GLAM/Newsletter/November 2011/Contents/USA report

This Month in GLAM – Volume I, Issue XI, November 2011

USA report

Museum conferences and Library editathons

Wikipedian in Residence panel at AAM conference

The American Association of Museums announced the panel Wikipedia in the Museum: Lessons from Wikipedians in Residence, as part of its upcoming conference in Minneapolis, April 29 – May 3. The panel will include former and current Wikipedians in Residence Liam Wyatt, Àlex Hinojo, Lori Phillips, and Sarah Stierch. Angie McNew, who as the Children's Museum of Indianapolis' Director of Websites and Emerging Media has overseen the longest-running residency to date (see McNew's success story and recommendation for GLAMs), will also participate. The American Association of Museums Annual Conference and Museum Expo is the most significant museum conference in the United States, serving thousands of museum professionals every year.

GLAM-Wiki featured at Museum Computer Network conference

GLAM-Wiki volunteers took part in the Museum Computer Network (MCN) conference in Atlanta, Georgia. MCN is an international gathering of museum technologists, including many who have already participated in GLAM-Wiki partnerships. Attendees this year took advantage of the positive momentum gained from the conference's previous GLAM-Wiki presence (see Signpost coverage), connecting with museum professionals from across the U.S. and from the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand.

Lori Phillips, Sarah Stierch, and Katie Filbert presented about GLAM-Wikimedia partnerships in four sessions and a simultaneous en:THATCamp event. Phillips and Angie McNew presented on Practical Methods for Collaborating with Wikipedia. The session provided detailed steps for getting started with a GLAM-Wiki partnership, sharing the lessons learned from projects at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis (Prezi). Stierch presented in two panels: WikiProject:Public Art (view slides here) and Wikimedia and Indigenous Peoples (view slides here). Filbert took part in the "Open-Source Solutions" panel, presenting "Collaborative Mapping and Documenting Cultural Places" (slides) and taking part in the MCN THATCamp Unconference. Other sessions discussed ways to crowdsource transcriptions, including Wikisource as a possible platform.

Wikipedia Loves Libraries across North America

The first annual coordinated Wikipedia Loves Libraries event brought Wikipedians and librarians together for knowledge-sharing and editathon events across the U.S. The campaign as a whole was covered in American Libraries magazine, while 'Wikipedia: The Musical' drew New York Times coverage. There was a great diversity of events focused on the particular holdings and community of each participating library. See highlights at the pages linked below:

Library Lab DC

Wikimedia DC is partnering with the District of Columbia Public Library to run a temporary hackspace, "Library Lab DC," at the library's central Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library. The hackspace will be open from September through December, when that portion of the library will undergo renovations. Collaborations are expected to continue in 2012.

The Library Lab project was originally envisioned as a general concept by Wikimedia Foundation Trustee Samuel Klein and Nate Hill, with modular components to allow activities like digitization and audio production, along with a space for events and workshops. Several events have taken place at the Library Lab, including OpenStreetMap mapping parties, Wikipedia meetups and edit-a-thons, and hackathons.

A key area of collaboration has been with the library's adaptive services program, which provides technology training and services for the blind, deaf, and those with other disabilities. Wikimedia DC members attended Accessibility Camp DC at the space. A problem identification workshop took place, involving end-users brainstorming hackathon project ideas. An Accessibility Hackathon took place at the Library Lab. Projects include creating a mobile book-scanning mobile app and working on accessibility-related bugs in MediaWiki. The adaptive services program is experimenting with holding regular Maker Mondays and a spring Accessibility hackathon is being planned, allowing continued work on the projects.

Wikipedia Loves Libraries DC was an edit-a-thon held at the Library Lab (also part of Digital Capital Week). Another edit-a-thon is planned for December 17, focused on fine art and articles pertaining to the Federal Art Project.

On December 3, Wikimedia DC is co-organizing an Open Data Hack Day, part of International Open Data Hackfest 2011. Wiki-data related projects are proposed for the Open Data Hack Day, including working with National Register of Historic Places and Smithsonian Art Inventory data in support of future Wikis Take DC / Baltimore and Wiki Loves Monuments events. Other ideas include developing a way to update 2000 US census data in Wikipedia to use 2010 data, and working with World Bank and other data sources to create maps, tables, charts.

Briefly

Wikipedian in Residence featured in Indianapolis Woman magazine: The November edition of Indianapolis Woman magazine featured Lori Phillips, Wikipedian in Residence at The Children's Museum of Indianapolis, in a five question interview. The two page story details projects carried out through the Children's Museum's Wikimedia partnership, the implementation of QRpedia, and the broad goals of the GLAM initiative.
Museum of Modern Art 'Talk to Me' University Editathon: A tour and editing workshop of Talk to Me (exhibition) was held in October. The event brought together MoMA educators and staff, Wikipedians, and students from a History of Design and Digital Media course at CUNY and a Museum Studies course at NYU.