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Italy report

Wrap up the nine projects funded by 2024 GLAM call and Italian Wikidata Days

By Marta Arosio

2024 GLAM call

Since 2021, Wikimedia Italia publish an annual grant program for cultural institutions, offering technical and financial resources to support them in sharing their collections on Wikimedia project with free licenses.

2024 GLAM call funded nine projects, from Italian Association of Ecclesiastical Librarians, Frizzi Archive of the Aldo Capitini Technical Institute in Perugia, University Libraries of the University of Urbino, Annibale De Leo Archbishop’s Library in Brindisi, Library of Economics and Management of the University of Turin, Civic Libraries of the Municipality of Bologna, Natural History Museum of the University of Pisa, Strada Nuova Museums in Genoa and Ugolini Archive of the Department of History at Sapienza University of Rome.

Red Palace, Mezzanine, Grotto Room Exhibit, Strada Nuova Museums

"This type of activity also impacts tourism; most visitors nowadays look for information online. Thanks to this project, the museum's Wikipedia pages now feature quality, reliable texts with new details about recent restorations." said Martina Panizzutt and Elisa Occella from Museums of Strada Nuova in Genoa.

Italy boasts a rich artistic and cultural heritage, with the highest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites globally. Among them is the Rolli Palace system in Genoa's historic center, which includes the Museums of Strada Nuova. Thanks to the GLAM call, these museums have opened their doors to a boundless audience by sharing images of their collections on Wikimedia platforms and creating new Wikipedia entries for scholars and culture enthusiasts worldwide. The museum's artworks hold immense cultural value, as do the palaces themselves and their curated displays. These treasures can now be admired on Wikimedia Commons.

"Everyone should be able to access and study cultural heritage. If a library's collections aren't accessible, it loses its purpose as a public institution. Wikimedia projects allow for universal access to culture; no single entity can match Wikipedia's dissemination power." Katiuscia Di Rocco, Director of the Annibale De Leo Archbishop’s Library

In Piazza Duomo, Brindisi, stands the Annibale De Leo Archbishop’s Library, the first public library in Salento. It houses invaluable illuminated parchment codices and incunabula. Katiuscia Di Rocco, director for 22 years, has championed accessibility, especially for rare and precious documents like the library's holdings. Among its treasures are two codices not found in either the British Library or the Vatican Library. Thanks to the Wikimedia Italia grant, the library has made remarkable progress in digitizing and sharing its collection. Inspired by this experience, staff have continued digitizing, starting with significant collections like the “cinquecentine” (books printed before 1601), a French love letter collection soon to be translated into Italian, and over 300 parchments, including one from Frederick II and another from the year 1000.

"Making 3D models of museum artifacts available under a Creative Commons license is a step forward in accessibility and usability of collections." said Elena Bonaccorsi, Director of the Natural History Museum, University of Pisa

Italy's cultural wealth extends beyond art to include scientific collections. Sharing such collections on Wikimedia platforms makes culture more accessible to a general audience and supports open science, providing students and researchers access to valuable materials. The Natural History Museum of the University of Pisa houses a significant historical and scientific collection spanning six centuries. It holds over a million specimens, including approximately 23,000 vertebrate zoology artifacts, many not on public display. In 2022, the museum began digitizing collections, creating 3D models of modern and fossil whales. Participating in the MAB grant was a natural continuation of this work. By sharing on Wikipedia with open licenses, the museum's images have quickly reached a vast audience, garnering over a million views each month.

You can find all the files shared within the GLAM call here: commons:Category:Supported by Wikimedia Italia in 2024

Wikidata Days 2024: Celebrating Collaboration and Data Innovation

On November 8 and 9, the Italian-speaking community of Wikidata gathered at the “Dario Nobili” Library of CNR in Bologna for the Wikidata Days 2024, an event celebrating the 12th anniversary of Wikidata. The two-day event was filled with presentations, talks, workshops, and numerous opportunities for exchange and discussion among participants.

