GLAM/Newsletter/November 2013/Single
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From East to West
Wikipedia Takes Waroona
Australia experienced its most successful Wikipedia Takes event, this was the result of a number of months preparation and support from the Waroona Tourist Centre and members of the Waroona Historical Society. The event was organised by the Tourism Centres manager and assisted by Wikimedian User:Gnangarra, prior to the event Wikimedia had just 4 photographs from the Waroona region, a region of over 800+ km2. In the preparation the Tourism Centre created packs about the region that included maps, shot lists for photographers to record their efforts, list of goals & inspirational list to help photographers identify potential targets as well information on places of interest to visit. The Tourism Centre was the base for the day where people could enjoy free tea, coffee, and snacks while talking to guides familiar with the region and the needs of Wikipedia articles. As they departed to explore and capture Waroona participants were also given water and sunscreen, then when they returned to upload their photos participants were given a thank you bag of goodies.
Gnangarra has reviewed the 2000+ photographs and selected approximately 100 images to be judged by Bob Litchfield a respected commercial photographer and lecturer in photography for over 30 years, with the final three receiving gifts provided by businesses in the town. For the children that participated the local radio station producer and regional online content producer for ABC Open will help select images that will go into an exhibition during January in the Tourism Centre. This will also include radio and online interview with the children about participating the event which will then be published under a CC license. All of the participants had a wonderful day with many asking to invited to the next one, organisors are currently planning the next one for May 2014
State Library of New South Wales: WWI edit-a-thon and batch upload
by User:99of9 and User:Gnangarra
On the 23rd of November the State Library of New South Wales (SLNSW) hosted an edit-a-thon focused on content relating Australia's involvement with WWI. This was attended by six experienced editors as well as one brand new wikipedian who has expertise in historical research and WWI in particular. The day was successful in producing content and developing a tool for using images from the Library. The Library shared with the participants their collection of diaries from WWI, and the participants then created an article about Langford Wellman Colley-Priest which later appeared in the DYK section of the mainpage on 28 November receiving 2800 views. Library staff have been proactively working to re-evaluate a restrictive policy requiring permission to use scans of public domain images within their collection, and the website has now been updated to read "This image may be used freely without requesting permission. The State Library of New South Wales requests acknowledgement that the image is from the collections of the State Library of NSW." This simple but major step has enabled a massive change in how historic images of New South Wales will be distributed to a world-wide audience. On the day a number of PD images of photos in their archives were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons using an experimental batch uploading script. The number of images on Commons from their collection previously stood at 304 (substantially due to the State Library's own targeted uploads commenced during their innovation project), but is now up to 4683 and continues to rapidly rise with new batch uploads, 23 of which are already in use on other WMF projects.
SLNSW - Newcastle
The State Library of New South Wales continued with its editing workshop program this time in Newcastle where Users Whiteghost.ink and Ariconte lead participants through an introduction to actively editing articles. The subject area of the articles was broad with user choosing their areas of interest while retaining an association with the region.
NLA - Australian Newspapers Plan
On 29th November, User:Aliaretiree and User:Rubicon49bce (from the State Library of NSW) and myself (Wittylama) ran a full-day training workshop at the National Library of Australia for representatives of each of the other state libraries in Australia. This is part of the project to write articles about digitised newspapers appearing in Trove. The event was under the auspices of the annual 'Australian Newspapers Plan' consortium meeting (a committee of all the state libraries to coordinate their newspaper collecting/preservation).
This training session was significant, not only in terms of the fact that there are now a couple of trained Wikipedia editors among the staff of each state/territory library in the country, but also because this was the culmination of the SLNSW Wikipedia project (which included the Wikipedian In Residence with Whiteghost.ink earlier in the year). The project was always hoping to be able to develop enough skill and confidence within the SLNSW that editing WP became part of 'business as usual' for their staff, and that they could then train other state libraries too. So, to sit up the back of the room and watch two of my former 'students' deliver their own WP training day was brilliant!
Thanks especially to User:99of9 (also one of the original SLNSW trainers) for helping out remotely during the day and over the weekend in ensuring the articles we created were given the once-over and all our new users were welcomed.
You can see the practical results of the day, in terms of new users and new articles created, here: w:Wikipedia:GLAM/State Library of New South Wales/NSLA Training November 2013
Wiki Loves Monuments in Belgium and Luxembourg
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In October 2013 the jury selected the winners out of the 3210 photos that were uploaded by 121 participants for a total of more than 13 GB. One participant uploaded 700 photos! In the beginning of November we organized on a evening a prize giving ceremony at the Royal Institute for Cultural Heritage (KIKIRPA) in Brussels. The winning participants received a certificate and a box of Belgian chocolates. The organisation provided us a conference room and afterwards gave the participants the opportunity to talk with some drinks and snacks.
