GLAM/Newsletter/September 2023/Contents/Portugal report
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With multiple events, September was a busy month for Wikimedia Portugal
ByPortugal's National Library welcomed Wikidata Days
The highlight of the month was Wikidata Days, a 3-day event held at the National Library (BNP) which gathered professionals and enthusiasts of open data in Lisbon. The event included a wide array of activities, including round tables, workshops, explanatory sessions, case studies and, of course, a datathon. From SPARQL queries to data modelling, from copyright regulations to OpenRefine, from reflection to actions, it touched on almost any aspect of open data.
WMPT brought together a series of local and international experts in data and culture, including representatives from BNP and Creative Commons Portugal, as well as researchers and practitioners, bridging the gap across different audiences. It was also an opportunity to join communities from other local chapters, such as Wikimedia España, Wikimedia Italia and Wikimedia Deutschland, as well as the Wikimedia Foundation, who joined the event to share their expertise on the topic and showcase some of their best work using Wikidata.
Last but not least, the National Library also hosted a Wiki Loves Earth exhibition during the whole month, displaying some of the best pictures of the Portuguese branch of the competition throughout the years.
Portuguese Early Music Database finds its way to Commons and Wikidata
One of the case studies showcased at Wikidata Days was the project we've been developing with the Portuguese Early Music Database (PEM). WMPT has been working with NOVA FCSH to bring PEM to the Wikimedia infrastructure.
The Portuguese Early Music Database is a collection of digitalizations of musical manuscripts from the Iberian Peninsula predating 1650. As of now, you can find the detailed metadata of most of the collection are already on Wikidata, including properties such as musical genre displayed, the script style and the material the manuscript is made of, among others. The works are still ongoing, and we expect them to be concluded by the end of the year. Meanwhile, you can already see some of these manuscripts on Commons.
WMPT loves Free Software
September was also time to rekindle the connections with the multiple free software communities that gathered to celebrate FOSS in Portugal. After a five-year break, Festa do Software Livre (Free Software Party) was held at University of Aveiro. WMPT was one of the co-hosting organizations, securing a schedule that included sessions on Wikibase, software localization using MediaWiki as a case study, as well as session about strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP) presented by Eduardo Santos, lawyer and president of D3, Portugal's digital rights associations. The line-up also included a mini-hackathon, which served to demonstrate some of the Wikimedia tech tools and workflows.
Global Gathering and ICOM-CC 2023
Wikimedia Portugal was part of the multinational team of Wikimedians who were at ICOM-CC 2023, in Valencia. Along with Wikimedia España, Amical Wikimedia, Wikimedia Italia, Wikimedia Deutschland, Wikimedia Schweiss and the Foundation, our delegate helped to build bridges with museums and other heritage institutions. Our Program Manager for GLAM Partnerships did a presentation on How a Wikimedian in Residence can help GLAM collections reach new and wider audiences, highlighting the potential of having this type of specialized knowledge within an institution.
In other event news, Wikimedia Portugal also sent a delegate to the Global Gathering, an event that brings together digital rights defenders from around the world working on the most pressing issues sitting at the intersection of technology, human rights and social justice.