of the residency.
Successful 1Lib1Ref campaign with WMAU
Wikimedia Australia (WMAU) and Wikimedia Aotearoa New Zealand (WANZ) ran #1Lib1Ref Australasia from 15 May to 5 June 2026, the Southern Hemisphere window of the global "One Librarian, One Reference" campaign. The two chapters partnered for a second year, pooling staff resources, training, sharing workshops and inviting library and information professionals across both countries to add citations to Wikipedia.
Organisers in both countries drew on their partnerships within the GLAM sector to promote the campaign, with a particular focus on libraries. Both the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) and the Library and Information Association of New Zealand Aotearoa (LIANZA) helped get the word out. Targeted messaging called on Librarians and Information Professionals as the perfect people to get involved and help ‘improve the internet’ while contributing to free and accessible knowledge for all.
The recent rise in the use of AI models to access information online supported our call to action. The need for verified, trustworthy information has never been greater, and Wikipedia relies on volunteer editors to keep content relevant and reliable. The campaign included a mix of online and in-person sessions:
- Intro to Wiki Referencing online workshop, 21 May, co-led by Pru Mitchell (WMAU) and Tamsin Braisher (WANZ).
Pru is a librarian and educator from Australia, and Tamsin is a researcher and Wikimedian in Residence in New Zealand. Together they guided participants on the best ways to enhance Wikipedia’s references, covered the basics for beginners, and also explored using some of Wikipedia's automatic citation tools to streamline editing.
- Cite Right drop-in editing workshops online on 22 May, 29 May and 5 June.
WMAU held three hands-on drop-in editing sessions for new editors to drop in, chat, learn and edit together! In small groups, new editors were guided on how to add references and citations to Wikipedia. Editors were encouraged to share their edits and screens during the calls to receive feedback.
- Five in-person events across Australia and New Zealand, including Melbourne, Canberra, Dunedin, Ōtautahi Christchurch, and Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland were held in Libraries, led by local wikimedians for their colleagues.
A video was made of the Introduction to Wiki References session and is available on YouTube and Wikimedia Commons.
Across the three weeks, the Outreach Dashboard recorded 37 editors, 210 articles created, 4,540 articles edited, 11,700 edits, 4,170 references added, 485 Commons uploads, 1.32 million words added, and 2.91 million article views!
This year saw impressive growth compared to 2025, with increases in all areas. The number of articles edited, number of total edits, and number of words added all more than doubled.
| 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | |
| Articles created | 9 | 112 | 210 |
| Articles edited | 299 | 908 | 4.54K |
| Total edits | 853 | 4.82K | 11.7K |
| Words added | 61.4K | 500K | 1.32M |
| References added | 945 | 2.61K | 4.17K |
Both WMAU and WANZ are thrilled with how #1Lib1Ref Australasia grew in its second year, and we want to thank every librarian, information professional and new editor who gave their time to add references and strengthen Wikipedia.
Wikimedia MKD Shares GLAM Experience at International Conferences
During the past period, Wikimedia MKD continued to actively promote the exchange of knowledge and experiences in the field of GLAM cooperation at the international level. Through participation in two important Wikimedia conferences, representatives of the organization presented successful practices, projects, and partnerships developed with cultural institutions in Macedonia. These presentations provided an opportunity to showcase the achievements of Wikimedia MKD, strengthen international cooperation, and contribute to discussions on the future development of GLAM initiatives within the Wikimedia movement.
Wikilive 2026
From 16 to 17 May 2026, the jubilee tenth edition of the regional WikiLive conference was held in Belgrade, gathering members of Wikimedia communities, representatives of Wikimedia organizations, editors, and supporters of free knowledge from across the region. The conference program included lectures, workshops, and discussions dedicated to the future of Wikipedia, artificial intelligence, educational programs, and GLAM activities.
Wikimedia MKD was represented by Orce Nineski, Coordinator for Cooperation with Cultural Institutions, who presented the organization’s GLAM activities and collaborations with museums, libraries, archives, and other cultural institutions in Macedonia. During his presentation, he highlighted the importance of digitization and free access to cultural heritage, emphasizing how cooperation between Wikimedia MKD and cultural institutions contributes to preserving and promoting Macedonian culture through free knowledge platforms.