See for more pictures the category on Commons.
In the afternoon, before the prize giving ceremony in the evening, we had a meeting about the statutes and were working on the founding of Wikimedia Belgium.
Mass uploads; Wiki Loves Monuments; Edit-a-thon; GLAM conference
Mass Uploads
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In November we continued to work on mass uploads. We are making progress with the Eugène Trutat project, with 280 new files uploaded. The ~200 ones uploaded three years ago in the pilot project will be overwritten soonish; but the Commons metadata and the Archives metadata will have to be merged manually. The City Archives of Toulouse are eager to continue the collaboration with a larger collection from World War I.
With Trutat nearly out of the way, we reactivated the mass upload project with the Haute-Saône museums, and hope to report on progress there soon.
On the technical side, the Python library was transferred to a shared GitHub project, in order to accept contributions more easily. Apart from small changes, we implemented a new feature to compute metrics on categorisation made through the volunteer-driven metadata alignment. We also carried on with our documentation efforts.
Wiki Loves Monuments
On November 29th, we organized the awards ceremony of Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 in France in the Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine inside the Palais de Chaillot. About 60 people attended; a short visit of the Gallery of Casts was organized followed by the actual ceremony. See the blog post and the winners on Commons.
Edit-a-thon at Rennes
On November 24th, the Wikipedians of Rennes, Brittany (the so-called NCO) were invited by the central library of Rennes Les Champs Libres for a small editathon on Wikipedia and Wikisource, given this day was exactly the 10th anniversary of Wikisource and given the library concomitantly opened a new digital library centered on local heritage. Nine people were present during the afternoon, and they contributed on Wikipedia on the topics of the library of Rennes and the local heritage and culture, and in reviewing some pages on the Wikisource in French and Breton.
GLAM conference for professionals in Besançon
"Musées en Franche-Comté", a professional association of museums, organized a one-day conference (14 November) to present Wikimedia France actions with GLAMs. The conference was the initiative of the Haute-Saône Museums, with which we collaborate. Our chair Rémi Mathis presented the chapter and the Wikimedia movement. Then, case studies on Wikimedia collaboration were shown, including Centre Pompidou, Sèvres - cité de la Céramique and musée de Cluny. About thirty museum professionals attended the conference, most of whom knew very little about our projects.
MS Wissenschaft; Science Gallery; Zugang gestalten; Science 2.0; OKFest 2014
MS Wissenschaft
Preparations continued for the science exhibition on the "Digital society" that will travel German and Austrian rivers aboard the boat MS Wissenschaft. A proposal for an exhibit on Open data that had been submitted by the Open Knowledge Foundation Deutschland has been accepted and will be implemented over the coming weeks with the help of Wikimedia Deutschland and the Free Software Foundation Europe.
Science Gallery exhibition on Open Access
In Berlin, the Max Planck Society are operating the Science Gallery, a digital exhibition space featuring several exhibitions in parallel, between which can be switched back and forth. For 30 days and throughout the Berlin 11 conference taking place in the neighbouring Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften (see Open Access report), one of the themes was Open Access, and on that occasion, several speakers of the conference also gave talks there, including teenage inventor Jack Andraka. Avenues for collaboration between the gallery and Wikimedia projects are being explored.
Zugang gestalten
The GLAM conference Zugang gestalten took place on November 28-29 in Berlin and was attented by over 200 representatives from museums, libraries and archives. Keynotes from both the former and future minister of cultural affairs on the perspective of Germany's future as digital land of culture stressed the importance of the issue still far from being solved. Pavel Richter, Wikimedia Deutschland, stretched out his hands to the audience, highlighting the role of community efforts such as in the Wikimedia movement. But the star of the event was Lizzy Jongma who presented the fully accessible collection of the national Rijksmuseum of the Netherlands. A truly inspiring collection of 125.000 items within the reach of us all.
Public funds finance and sustain museums, archives, libraries and monuments – but why? What is a government’s task, what is its responsibility when it comes to maintaining and creating access to cultural heritage?
The focus of the conference was a contemplation of the self-image of cultural institutions and what is expected of them. What is the relationship of cultural institutions to private initiatives and commercial activities? Is there a public responsibility to sustain what is culturally relevant? Can culture be equated with economic utility? Or does the responsibility of public archives, museums and libraries only start when economic utility ends? What is the reason behind legal tax or copyright privilege of so-called “memory institutions”? Finally it will be discussed whether and to what extent legal regulations are sufficient to enable “memory institutions” to fulfill their duties in the digital world.
