GLAM/Newsletter/October 2014/Contents/UK report
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The breadth of UK GLAM work: chemistry, ballet, tanks and more
Royal Society of Chemistry
Since 22 September, Andy Mabbett (User:Pigsonthewing) has been Wikimedian in Residence at the Royal Society of Chemistry. Andy wrote a blog post about the role before he started, and has since created a project page on Wikipedia, which he is updating regularly with to-do lists and diary entries, and a blog aimed at the Society's members. He is keen to hear from interested chemistry editors (including those on non-English Wikipedias, and non-Wikipedia projects), and will be organising a number of events throughout the year, for chemists and non-chemists alike.
Andy has already arranged an editing drive for the week of 14 - 23 November, in conjunction with Amical Wikimedia, to translate chemistry articles into Catalan.
Wiki Loves Monuments 2014 - United Kingdom winners
The Judges have announced the winners for the UK section of this year's Wiki Loves Monuments contest, congratulations to Fuzzypiggy for taking the top three places!
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Commended: The Fyrish Monument in December
Author: Reg Tait -
Commended: Roof of Bell Harry Tower, Canterbury Cathedral
Author: Tobiasvonderhaar -
Commended: Dolwilym Burial Chamber (known as Arthur's Table or Gwal y Filiast)
Author: Karen Sawyer -
Commended: Neist Point Lighthouse
Author: Lionel Ulmer -
Commended: Victorian valves at Victoria Baths, Manchester
Author: RevDave -
Commended: The Cloisters below Bute Hall, Glasgow University
Author: Michael Harris -
Commended: The National Wallace Monument, Stirling, Scotland
Author: Photofinger
Special award for a building on an ‘At Risk’ register (UK only)
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Special award: Govanhill Baths, Glasgow
Author: Edwardx -
Special award: Victoria Baths, Manchester
Author: RevDave
Ballet
On 25 October we had our second ballet themed edit-a-thon at the Royal Opera House, addressing two of Wikipedia's gaps, pre internet era ballets and ballet related people. After introductions and welcomes from Rachel Beaumont of the ROH and Edward Hands (Chair of Wikimedia UK's GLAM committee), we had a fascinating talk from and between Jan Parry and Monica Mason biographer and colleague of Kenneth MacMillan. The twenty or so participants then organised themselves cafe style in several tables focusing on different ballets and with a mix of new editors and existing Wikipedians at each table. As well as fruitful additions and expansions in the English WP, one of our participants contributed an article to the Spanish language Wikipedia on MacMillan's Romeo y Julieta.
The Royal Opera House has blogged about the event
Tanks
This section's photographs and most of the text by Rodw.
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The Alvis Saracen water cannon -
Bison, a WWII lorry with concrete armour -
Sherman "Crab" with mine removing flail -
Goliath, A tracked mine, or remotely controlled exploding vehicle -
Valentine Bridgelayer -
Britain's Tortoise self propelled gun was produced in small numbers but cancelled due to WWII ending
When I saw the request for photos of exhibits at the Tank Museum, in Bovington, Dorset, I thought I could help. The ticket arrived some months ago, but was valid for times outside school holidays and other busy times or event days, so it was a while before I was able to visit. The Tank Museum is only about an hours drive from me so I was able to arrive reasonably early, although I'm not sure it should be counted as a non-busy day as there were several coaches with kids from school trips on site. The ticket was easily exchanged at the reception desk and I started to wander about before I realised quite how large the museum is and had to be a little more systematic to find the specific exhibits included in the list of those required. Thankfully I was able to ask one or two of the staff and they were extremely helpful in working out exactly what the exhibits were and how to find them. In particular the "FV4211" didn't really mean anything to them (or me) but they suggested it might be the "Aluminium Chieftain" a prototype of the use Chobham armour. It subsequently turns out this is the model requested but we still do not have a photograph so this is an opportunity for someone else to go and help to fill in the gaps. Another model where there was some name confusion is the "Vickers 6-Ton" where the exhibit is labelled as a "Vickers Armstrongs Mark E Type B" but we do have a previous photo of that one on commons.
On any particular day some of the exhibits are not on general display as they are in the museums Vehicle Conservation Centre (VCC) undergoing maintenance. On the day I visited this included the Morris-Martel, Excelsior tank and T14 Heavy Tank from the list of requests. The VCC is open to the public for 1 hour a day (currently 14.00-15.00) but you can only see the vehicles being worked on from a viewing platform above. Many can not be seen as they are very close together making photography difficult. A very helpful member of staff suggested it may be possible for photographers from WikiMedia UK with the complimentary pass to access the floor of the VCC, but special permission is needed and you have to be accompanied by staff, wear high vis jackets and hard hats etc for health and safety reasons. I was running out of time (and battery power in my camera) so did not take up this offer. If you wish to do this I would suggest talking about access permissions early in your visit as staff have other commitments on their time.
Generally I found it a very interesting day which enhanced my knowledge and contributed to our collection of photos for use on wiki projects and elsewhere.
Wikimedia UK still has a few complementary tickets from The Tank Museum, interested photographers should contact GLAM
wikimdia.org.uk
BBC
Our friends at the BBC launched their Genome, an online database of listings from (almost) every issue of the Radio Times, back to 1923. Although it lists scheduled programmes, a small percentage of which may have been cancelled or changed, and includes some optical character recognition errors (which the BBC are addressing though crowd-sourcing), it's still a great source for cast lists, programme synopses, and more. On the English Wikipedia, the template {{BBC Genome prog}} has been created, to facilitate links to individual Radio Times listings; see, for example, An Unearthly Child. On Wikidata, Property:P1573 is also available to record them.
Tagathon
We ended October at the British Library with a tagathon on the 31st of October. Twenty or so assorted Wikipedians, Open Street Mappers and British Library people were looking through a million images that the British Library had released on Flickr and tagging maps and plans for geocoding and uploading to Wikimedia Commons.
The Project is ongoing and open to online participation at Commons:Commons:British Library/Mechanical Curator collection/map tag status. Maps are from all over this world and beyond, to join in you just need to look at some amazing old images and tag those that are maps or plans (as we went to press on the 7th November the tagging was 40% complete, with 8,000 maps identified, so there could be a further 12,000 maps or plans still to find).
Yorkshire Network Project
- First uploads from Shandy Hall
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Sterne and Grisette by Abraham Solomon -
Old Kitchen fire at Shandy Hall -
Tristram Shandy First edition spines -
West entrance of Shandy Hall in snow
The Yorkshire Network Project continues apace with more and more organisations coming on board. The first content donations came from The Laurence Sterne Trust. It was fantastic to get such a small site involved, particularly given Sterne's international appeal. The GLAM Directory pilot proposed at Wikimania is being tested as a project subpage: GLAM/YNP/DirectoryPilot. Feedback is very welcome!