Nineski also presented several successful projects and activities through which photographs, documents, and various historical and cultural materials were uploaded to Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. These activities help make Macedonian cultural heritage more accessible both to the local public and to the international Wikimedia community. His presentation attracted interest among participants, especially because of the practical examples of successful institutional partnerships and the opportunities for developing new regional GLAM collaborations in the future.
The conference concluded with discussions about the future development of the Wikimedia movement and regional cooperation, once again confirming the importance of sharing experiences and strengthening connections between Wikimedia communities in the region.
You can see how it went through the photographic material bellow:
-
Orce Nineski giving a lecture -
Orce Nineski giving a lecture -
Orce Nineski giving a lecture
Zana Strkovska presentation at Wiki Conference for Russian-Speaking Contributors
Zana Strkovska had a presentation on “Good practice exchange on developing successful GLAM projects” at the Wiki Conference for Russian-Speaking Contributors. During the session, she presented the experiences and activities of Wikimedia MKD in the field of GLAM cooperation and shared examples of successful partnerships with museums, galleries, libraries, and archives in Macedonia.
The presentation highlighted the importance of collaboration between Wikimedia affiliates and cultural institutions in preserving and promoting cultural heritage through free knowledge platforms. She explained how GLAM partnerships contribute to the digitization and accessibility of valuable historical and cultural materials, allowing wider public access to content through Wikimedia projects such as Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikidata.
Special focus was placed on the process of establishing sustainable cooperation with institutions, organizing joint activities, and encouraging professionals from the cultural sector to participate in open knowledge initiatives. Different successful case studies and practical approaches used by Wikimedia MKD were presented, including content digitization projects, educational activities, edit-a-thons, and initiatives aimed at improving the representation of cultural heritage online.
The presentation also emphasized the importance of international exchange of experiences and good practices among Wikimedia communities. Participants discussed common challenges in GLAM collaborations. The session encouraged further cooperation between affiliates and provided inspiration for developing new GLAM initiatives in different countries.
Partnerships, Participation, and Open Knowledge
From Planning to Action: GLAM-Wiki Collaboration with Nicolaus Copernicus University Library
A workshop was held at the Nicolaus Copernicus University Library as the next step in its collaboration within the GLAM-Wiki programme. The session was led by Kamila Neuman, Open Culture Manager at Wikimedia Polska. The primary goal of the workshop was to assess the library’s presence and the visibility of its collections in Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons as a starting point for planning initial GLAM-Wiki activities. Participants identified gaps, areas for improvement, and opportunities to strengthen the connection between the institution and its resources across Wikimedia projects.
During the workshop, staff members learned methods for discovering, organizing, and assessing resources within Wikimedia projects, including ways to identify materials related to the library that had not yet been properly categorized. The session enabled the team to use their subject expertise to define priorities and plan activities that address the needs identified during the analysis.
Participants also added themselves to the list of project participants and began documenting planned activities on the dedicated collaboration page.
One of the first outcomes of this collaboration followed later in May, when the library organized a local editing event as part of the international 1Lib1Ref campaign. Responding to Wikimedia Polska’s invitation to participate, librarians worked together to improve Wikipedia articles by adding reliable references drawn from both print and digital sources, including materials available through the Kuyavian-Pomeranian Digital Library.
The event demonstrated how librarians’ expertise and trusted collections can contribute directly to improving the quality of information available on Wikipedia while supporting open access to knowledge.
Introducing Wikimedia Projects to the University of Life Sciences in Lublin
Dr Katarzyna Makowska, Open Science Manager, and Kamila Neuman, Open Culture Manager at Wikimedia Polska, delivered an online training session for staff of the University of Life Sciences in Lublin titled “Wikimedia and the Academic Community – Natural Allies.”