The conference’s partners have been: Jewish Museum Berlin, Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, Internet and Society Co:llaboratory, iRights.Lab Kultur, Open Knowledge Foundation Germany, Wikimedia Germany, Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek
Head of the conference: Dr. Paul Klimpel Blogreport Documentation
Conference: Research on Wikipedia
In the beginning of November researchers on Wikipedia gathered in Mannheim in Southern Germany. Host was the Central Institute of European Economics. Wikimedia Deutschland presented a list of questions moving us concerning Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and all of it.Most inspiring was Benjamin Mako talk on the iron law of organizations. Blogreport
GLAM on Tour in Görlitz
For the second time GLAM on Tour took place. This time within the rather famous baroque library in Görlitz located in an even older renaissance building in the centre of Görlitz. Almost 20 Wikipedians, Wikisource editors and Wikimedians participated and created a WikiProject involving the staff of the library. More than 200 photos and many new articles arouse. Some of the participants will return for further research. Read more in English in the blogpost.
Annual conference of the Leibniz Association
In parallel to Zugang gestalten, the annual meeting of the Leibniz Association took place in Berlin on November 28-29. It included a meeting of the Science 2.0 research network — of which Wikimedia Deutschland is a partner — and Daniel Mietchen gave a talk on how ideas of free and open knowledge fit with the mission of the network.
Workshop on user behavior
A workshop on "User behavior and content generation on Wikipedia" took place at the Zentrum für Europäische Wirtschaftsforschung in Mannheim, with Wikimedia participation (see Signpost coverage).
Open Knowledge Festival 2014
On November 21, the first meetup in preparation of OKFest 2014 — scheduled for July 15-18 — took place in Berlin. Write-ups are available from Lucile Falgueyrac and Marieke Guy. Upcoming meetups will be organized via this Etherpad.
Libraries and librarians (but there are still shoes)
Beginner training course in Mantova
On 13 and 20 November 2013, Andrea Zanni, with the help of Massimo Telò and Pervinca, held a training course for the patrons of Public Library Baratta*, in Mantova. There were a dozen participants, and the response was very positive. Pervinca and Massimo will also available for support for a "wikipedian library group", host by the library.
- Firenze, 19, 26 November and 3 December 2013, University of Florence; the aim of the course is to create or improve articles on librarianship. introductory course.
- Milano, 22 and 29 November 2013 course for librarians Wikipedia e bibliotecari: un incontro possibile, project page.
WikiVEZ
- Mestre (Venice), WikiVEZ project, a course started on 30 October, composed by five lessons about Wikipedia and sister projects and a final editathon about Venice and Murano glass articles. WikiVEZ is a joint project between Wikimedia Italia, VEZ Public Library of Venezia Mestre and PromoVetro Consortium. More than 25 people, both patrons and librarians, attended the course with the aim of strengthening the local wikipedian community and spreading information about the art of Venetian traditional glass.
Second Bibliohackathon in Trento
On, 25 and 26 November 2013, in Trento, Wikimedia Italia together with Fondazione Bruno Kessler and MART Museum organized a two-day Bibliohackathon, after just one month from the first one. The training days were targeted towards librarians and general GLAM professionals. The event was a success, divided in 2 days for facilitating training and learning. The first day was talking day: Cristian Consonni spoke about Wikidata, and Andrea Zanni explained Wikisource, while Niccolò Caranti illustrated Commons.
Library meeting
- Treviso, 7 November 2013, presentation about Libraries and Wikipedia: forms of collaborations, common goals at the librarians convention Nuove biblioteche per nuovi lettori.
Editathon
- Stra (Venice), 14 November, Europeana Fashion Editathon 2013 with Rossimoda Shoes Museum. The editathon is a joint project between Europeana Fashion, three Wikimedia chapters (Italy, Sweden, and Israel) and local cultural institutions. In Stra, Wikimedia Italy has worked together with Museo Rossimoda della calzatura, University of Padova and IUAV to organize an entire day dedicated to the history of shoeware in Venice area, with a guided tour to Museum's collections, an introductory course on Wikipedia and the editathon on fashion articles. 80 students of marketing and fashion are been involved. You can read about the editathon on Wikimedia Global Blog.
Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 award ceremony; Day of the Dead photo contest winners
Day of the Dead photo contest winners
This year, the Day of the Dead Wiki Style photo contest garnered 227 photographs from 44 participants. This is fewer overall photographs from the year before; however, the overall quality of the photographs was better as were the accompanying descriptions. This year, we decided to make the quality of the descriptions part of the judging. Another important difference was that because the 2 November holiday fell on a Saturday this year, a number of students were able to take photographs outside of the Mexico City metropolitan area. This year, we recieved photographs from states such as Oaxaca, Veracruz, Morelos, Jalisco and Michoacán. The winner of the best photo category was User:Targus90, and the winner of the most original photo category was User:Juanmendiola. The user who uploaded the most photographs was User:Luisroj96 with 57 entries. The winning photographs are below with descriptions. All entries can be seen here
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Storage shack with altar for the dead on a farm in the Lerma municipality in the State of Mexico -
One of the various traditional dances done for a variation of Day of the Dead called "Xantolo" in Huasteca region of Mexico -
One of the photos uploaded by User:Luisroj96, showing a paper mache skeletal figure in Mexican Revolution dress
Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 award ceremony
Wikimedia Mexico ends a succesfull program of activities of Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 with the award ceremony of the contest, held at the Museo Universitario de Chopo of Mexico City at November 28, 2013. It was attended by the winners of the first, second, fifth, sixth and tenth places, their friends and family, representatives of sponsors and part of the jury.
In the event Carmen Alcázar, coordinator of the contest, did a summary of the details of the competition, which involved a dozen public events in three cities of Mexico for the first time and innovations never before done in global WLM, as an audience special award and a panel of reflection about the competition.
Claudio Briones, volunteer of the contest and final jury, highlighted that the quality of competition increased from 2012-2013, and the number of participants. "With this, the people via Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia will have access to higher quality materials", he said.
Now, the next stage is the tour in 2014 of the winner photos in several schools and venues of Mexico City.
Edit-a-thon Amersfoort; Wikipedia seminar Oslo; Wikimedia Nederland Conference; Europeana Fashion
"Wiki loves Bieb" (Wiki Loves Libraries) started a few years ago. After a period of inactivity it has been revitalised. Currently the focus on a few pilots: small scale events at local libraries, like Wikipedia training sessions and writing sessions (edit-a-thons). The first edit-a-thon was organised in the public library of Amersfoort. 12 participants, from which 6 had never edited a Wikipedia page before, worked on articles related to the city of Amersfoort.
The advantages of cooperating with a library where clear:
- They have a good local network of people with all kinds of interests
- A lot of literature is at hand, which is very helpful to find sources for Wikipedia articles
- The infrastructure is already there: desktops, WiFi, coffee, thee, etc.
- Easily reachable by public transport
Wikipedia seminar, Oslo
(This text is mostly copied from the Sweden report
Arts Council Norway in collaboration with the National Archives and The Directorate for Cultural Heritage hosted a Wikipedia day 26 November at Cinemateket in Oslo. Around 100-150 representatives from GLAM institutions around Norway attended and listened to presentations and asked questions. Wikimedia Norway were present at the venue to show Wikipedia and help users do their first edits as well as answer questions. WMNO vice chair Erlend Bjørtvedt talked about the cooperations and activites they have and also said that they are about to hire their first staff.
Staffmember Sebastiaan ter Burg gave a presentation on past and current GLAM projects in The Netherlands at the Wikipedia Seminar in Oslo on the 26th of November (a few notes/slides). Axel Pettersson from Wikimedia Sweden gave some hints on what GLAM institutions should do to be successful when they want their staff to be Wikipedians.
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On november 2, 2013 the Wikimedia Nederland Conference took place. Several GLAM related topics were presented and discussed:
- Wikipedians in Residence
- Wiki loves archives
- A demonstration and an update on the GLAMwiki Toolset
- Fashion Edit-a-thons
The conference ended with the national award ceremony of Wiki Loves Monuments 2014. More information, like slides and abstracts in English, can be found through the program.
Europeana Fashion Edit-a-thons
This month the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision coordinated a trio of edit-a-thons for Europeana Fashion as well as the Europeana Challenge. The three edit-a-thons were held at Nordiska Museet in Stockholm, on 12 November, Museo Rossimoda della Calzatura in Padova on 14 November, and at the Design Faculty of the Holon Institute of Technology in Tel Aviv on 20 November.
Stockholm Edit-a-thon
In Stockholm the event was organized by Nordiska Museet, who also hosted the maiden Europeana Fashion edit-a-thon back in March 2013, along with with Wikimedia Sweden. There were 29 participants including 8 new users. This edit-a-thon had a specific focus on shoes and there was presentation over the retro shoe collection at Nordiska Museet from curator Helena Lindroth.
Padova Edit-a-thon
InVilla Foscari Rossi Stra Venice the event was set up by Virginia Gentillini at Rossimoda Shoe Museum in collaboration with Wikimedia Italy, the University Luav of Venice and the University of Padova. The event strove to teach 72 students how to edit and work with Wikipedia, and explain how shoe history can be explained in an open and neutral way according to the collaborative encyclopedia’s guidelines. Students were able to take advantage and make use of the museum’s extensive collection.
