Ally Crockford

“ Despite an initial perception amongst NLS managerial staff that a Wikimedia compatible open access policy for digital content would take several years to be realised, a proposed Metadata and Digital Content Licensing Policy was drafted, discussed, and approved over a period of approximately 8 months, coming into effect in April 2014. The policy itself also represents an incredible step on the Library’s part towards committing itself to open access. ”

“ She has led many public and staff workshops, has raised the profile and awareness of both the Library and WMUK and its projects, and she has played a significant role in influencing the Library on the development of its open content policy.
The Residency has not been without its challenges for Ally including: acting as the interface between the Library as a "traditional organisation" and WMUK as a modern, progressive organisation; an expectation that staff would make a greater contribution to Wikimedia projects than they did; and the amount of time she has had to spend on events organisation. ”

“ The aim was to set in place a method by which members of the Digital Access team could easily be given access to and training on the tools necessary to upload digital content from future digitisation projects onto Wikimedia Commons on an ongoing basis. XML metadata files specific to the batch upload process were created for the identified content and metadata mapping .json files created for the toolset, and the content was test-uploaded on the Wikimedia Commons Beta Cluster (see Procedure, below) . ”

“ The format of an invitational workshop discussion was then adapted to focus on the number of Scottish GLAM organisations that had approached me regarding the prospect of collaborating on an event or hosting their own Wikimedian at some point in the future. A programme was designed which would prove both informational for GLAMs in Scotland interested in collaborating with Wikimedia, but also which would ideally prove of use to Wikimedia UK in terms of developing new initiatives for GLAM-Wiki collaborations. ”

“ You will work with a small team who will support you in your Residency and program of work. You will also work with colleagues in the Library including librarians and curators. You may work with people in other libraries and cultural organisations and Wikimedia UK.
Where will I work?
You will be based at National Library of Scotland in central Edinburgh. There may be flexibility to allow you to work from home on occasion. You may be expected to travel to meetings or to host events in other parts of Scotland. ”

“ The only metadata fields created specifically for the Wikimedia Commons uploads were "Wiki_Permissions", in which the necessary license templates would be listed for that batch, and "gwtoolset-url-to-the-media-file", which listed the link to the image to be uploaded. Some unnecessary metadata fields, such as notes for NLS cataloguers, were scrubbed from the xml files for upload.
I test uploaded images from NLS collections on the Beta cluster approximately 3-4 times before attempting a live upload. ”

“ Help the Library explore how its collections and knowledge can be used to broaden content on Wikipedia and sister projects. You will also undertake outreach work to encourage understanding and development of Wikimedia projects. ”

“ Aims and Objectives Current estimations suggest that the Library holds between 17 and 21 million items in its collection. Initial concepts for an ideal outcome of the Wikimedian-in-Residence programme at the NLS included the opening up of access to these sources by uploading digitised copies to Wikisource or Wikimedia Commons in some cases, and by building strong links between Wikipedia and existing free online collections hosted by the NLS in others. ”

“ I also organised and supported a number of joint events with other GLAM organisations to increase the reach of the programme beyond the NLS and Edinburgh, and helped to establish regular meetups in Edinburgh and Glasgow as well as a ScotWiki mailing list, which had 50 subscribers as of July 2014.
Building Networks
Throughout the residency, I have established a number of contacts with GLAM and open knowledge organisations in Scotland, several of whom have either participated in collaborative events or have expressed an interest in the programme and working with Wikimedia. ”

“ The Hopkinson Verdi Collection-An internationally renowned collection of scores and libretti of the works of Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) , collected by music bibliographer Cecil Hopkinson (1898-1977) . ”

“ Establish relationships with the Scottish Wikimedia community, editors, and projects with the aim of an increase in the number of contributors in Scotland Collaboration with key partners both within and without the GLAM sector Digital Content:
The identification of material for future Wikimedia digitisation projects To make information or materials held by the institution available via the Wikimedia projects, e.g. ”