The introductory session presented the potential of Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikidata for use in academic institutions. Participants learned about examples of collaboration between universities and Wikimedia projects, as well as ways in which open platforms can increase the accessibility, visibility, and impact of knowledge and digital resources.
The training provided an introduction to Wikimedia projects and their potential applications in academia, creating a foundation for further conversations about possible areas of collaboration with the university.
Wikimedia Projects and Living Heritage at the International Seminar “Language as a Vehicle of Intangible Cultural Heritage”
Kamila Neuman, Open Culture Manager at Wikimedia Polska, participated in the international seminar "Language as a Vehicle of Intangible Cultural Heritage" held at the University of Warsaw on the occasion of the World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development. Our thanks to Professor Hanna Schreiber and the team of the UNESCO Chair on Intangible Cultural Heritage in Public and Global Governance for the invitation to join the seminar and to share the Wikimedia perspective on language, cultural heritage, and artificial intelligence.
As part of the panel on technology and artificial intelligence in heritage safeguarding, Kamila joined Dr Joanna Dolińska (University of Warsaw) and Prof. Fabrizio Galeazzi (Anglia Ruskin University) in a discussion moderated by Dr Bartosz Pieliński. The panel explored the opportunities and challenges of using digital technologies and AI in the documentation, sharing, and safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage.
Drawing on examples from Wikimedia projects, including the Wayuunaiki–language Wikipedia created by the Indigenous Wayuu community and the “Wikipedia na Kurpiowszczyźnie” initiative, the presentation highlighted that Wikimedia projects are more than repositories of information. They also provide spaces for linguistic diversity, community participation, self-representation, and knowledge sharing in local and minority languages.
The discussion also addressed emerging challenges related to the use of openly shared cultural knowledge by AI systems. Participants explored questions of community agency, recognition, and the fair use of cultural knowledge, emphasizing that safeguarding living heritage requires supporting the communities that create and sustain it – not only documenting its digital traces.
Building a Guidebook for New Wikimedians in Residence
On 26 May, members of the growing network of Polish Wikimedians in Residence met online for another peer-learning session facilitated by Kamila Neuman, Open Culture Manager at Wikimedia Polska. The meeting series provides a space for exchanging experiences, discussing common challenges, and developing good practices for Wikimedia residencies in cultural institutions.
This session focused on the development of a guidebook for new Wikimedians in Residence. Participants worked together to identify the key topics and resources that such a guide should include, with the aim of supporting newcomers in their onboarding process while bringing together practical advice and lessons learned from existing residency programmes.
Planned for development throughout 2026, the guidebook will be created collaboratively with both experienced and new Wikimedians in Residence, including participants joining upcoming residency programmes at university libraries in Toruń and Wrocław. The goal is to create a practical resource that helps future residents navigate their roles more effectively while promoting shared standards and good practices across the GLAM-Wiki community.
May in Wikimedia Serbia
Wikipedian in Residence at the Nikola Tesla Museum
A one-month Wikipedian in Residence program at the Nikola Tesla Museum has successfully concluded. During this period, the resident was engaged in digitizing content related to the life and work of Nikola Tesla, resulting in the release of 150 files owned by the Museum.
Wikipedian in Residence at the National Museum in Pančevo
The Wikipedian in Residence program at the National Museum in Pančevo has been completed. During the residency, a total of 164 new articles were written and 20 were edited on the Serbian Wikipedia. Additionally, 164 new items were created on Wikidata, and 571 files were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons.
International Museum Day Competition
The competition held on the occasion of International Museum Day has come to an end, and the results will be announced in a few days. We would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who showed interest and participated in the competition.
Global GLAM Call Hosting
During May, Wikimedia Serbia hosted the Global GLAM Call, an online meeting that brings together participants from all over the world interested in cooperation in the fields of culture, heritage, and free knowledge. This call represents an important opportunity for exchanging experiences, presenting projects, and strengthening international cooperation within GLAM initiatives. The call is open to everyone interested, and participants will have the opportunity to hear examples of best practices and join the discussion.