Virginia Gentillini wrote a blog post discussing what it's like to organize an edit-a-thon. It can be found here.
Tel Aviv Edit-a-thon
The Tel Aviv edit-a-thon was organized by Wikimedia Israel and the Holon Institute of Technology as part of the EVA/Minerva Conference the 10th Jerusalem Conference on the Digitisation of Cultural Heritage. Marco Rendina, the technical coordinator for Europeana Fashion was in attendance and gave a presentation on the edit-a-thon series and explained how to be a contributor to Wikipedia to the attendees.
Europeana Challenge
Rich as it is, Wikipedia should be enriched some more, specifically with knowledge about shoes and all things fashion. To get people all over the world to share their knowledge about fashion Europeana Fashion held an online competition for those at the edit-a-thons as well as those not in attendance but wished to contribute to the movement. The Europeana Challenge was established running from 12 November to 12 December. Those who wished to participate in the challenge could register and their contributions were tallied and points were awarded to each contributor. Those who contributed the most; edited articles, wrote new ones, uploaded or enriched content on Wikimedia Commons were able to win a prize. Europeana Fashion partner organizations donated fashion books and catalogs to serve as prizes.
Next year
Europeana Fashion is happy to have completed so many very successful edit-a-thons this past year and are thankful for all our partners' hard work to make these events possible. In the new year Europeana Fashion will start organising a new series of edit-a-thons and will publish a Europeana Fashion Wiki Edit-a-thon Handbook.
Wiki Loves Monuments; Fundación Joaquín Díaz González; Wiki Party in Salamanca
Wiki Loves Monuments
Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 in Spain was held on September, but the results were been published in October. It was the third time that Wiki Loves Monuments was organized in Spain. This year Wikimedia Spain doesn't organize an awards ceremony, but the prizes and gifts were sent by mail. More than 23,000 images were uploaded during the contest (mainly on Wikimedia Commons, but also on Flickr) by more than 400 participants. Spain was the 5th country with more pictures and the 12th with more participants. Also there were more than 40 mentions in different websites, newspapers, blogs, etc. The three first pictures and the participant who uploaded pictures from more different monuments get a prize, and all finalists and the jury have also a diploma, a book about Wikipedia and a notebook of Lettera27.
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Royal Palace of Aranjuez
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- Anuncian las fotografías ganadoras del concurso Wiki Loves Monuments 2013 en España Spanish Wikinews
- Resultados de Wiki Loves Monuments España 2013 Blog of Wikimedia Spain
2764 pictures released by the archive of the Joaquín Díaz Foundation
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Wikimedia Spain started a cooperation with the Fundación Joaquín Díaz, which holds a Museum and an Archive dedicated to old pictures, old musical instruments and cultural research about the Spanish region of Castile and León.
The Foundation takes the name of Joaquín Díaz González, probably the most important folklorist and ethnographer on that region and one of the most important in Spain.
The first step of the cooperation has been the batch upload of 2764 old pictures of Castile and León to Commons, which can be visited at this category.
Wikiparty at University of Salamanca
On November, 15th a Wikiparty was hold at University of Salamanca, one of the most important universities of Europe. The first editathon on Wikipedia was celebrated linked to the exhibition Loci et imagines/ Lugares e imágenes. 800 años de Patrimonio de la Universidad de Salamanca. There was a visit to the exhibition, a workshop and finally, the editathon, about the images of the exhibition. The activity was organized by Medialab USAL and had the collaboration of Oficina del VIII Centenario, Oficina de Conocimiento Abierto and Manuel Pérez and Eduardo Azofra.
- Wiki Party – Loci et Imagines Medialab USAL
Motorcycles, Norway and shoes
MC Collections
Friends of the MC Collection museum in Sollentuna, Stockholm has started writing articles about both individual motorcycles as well as models and manufacturers following a workshop at the museum 14 November. They will also contribute with images of the motorcycles available in the collection.
Kulturarv i Fri Flyt in Norway
Arts Council Norway in collaboration with the National Archives and The Directorate for Cultural Heritage hosted a Wikipedia day 26 November at Cinemateket in Oslo. Around 100-150 representatives from GLAM institutions around Norway attended and listened to presentations and asked questions. Wikimedia Norway were present at the venue to show Wikipedia and help users do their first edits as well as answer questions. WMNO vice chair Erlend Bjørtvedt talked about the cooperations and activites they have and also said that they are about to hire their first staff.
Sebastian Ter Burg from Wikimedia Nederland gave an introduction to ongoing GLAM activities in the Netherlands and Axel Pettersson from Wikimedia Sweden gave some hints on what GLAM institutions should do to be successful when they want their staff to be Wikipedians.