The idea for the event emerged within the GWMAB – Wikidata Group for Museums, Archives, and Libraries, inspired by Wikidata Days held in Portugal. Thanks to the support of Wikimedia Italia, Wikimedia CH, and CNR Bologna, it was possible to showcase the many Wikidata projects in the GLAM sector, with a particular focus on collaborations with other Wikimedia projects and OpenStreetMap.

The event's program covered several key themes, including the collaboration between Wikidata and academic libraries. In Italy, and beyond, librarians play a fundamental role within the Wikidata community, contributing with their expertise and sharing bibliographic data such as information on authors, titles, publishers, and classifications. Through their collaboration with Wikidata, library catalogs can connect to other datasets in the Linked Data cloud, enriching them through data exchange and connections, which are the core strength of the LOD format behind Wikidata.

The first set of presentations focused on projects that align library catalogs with Wikidata. Among the experiences shared was the work done by the University of Florence’s library system, which has developed a “wikistation” to promote collaboration between the university and Wikimedia projects, and the National Central Library of Florence, which has worked on aligning the Thesaurus of the Nuovo Soggettario (a classification system for books) with Wikidata’s ontology, with a focus on photography terms.

Elena Ravelli from ICCU presented the latest collaboration project between the SBN catalog, Italy’s largest collective catalog, and Wikidata, which has enriched a sample of over 16,000 authors with biographical data extracted from Wikidata. Stefano Bargioni shared the experience of the Library of the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, which, using the open-source library management software Koha, benefited from the flexibility to modify the application and develop tools based on Wikidata, available both for catalogers in the cataloging interface and for end-users in the OPAC.

Alessandro Marchetti discussed the latest developments in Italy and Switzerland regarding the reconciliation of scientific authors with Wikidata, as part of the WikiCite project, highlighting how different institutional contexts influence decisions in data production and management.

Other projects focused on structuring data for import into Wikidata, such as the project on Italian library science journals in Wikidata, presented by Alessandra Moi, Andrea Marchitelli, and Carlo Bianchini, and the Bibliography of Italian libraries, books, and information project, presented by Roberta Licitra, Cecilia Checchi, and Carlo Bianchini.

The ability to query structured data allows for new types of research and discoveries. Alessio Ionna illustrated how structured information via Wikidata can be applied in historical and art studies, citing the Wikiproject Buonaccorsi, which uses Wikidata to gather and link data from diverse sources, such as photographs and documents, both digital and paper-based. The LibMovit project, which involves researchers from the Universities of Pavia and Bologna, aims to convert into structured, queryable data the information provided by foreign travelers in texts about Italian libraries they visited in the 18th century, using Wikibase Cloud to create an instance dedicated to this data.

Wikidata’s role as a hub for linking projects and disciplines was further explored through presentations on the intersection between geographical data, maps, OpenStreetMap, and Wikidata, applied to cultural heritage mapping. Ilaria di Cocco discussed open data for the cultural heritage of Emilia-Romagna, and Klaus Werner presented on how to map cultural heritage with OpenStreetMap and Wikidata.

The workshops focused on practical aspects such as organizing and cleaning data, reconciling data using OpenRefine, retrieving and organizing inaccurate or reference-lacking data in Wikidata, and using SPARQL queries to extract and display data. There was also a session on entering geographic data into Wikidata and the importance of linking Wikidata with OpenStreetMap.

The event closed with a cake to celebrate Wikidata’s 12th anniversary and a look ahead to future gatherings. The next major event will be the conference on Wikidata and research, scheduled for June 5-6, 2025, at the University of Florence. Organized by an international scientific committee with support from Wikimedia Italia and the University of Florence, the conference is open for proposals for papers, lightning talks, and posters until December 9. Upcoming Wikidata Days in Switzerland

Finally, Wikimedia Switzerland, which contributed to the event, announced the organization of the next Wikidata Days in Switzerland. The event will target librarians, researchers, and information specialists to address the challenges of heterogeneous cataloging systems.


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