Participation in the Content Partnerships Hub
Wikimedia Serbia has been actively working within the global Content Partnerships Hub initiative. This is an important program that brings together Wikimedia affiliates and volunteers worldwide who are interested in collaborating with various partners to share knowledge freely. The Hub aims to improve cooperation with organizations such as museums, libraries, archives, scientific institutions, and international organizations, ensuring their content is accessible on Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects.
El Prado en femenino III
The Prado en femenino III: women in art
The third ‘El Prado en femenino’ edit-a-thon, organised by the Prado Museum and Wikimedia Spain, once again brought together people with an interest in art, history and free knowledge. The event focused on raising the profile of women in art collections.
Around 10 people took part in this edition, between the guided tour of the exhibition and the Wikipedia editing session. They helped to improve around 20 articles on women artists, patrons, collectors and figures linked to the art world.
- A guided tour that offered new insights into the museum
The day began with a guided tour of the El Prado in femenino III exhibition, led by curator Noelia García Pérez. The activity generated great interest among those attending, who were able to discover first-hand the stories, contexts and female figures linked to the museum’s collections. The tour was met with great enthusiasm from the participants, taking place in an atmosphere of learning and active engagement.
- Editing Wikipedia to raise the profile of women in the arts
Following the visit, the 3rd ‘El Prado en femenino’ Edit-a-thon was held in the museum’s library, El Casón del Buen Retiro. Participants worked collaboratively to improve and create Wikipedia articles.
The atmosphere was highly engaging and productive, with a particular focus on adding references, expanding content and enhancing the representation of women in the encyclopaedia. In total, around 20 articles were edited, helping to boost the visibility of female artists, patrons and collectors on Wikipedia.
The editing session took place with active participation and a steady pace of work. The participants contributed to the collaborative improvement and creation of content on Wikipedia.
- Open access and gender perspectives at the Prado Museum
'El Prado en femenino' is part of the Museo Nacional del Prado’s efforts to reinterpret its collections from a gender perspective, highlighting the role of women in art history. For Wikimedia Spain, this collaboration enables us to continue expanding free knowledge with new voices, perspectives and content that enrich Wikipedia and make it more diverse and representative.
Edit-a-thons like this one demonstrate the value of collaboration between cultural institutions and the Wikimedia community. By pooling our experiences, learning and joint editing efforts, we can improve access to free knowledge.
Museum for Communication, Panel IMD, Wikipedia Day
Museum for Communication
The Pop-Up Exhibition "When artists talk to telephone books and these respond to them. PTT Archive meets Wikipedia: Telephone directory stories from the past" has been realized at the Museum of Communication in Bern.
It was the first cooperation of WMCH with a Museum's exhibition. The idea came last year when looking for locations to celebrate Wikipedia's 25th birthday. The goal seemed unreachable until March 2026. Since 2025 we cooperated with the PTT Archive. The stories from the communication past had been exciting. With a few artists we developed art works illustrating what one can experience in the archive. The cooperation became stronger. 2000 images of telephone pages had already been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. As artists we developed Audio files, drawings, sculptures and video work focussing on some main archival messages. These artworks are all on commons and have been also presented together with the 2000 telephone book images as VR-installation by the University of Basel, faculty for information technology. With this presentation we started celebrating the International Museum Day.
Each day the Pop-Up exhibition had around 300 visitors. Details on the exhibition and the CoCreation process can be found here. Please find here Blogarticles and further links. In the Making Of film the process of the cocreation workshop and the conceptional ideas are explained.
Panel IMD
The panel for the International Museum Day was online at 6 pm Swiss time at the International Museum Day, the 18th of May. The theme was "Politics of Care" focussing on the given subjects by the International council of museums.
The documentation is in process and will be shown on the project page soon. The four speakers presented their distinguished work. It started with a presentation on the Pop Up exhibition telling the history of the profession telephonist. The second talk was on literature of Care connecting Goethe's Faust with the contemporary work The God of Small Things. Digitally we then went to India and everyday solidarity projects were presented. Wikimedia Brazil presented the work at the Emilio Goeldi Museum on indigene culture. Emilio Goeldi is Swiss. He founded the museum and Wikimedia CH supports the research project since two years.