Shoe fashion
As a follow up to the fashion edit-a-thon earlier this year a series of edit-a-thons focusing on shoes kicked off at Nordiska museet in Stockholm on 12 November. Connected to this edit-a-thons is the Europeana Fashion Challenge, a month long contest where participants are awarded points based on expansion of articles and use of images coming from Europeana sources.
Wiki Loves Monuments Awards Ceremony; Wikipedians in Residence; Image Donations
Wiki Loves Monuments Awards Ceremony and Closing Event
On 30 November, over 60 people gathered at the Swiss National Library in Bern in order to celebrate the winners of this year's Wiki Loves Monuments photo contest. After the announcement of the winning pictures, the participants were invited to discover a photo exhibition made up of pictures from three year's of Wiki Loves Monuments contests set in contrast with historical pictures from the Federal Archives of Historic Monuments. After lunch at the library's cafeteria, new contributors could learn during workshops how to integrate images into Wikipedia. In parallel, the National Library offered guided tours through the Federal Archives of Historic Monuments. (More photos)
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The proud winners of this year's contest (with the jury at the back) -
Photo exhibition: “Monuments through time" -
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This year's winning pictures at the exhibition
Wikimedians at the Swiss National Library
Matthias Nepfer, Head of Innovation at the Swiss National Library, used the Wiki Loves Monuments Award Ceremony as an occasion to announce that this was just the start of a long-term partnership with the Wikimedia community and unveiled the names of the two Wikimedians, jointly recruited with Wikimedia CH, that are starting their job in January 2014: Emmanuel Engelhart and Micha L. Rieser (one French and the other German speaking). The latter has been Wikipedian in Residence at the Federal Archives since July. He concluded his residency at the Federal Archives with a guided tour of the archives for his fellow-Wikipedians and the upload of World War I images from the archives' photo collection. See: Media contributed by the Swiss Federal Archives.
Image Donation from the Central Library of Solothurn
A few weeks earlier, Zentralbibliothek Solothurn (a public library in German speaking Switzerland), in collaboration with Wikimedia CH, had newly released around 1.200 pictures coming from one of their collections. The prints and drawings collection gathers notable historical pictures. The focus is on subjects from the canton of Solothurn and on Solothurn artists including Ludwig Midart (1733-1800), Martin Disteli (1802-1844) or Heinrich Jenny (1824-1891). There are also views of the canton of Solothurn by well-known artists from other regions such as the Zurich engraver David Herrliberger (1697-1777) or the Toggenburg landscape painter and engraver Johann Baptist Isenring (1796-1860). Pictures were uploaded in high quality (300ppi) and in a lossless TIFF file format. See: Media contributed by Zentralbibliothek Solothurn.
History of Alps / Alpine space
The project in collaboration with the International Society for Alpine History has generated new results.
New scientific journals have been uploaded in order to reach the total of four journals and the first two have been proofread:
The journals contain articles of historians, anthropologists, and ethnologists like Jean-François Bergier, René Favier, Luigi Zanzi, Jon Mathieu, Roger Sablonier, Franz Mathis, Darja Mihelič, Miha Kosi, Tone Cevc, Stanko Buser, Pier Paolo Viazzo in several languages: French, Italian, German and Rumantsch.
The idea is to create in Wikimedia projects an important library about history of Alps, with all fundamentals books, and a bibliography of on-line and off-line material.
In December there will be a cycle of lectures at the University of Padua for students within the degree in History using the Italian Wikipedia project on History of the Alps as starting-point for their studies and their bibliographic research. The main point of discussion will be around this question: "Wikipedia and the history: which is the perspective?". They will be taught by Andrea Caracausi, the Project Manager for the LabisAlps donation. This is a pilot in order to propose a larger cycle of lectures at the same university for 2014/2015 using the same project and the material uploaded to Wikisource and included on Wikipedia.
In addition new GLAM partners in the Alpine space have been contacted for new projects using the criteria to select rare and endangered material about the Alps and about mountaineering.
Open content at the BBC; edit-a-thons; photography
BBC Open Content
For the first time, the BBC have dipped their toe into open content waters, releasing three extracts from Radio 4 programmes from their archives, 'Desert Island Discs and 'Today', under CC-by licences, as a prelude to releasing around 200 more at an event London on 18 January 2014 (book via that link). The donation came at the behest of Wikimedian Andy Mabbett, who is running the project with the BBC and has written about the initiative on his blog.
Mining for information
The North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers in Newcastle upon Tyne was the site of an edit-a-thon relating to the institute's collection. Robert Forsythe's delivered a report on the event, which included a tour round the collections, and there was enthusiasm for the topic, with one attendee travelling from the other side of the country to be there. The institute is considering a future event based around their collection so there may be more to come!
