WikiFest was an unconference at w:State Library Victoria on Wednesday 27 August 2025, hosted by SLV LAB in partnership with Wikimedia Australia. Post-it notes from participants of WikiFest 2025
Aimed at GLAM workers, the all-day workshop opened with a welcome from SLV LAB’s Innovation Lead, Sotirios Alpanis. Participants shared their motivations for attending, which included to gain hands-on experience with Wikidata, to break out of professional silos or to explore new possibilities for open access and cultural equity.
Five lightning talks from Wikimedians and GLAM folk set the scene for the day, and provided practical insights to ground the workshop in real-world applications:
Tim Sherratt talked about his experiences using Wikidata in combination with GLAM data to enrich his historical research – helping to glue together different collections and their data. Presentation: Combining Wikidata and GLAM data
Alex Lum gave an overview of what Wikidata is, with examples form GLAM institutions to help illustrate his talk. Presentation: What is Wikidata?
Julia Rodwell introduced the research that underpinned her PhD and the Beyond the Book online exhibition. She emphasised the importance of open linked data to support this, and how she'd had to overcome a sense of imposter syndrome to contribute to it (on Wikidata). Presentation: How linked open data helped build an exhibition
Paul Duchesne gave an overview of his experiences as ACMI's Wikimedian-in-residence – including the benefits and some of the pitfalls he had to overcome. Presentation: Linking ACMI's collection data
The WikiFest followed on from the SLV's Radical Acts project undertaken by Wikimedians in Residence, Kerrie Burn and Ellie Watts.
Read about the outcomes of Radical Acts