Wikipedia Day
The Wikipedia Day was a double celebration of 25 years of Wikipedia and 20 years of Wikimedia CH. The GLAM programme presented ceramic masks that were created at a museum's workshop in Biel/Bienne with closed eyes. The location Schwellenmätteli at the Aare river has been fantastic as the weather was good and the water felt refreshing. It has been the first time that the new WMCH Friendly Space Policy was fully implemented on such an event. The programme can be found here. In the evening there was a celebration party. Find more images on Commons.
Early Qurans on the front page of Wikipedia
Khalili Foundation
Early Qurans
The work on Quran manuscripts, mentioned in last month's report, has expanded. The new article on the Palermo Quran passed DYK review and has been scheduled for Wednesday 3 June. I wrote a new article on the Isfahan Quran which has already passed DYK review and is scheduled for Wednesday 10 June. This is the 26th new article on English Wikipedia relevant to the Khalili Collections, and the 97th new article across all Wikipedias.
I also made changes to the articles Early Quranic manuscripts, Samarkand Kufic Quran, Afzal Khan Shirazi, Sarai Amanat Khan, and the navigational template Quranic manuscripts.
I have been working on a new article on Amanat Khan Shirazi, the calligrapher of the Taj Mahal, featuring an image of the Quran (QUR 614) that he copied out in the last years of his life.
Events
.jpg)
Martin Poulter and Waqas Ahmed attended the second day of the AI-Bridges symposium at the University of London's Institute of Advanced Study. The day brought together some of the stars of the open knowledge movement, knowledge organisations, and academia to explore whether AI tools can benefit the open knowledge commons. Martin led a discussion about challenges faced by the least-resourced cultural institutions, using examples from the Khalili Foundation's work with UNESCO. Waqas spoke on the closing panel summarising the day.
One of the connections made at AI-Bridges was with Andrew Lih, creator of Wikigraph and Wiki100. We are going to explore creating a similar interactive visualisation of articles related to the Khalili Collections.
A proposed talk about Interfaith Explorers for the Wikimania conference in Paris was rejected. Martin has still registered for the conference, which will have strands about partnerships and cultural heritage on Wikimedia projects.
New articles using Khalili Collections images
This is not a complete list as it is hard to track all uses of these images.
- Sura As-Sabà in Catalan
- Jaghmini in Turkish
- Imperial Household Artist in French (this is a translation from an English article mostly written by me).
I have added some Khalili Collections images to the Early Quranic manuscripts article. The Islamic Art expert Sheila Blair has a Wikipedia article; I added a bibliography along with a relevant image from the Khalili Collections.
Other improvements
I'm grateful to Delphine Montagne, Wikimedian In Residence at URFIST, who saw last month's notice about the French article on the Khalili Collection of Aramaic Documents. She improved the translation to be more natural French and to better fit French Wikipedia's style.
View statistics
The stats server reports 3,661,280 image views for May.
The article World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development was again linked from the On This Day section on the front page of English Wikipedia on 21 May, getting 1,900 views on the day itself.
Updates on work by BHLWiki Working Group members
Darwin Correspondence Project and Wikidata
During the recent BHL Day 2026, a presentation was given by Liz Smith and Mike Hawkins from Cambridge University Library and Archives titled The potential of legacy data sets: challenges and ambitions from the legacy of the Darwin Correspondence Project. See the presentation here. In the Q&A Siobhan Leachman asked whether the presenters had thought of using Wikidata for the correspondents of Darwin. The presenters said yes but that this was on their “to do” list. BHL-Wiki working group member Andy Mabbett immediately started work on this, proposing a Wikidata property for the identifier given to Darwin correspondents by the Darwin Correspondence Project. This property was accepted by the Wikidata community - see https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Property:P14397. Andy then organised a Wikidata Mix’n’match project and added the Darwin correspondent identifier dataset to this Wikidata tool and allowing for the matching of appropriate Wikidata items to appropriate correspondents. The Mix'n'match project can be found here https://mix-n-match.toolforge.org/#/catalog/7918.