Scotland
The Wikimedian in Residence at the National Library of Scotland organised an edit-a-thon on the subject of early photography. Topics included the Edinburgh Calotype Club, the oldest photography club in the world, and participants were able to access the Library's digital collections. An editing session with the University of Edinburgh's PhotoSoc is also being considered. A staff edit-a-thon on Forgotten Faces and Absent Places encouraged employees at the NLS to contribute to Wikipedia using their own areas of expertise. A public event was also held at the National Library of Scotland as part of their National Book Week Scotland activities on 30th November, called 'Wikipedia in your Hands'. Details on these events can be found here. In Glasgow an edit-a-thon was run on the topic of Scottish women on Wikipedia on Sunday 16th November. Details of the outcomes can be found here.
Photography
There was a strong photography theme in November. Building on the success of Wiki Loves Monuments, a Wiki Takes event was organised based around London's tube system. The idea was capturing photographs of Grade I and II* listed buildings which weren't covered on Commons and were within easy reach of tube stations. Towards the end of the month there was an edit-a-thon-cum-photography-session at Conway Hall in London, with nine articles created.
Spotlight on the Digital
In his capacity as Jisc Wikimedia Ambassador, Martin Poulter attended and led a session at a "Spotlight on the Digital" session in London, whose topic was how to promote the discovery and use of digitised content. Major institutions such as the Wellcome Library and the British Library were represented, but the focus of the day was on how small projects with very little staff time can cheaply get their content used. Wikimedia UK volunteer Brian Kelly was also in attendance. A lot of the day's discussion related in some way to Wikimedia. Martin followed up with a written briefing (subsequently made available as a blog post) which will shape the national advice given to content holders.
Veterinary Science editathon
A number of Wikimedia UK trainers spent a day at the Royal Veterinary College in London for a joint editathon improving both Wikipedia and Wikivet. This arose from the Jisc/Wikmiedia UK collaboration, and the RVC intend to make it an annual event. The day ended with a tour of the building, which includes an anatomical museum. John Cummings took some photos of animal skeletons for Commons.
Future events
A list of past and future events in the UK is viewable at https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Events. Future events to look out for include:
- Anybody but Burns, a Scottish poetry editathon in Edinburgh
- The ZSL editathon, a Women in zoology and natural history editathon at London Zoo
GLAM-Wiki Activities in Philadelphia and Vancouver, Washington
Recent Activities in Philadelphia
The first GLAM Café was held at the Chemical Heritage Foundation in Philadelphia, on November 12, 2013. The GLAM Café is organized as a meetup group, the second Tuesday of each month from 5-8 p.m. CHF provides a space, coffee, and snacks; those who attend provide ideas and enthusiasm. The concept is similar to DC's WikiSalon, but open to a broader audience. Anyone interested in the areas of GLAM, digital humanities or Wikipedia is welcome. At least 36 people attended: about half were primarily interested or involved in Wikipedia, and about half in PhillyDH, a group for digital humanities. PhillyDH held a breakout meeting from 6 to 8 p.m. Many people didn't know each other, so the first meeting focused on introductions and interests. The next meeting, on December 10, 2013, will likely be more work-oriented.
Edit-a-thon at Vancouver Community Library in Vancouver, Washington
On November 17, the Vancouver Community Library (part of the Fort Vancouver Regional Library District) hosted an edit-a-thon in conjunction with the national Wiki Loves Libraries campaign. Attendees received an overview of how Wikipedia works, examined the edit toolbar and made some practice edits. Two participants took more than 250 photographs of local sites before the meetup, most of which can be found at Category:November 2013 in Washington (state).
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Event signage -
Some attendees at work -
Educational materials -
Library interior
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GLAM-Wiki Activities in New York City
GLAM-Wiki Activities in New York City
Wikimedia NYC and METRO’s Wikipedian-in-Residence organized an Edit-a-Thon on Greenwich Village History at the New York Public Library, Jefferson Market Library Branch in the East Village on Saturday November 2nd. Local historians, librarians, and professors came, as well as Greenwich Village aficionados. The event lasted from 10am-5pm and had about five Wikipedians in attendance, and over 15 other participants. Statistics for the event were generated using Wiki-metrics.
On November 21st, METRO hosted an “Advanced Wikipedia Training” for experienced editors. Members of Wikimedia NYC also offered support during the session. About 12 people were in attendance, from MLIS students to museum archivists to public librarians.
METRO also hosted a “Propose an Article,” Wikipedia project, and selected six requested articles from the Frick Art Reference Library to add to Wikipedia including the American Art Association, and Frederick Mortimer Clapp.