As at 4th June 2026 this dataset is 69% complete - that is 69% of the correspondents of Darwin provided with an identifier by the Darwin Correspondence Project have been matched to their Wikidata item.
Reviewing of the Wikimedia Commons Specimen template
Members of the BHL-Wiki working group continue to collaborate on Wikidata:WikiProject Natural History Specimen data model. Currently that collaboration is working on reviewing the Wikimedia Commons Specimen template https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Template:Specimen attempting to bring it in line with the proposed data model. See Specimen template review for further information.
The overarching aim of this project is to assist with the enrichment and reuse of specimen images in Wikimedia Commons. This can include linking to other images such as scientific illustrations of those specimens, the data model of which has been informed by the BHL-Wiki working groups data model for BHL illustrations. See Biodiversity Heritage Library Modeling.
Disambiguating BHL creators
Progress is continuing to be made by BHL-Wiki working group members to disambiguate BHL creators and improve both the Wikidata items for those creators and the BHL catalogue. If folk want to contribute to this effort the Biodiversity Heritage Library Creator dataset is in mix’n’match. Most of the creators listed in Mix'n'match need Wikidata items created for them. Any help would be gratefully received!
New tools for multilingual audio, video and metadata
New tools for language documentation and archiving
OpenSpeaks recently released three tools for audio-visual documentation and language archiving: Subtitler, Tome, and Bento. Subtitler is an audio and video caption/subtitle editor, Tome is a metadata editor, and Bento is a media file and folder utility.
Community-based language documenters and archivists have long been recording and preserving their community’s knowledge in audio and video. However, the tools for subtitling, describing, and managing media require expensive infrastructure. Since 2024, we have been identifying such technological barriers—these tools attempt to address those barriers.
Currently in alpha/beta, the tools are open-source, cross-platform, and browser-based. They are also offline‑first where possible. Subtitler is an audio and video caption/subtitle editor, Tome is a metadata editor, and Bento is a media file and folder utility. Their ability to work offline or with slow internet connectivity is specifically designed to let field documenters use them on the go. They are also self-contained, with user documentation built into the app, letting users get help from one place.
OpenSpeaks Subtiter: caption and subtitler editor/translator
.png)
Captions/subtitles are critical to web accessibility as deaf people rely on on-screen text of spoken words. So, we had included accessibility as a section in OpenSpeaks, our flagship open educational resource (OER), and had worked in 2021 to enhance practical guides for language documenters and archivists. After testing several open-source and proprietary subtitle editors, Amara was our best choice for its clean, intuitive interface, multilingual support, and being open-source. However, offline and local loading for private or sensitive media, compatibility with Wikimedia Commons, and many other requirements demanded a new subtitle editor.
OpenSpeaks Subtitler is optimised for subtitling during field documentation. You can load an audio or video file and a related subtitle file from a device or TimedText from Wikimedia Commons, and edit it. In the waveform view, you can also create subtitles by dragging the cursor manually. We plan to integrate machine translation and speech recognition (ASR) to assist users. ASR is currently absent or faulty for most Indigenous and other local languages.
Check out OpenSpeaks Subtitler and share feedback.
OpenSpeaks Tome: language documentation and oral knowledge metadata editor
.png)
Language archives often collect rich metadata related to a recording, such as date and place of recording, interviewer, recordist, videographer, translator and transcriber’s names, interviewee’s name, occupation, consent and other details, review/transcription/subtitle process and details. Metadata is published alongside the audio/video files so others can verify what is said in those files. While it's mostly useful outside the community, language speakers themselves do not often gain much from metadata, and creating and curating metadata is a highly labour-intensive process.
Wikimedia Commons asks only a few metadata fields for audio, video and image files to make it easier for new contributors. However, oral knowledge is far from being considered an equal form of knowledge as compared to written knowledge. Our goal is never just to help communities create and upload content, but to help them understand how to fight back against epistemic inequality. For community oral knowledge to stand on equal footing with other dominant written knowledge, one way is to clearly document the recording and preservation processes. This includes technological (recording, media processing, captioning/transcribing), personal (interviewers, interviewees and other involved individuals), and peer production (how recorded knowledge of one person was reviewed by others, how the reviewer’s comments were captured, how disagreements about any recorded topic were dealt with, if any) details. We capture these using the Oral Knowledge Framework (formerly called the Oral History Framework), a set of principles that adhere to the FAIR–CARE principles, specifically covering community-based language recording and preservation.
OpenSpeaks Tome helps capture metadata largely required by language archives such as the Endangered Languages Archive (ELAR) and the Language Archive Cologne (LAC), and is also framed within the Oral Knowledge Framework. Since resources available to each community language documenter and archivist are different, but limited, Tome only recommends what is useful, keeping most input fields optional. It also allows importing and exporting metadata files in a wide range of formats (e.g., Wikitext, plaintext, Markdown, Word, HTML, JSON, XML) and metadata vocabularies (e.g., OPEX/IMDI for ELAR, BLAM/CMDI for LAC, and Dublin Core and the OpenSpeaks JSON). It can export Wikimedia Commons templates that can be copied directly into a file’s Wikitext. See this example.
Check out OpenSpeaks Tome and share feedback.
OpenSpeaks Bento: a small toolbox for media reality
_01.png)
OpenSpeaks Bento clubs three existing OpenSpeaks utilities: Media Metadata Viewer & Compress Helper, Media Duration Calculator, and Multimedia Organization Tool. Together, they address three very ordinary but very time‑consuming problems in language documentation workflows:
- You need to quickly see what is inside a media file and decide whether you can send it over the connection you have.
- You need to know how much audio and video your team has recorded to plan subtitles, translations, or budgets.
- You need to name files in a structured manner, so multiple individuals can collaborate.
The Organise tab (formerly, Multimedia Organization Tool) helps organise, tag, and batch‑rename media files in a folder using structured naming conventions that reflect how a project actually works. The Duration tab (Media Duration Calculator) opens audio nd video files inside a folder and returns their total/specific durations. It can also export that information in CSV or text format to support project planning, billing, and estimating the effort for subtitling and translation. The Compress tab (formerly, Media Metadata Viewer & Compress Helper) reads key technical properties of a file: duration, resolution, frame rate, audio sample rate, bitrate, and codec. It helps users choose compression settings for sharing with an audio/video editor, a transcriber, or even the interviewee for review before publishing.
Bento is to assist project coordinators or archivists for basic operations without scripting, installing heavy software, or copying data between tools. It is intentionally narrow: it does not try to be a full digital asset management system but a set of utilities tuned to the realities of small teams and unstable networks.
Check out OpenSpeaks Bento and share feedback.
This article had originally appeared on Diff and is edited lightly.
New articles in Urdu
This is the nineteenth monthly report of the ongoing work to improve the representation of the UNESCO Memory of the World international register on Wikimedia projects. This is supported and fully funded by the Khalili Foundation, with the involvement of UNESCO and Wikimedia UK.
New articles about Memory of the World International Register inscriptions
- Japanese: Arkhangelsk Gospel
- Japanese: Neighbours
- Urdu: Jikji
- Urdu: Dongui Bogam
- Urdu: Huangdi Neijing
- Vietnamese: Dongui Bogam
- German: Brahms Collection (first article on this inscription in any version of Wikipedia!)
View statistics
The Massviews tool reports 3,618,591 page views in May for English Wikipedia articles that link to the Memory of the World International Register. The Wikimedia Foundation have actioned a request for the Memory of the World International Register to be included in the Commons Analytics reporting tool for image views. The tool reports 152,365,835 views on images relating to the register in May.
June's GLAM events
| <<< previous month | June 2026 | next month >>> | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday |
| 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
| 8 |
9 International Archives Day |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
| 15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
| 22 |
23 | 24 |
25 |
26 |
27 |
28 |
| 29 |
30 |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