The Wikimedia NYC Board also met several times to discuss its strategic plans and projects into the New Year. These included an Edit-a-Thon on December 6th at Queens Library in Jamaica, Queens, at a New York Public Library in Harlem, and an “Art + Feminism” Edit-a-Thon with Eyebeam Art and Technology Center.
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Edit-a-thon NYPL Jefferson Market Library -
Edit-a-thon Jefferson Market Library -
Queens Public Library Edit-a-thon
Open Access Button and Berlin 11 conference
10th anniversary of the Berlin Declaration on Open Access
In 2003, the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities was published, one of the three foundational documents about Open Access to scholarly publications. Since then, annual conferences have been held to discuss progress on the matter, and hundreds of organizations around the globe — including Wikimedia Germany, the Wikimedia Foundation and Wikimedia Poland — have signed the document. For the 10th anniversary, the conference returned to Berlin, where it took place on November 19-20 in the premises of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften. A report from keynote speaker Glyn Moody is available here. An evening reception was held in the Bode Museum, with a ceremony during which five GLAMS — Stiftung Jüdisches Museum Berlin, Stiftung Preussische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg, Bundesarchiv der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz — signed the declaration. The ceremony was followed by a keynote by Haim Gertner, Director of the Archives Division at Yad Vashem, who are also a recent signatory to the declaration and currently exploring ways to collaborate with Wikimedia projects.
The day before the main conference, a satellite event focusing on Open Access and early career researchers took place in Berlin, organized by the Right to Research Coalition and some of its partner organizations. The speakers included Jack Andraka, Heather Joseph, Alek Tarkowski, Bernard Rentier, Cameron Neylon, Mike Taylor and Ulrich Pöschl. One session was dedicated to workshops on topics around practical aspects of Open Access, e.g. on how to signal the openness of references cited on Wikipedia. On of these workshops was dedicated to the Open Access Button, which was officially launched from there. It is a bookmarklet that lets users record paywalls they hit when searching for scholarly literature and that helps them find copies elsewhere (if they exist).
Stats
In early December, GLAMorous reported for the Commons category Open access (publishing) that it had 22,208 files, of which 6,045 are used a total of 66,008 times across 300 Wikimedia projects.
For this category, the latest BaGLAMa stats are available for October and indicate 37,975,326 views of 57,080 mainspace pages that were using materials from the category across 210 Wikimedia projects. Over 50% of these views are due to files that have been featured as Open Access File of the Day, and around 9% due to files uploaded by the Open Access Media Importer.
Open Access Media Importer
The following represents a selection of the ca. 200 files that have been uploaded by the Open Access Media Importer this month, bringing the total to over 14,500. If you can think of wiki pages where these files could be useful, please put them in there or let us know.
Open Access File of the Day
The following files have been featured as Open Access File of the Day this month:
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November 30: flowers used in RNA interference experiments -
November 29: the snake Cryptelytrops insularis -
November 28: the beetle Abacoleptus paradoxus -
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November 26: Gender differences in social network service use -
November 25: Monthly mean and minimum outdoor and indoor temperatures throughout Africa -
November 24: A love dart of the snail Marmorana scabriuscula. -
November 23: plan of the organization Stratospheric Particle Injection for Climate Engineering -
November 22: The spider Mysmena wawuensis. -
November 21: the skink Brachymeles bonitae -
November 20: ceramic vessels from Chiapa de Corzo -
November 19: Haplochromis vonlinnei -
November 18: slug of family Veronicellidae -
November 17: Experimental chamber for studying chemotaxis in response to laminar flow
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November 16: Spawning behaviour of the cichlid fish Lamprologus callipterus.
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November 15: an eye after treatment for Thygeson's superficial punctate keratopathy -
November 14: vertebrae of phosphatodraco, a dinosaur -
November 13: endomyocardial biopsy specimen -
November 12: A male Brookesia micra chameleon. -
November 11: The moth Schrankia taenialis. -
November 10: call of the male frog Pseudhymenochirus merlini
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November 9: Green fluorescent protein expressed in ciliated olfactory sensory neurons. -
November 8: Larsenianthus wardianus. -
November 7: The beetle Abacoleptus curtus. -
November 6: The snail Pomacea insularum. -
November 5: Loboscelidiinae, a wasp -
November 4: the ghost lineage of the ichthyosaur -
November 3: the moth Baniana gobar -
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November 1: approaches for HIV vaccine development
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December's GLAM events
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| 23 India, Talk by Andrew Gray at the National Museum, New Delhi. 1500 IST (precursor to a GLAM workshop from 2-5 January 2014)
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