Wikimedia

“ Beyond some sporadic Wikimedia engagement by library and archives staff throughout the UTL system, the first systematic pilot of Wikimedia activities took place in the summer of 2018. A librarian and an intern in the information technology department carried out a pilot project to assess the impact of Wikipedia contributions on the use of digital collections. Selected items from the Wenceslaus Hollar, Agnes Chamberlin, and Anatomia collections were linked to the English and German Wikipedia through citations, external links, and images. ”

“ Using Wikipedia as the central movement brand rather than Wikimedia. Providing clearer connections to the sister projects from Wikipedia to drive increased awareness, usage and contributions to all movement projects. Retaining Wikimedia project names, with the exception of Wikimedia Commons which is recommended to be shortened to Wikicommons to be consistent with other projects. Exploring new naming conventions for the Foundation and affiliate groups to use Wikipedia rather than Wikimedia. ”

“ Increases in traffic would usually only be temporary—perhaps indicating a sporadic in flux of curious users who were not actively researching the topic.
By contrast, collection items linked to Wikimedia projects were found and used more readily by the average web user. Over the years, editors not affiliated with the library had linked or uploaded collection items to Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. These links have more effectively brought these collections within reach of the average web user, and in the appropriate information-seeking context. ”

“ Moreover, thematic or project focused communications provide platforms for highlighting the importance of institutional work in that field to local media.
Online programs for the Wikimedia community can also draw participation and collaboration with contributors outside of the geographical scope of the organization, especially on topics of broader interest than local history and culture. Typically, contribution campaigns focus on a theme or topic that the institutions offers digital collections on, and require a fair amount of online Wikimedia community skills. ”

“ The first obvious, and relatively cost effective, way to integrate Wikimedia projects into the strategy of a GLAM is to formalize the role of staff for organizing activities and working on Wikimedia project within the course of their work. Staff can allocate a certain amount of their work hours to work on Wikimedia projects, typically with a broader public access or outreach mission in mind. ”

“ We were asked today to speak about open innovation and Wikipedia is an incredible example of this, communities coming together collaboratively to create something that is greater than the sum of its parts. At Wikimedia, our vision is a world in which every single human can freely share in the sum of all knowledge and we take this incredibly seriously. ”

“ Increasingly, institutions are turning to the concept of a “Wikimedia Visiting Scholar”: someone whose real expertise is on creating Wikimedia content and exposing the institution to the relationship between institutional knowledge and Wikimedia, while not focusing on capacity development. ”

“ In certain parts of the world, Wikimedia communities have formed relatively strong Wikimedia affiliates, called chapters, which are non-profit organizations -- many of which are in Europe -who represent the aims of the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikimedia projects, and the local Wikimedia community, and frequently have small professional staffs that provide different kinds and levels of support to the local communities. ”

“ As for the principle: pragmatically, this could represent a "foot in the door" with the museum. Wikimedia UK might be able to build on this to get their other documents (they have microfiche files, perhaps Wikimedia could assist—financially or otherwise—to convert these or scan other documents; both Wikimedia and the museum would benefit from this) . That in turn might attract other volunteers, from Wikipedia and (maybe) Wikimedia UK promotion. However, even considering all of this, my opinion is still very much "maybe" leaning slightly towards yes. ”

“ Additionally, these kinds of overbroad calls tend to solicit people who want to use Wikipedia for cross purposes with the general knowledge interest of Wikimedia and libraries, such as folks interested in promoting businesses or who want profiles of friend on Wikipedia, leading to conflicts of interest and challenges with other Wikimedia policies. ”

“ The main challenge when introducing new volunteers to Wikimedia projects is frequently apprehension or lack of confidence: Wikipedia is a large website, seen as an almost venerable institution, and its often misunderstood by the public; contributing to that large and mysterious project can be intimidating or simply unmotivating. Having a champion on hand to lend confidence to new contributors, helps speed through interpreting the project’s nuances and feedback systems. For example, its very useful to have someone with Wikipedia experience in new-contributor events to serve as interpreters. ”

“ She continues, "What does it mean for the Wikimedia community that has largely been self-propelled and self-organized from the Global North - primarily the US and Europe - to see itself as being facilitators of a truly empowered emerging conversation in the Global South? How do people step in, step back, step away, step sideways? How do you share power in a way that truly can be transformative?" ”

“ At the very least, I think there needs to be broader community input into such a massive change in the scope of a Wikimedia project. Even if this material is best excluded from Wikisource, I believe it deserves to be part of an encyclopedia and that any material already contributed should be moved elsewhere rather than be deleted. The simplest solution would be to move mathematical and scientific reference material to Wikipedia, where there are large communities to evaluate and protect this information. ”

“ Most crucially, for working with GLAM organisations, I would recommend increasing the visibility of tools available for the measurement of Wikimedia/Wikipedia content, and would certainly strongly recommend the development of tools with more extensive functionality and with a wider remit than Wikimedia projects alone. To be able to track the impact of content that has been used outside of Wikipedia articles but has come from Wikimedia Commons would be incredibly valuable for providing encouraging statistics to GLAMs who have collaborated or are working to make a case for collaboration. ”

“ All collections should be searchable and accessible in an international, digital photo repository. Instead of spending on developing various new platforms for each institution, the ideal candidate for an independent, central imagebase that provides the widest possible reach is Wikimedia Commons. ”

“ Engaging new volunteers with Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects has its challenges. Some first time editors lack the confidence to publish on such a visible and far reaching platform as Wikipedia. Others struggle with the technical aspects of editing. ”

“ In this context, even the formal organizations that support the Wikimedia community, such as the Wikimedia Foundation who controls the trademarks and servers that keep the websites operating, have almost no control of the governance, editorial practices or decision making that creates the content on Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, Wikidata, and other Wikimedia projects--except for defining the terms of use for participation and a privacy policy. ”

“ Wikimedia is open to collaboration with GLAMs and many institutions are already uploading their collections to the site including the Digital Public Library of America4, the Cultureel Erfgoed5 and the National Archives of Brazil.6 By using Commons, institutions will also benefit: the platform runs on a free and flexible software where photos can be described and categorised using structured data. Utilising the participation of a large and diverse community in catalogising, tagging, publicising and even researching can save time and cut costs. ”

“ For formal organizations, such as libraries, wanting to not just contribute small amounts of content, but to take advantage of and participate in the Wikimedia community, navigating the community and culture of the Wikimedia projects can be complicated. Working with affiliates or at least finding an individual Wikimedia contributor to help interface with other experienced volunteers lowers the barrier for participation in the community, allowing the Wikimedia-experienced partner to provide community expertise while the organizational partner brings their knowledge and network. ”

“ All this other talk is only about options if Commons starts deleting the scans.--BirgitteSB 14:02, 23 June 2006 (UTC) Based on the above I checked the commons policy on what they include. It reads:
Wikimedia Commons is targeted at media files including photographs, diagrams, animations, music, spoken text and video clips. Wikimedia Commons does not contain text articles like encyclopedia articles, textbooks, news, word definitions and such. Each of these other kinds of content have their own projects: Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikinews, Wiktionary and Wikiquote. ”

“ When supported by a broader community of Wikimedians through an affiliate or network, it's even possible to develop effective programs with someone with no Wikimedia experience: for example, West Virginia University Libraries hired Kelly Doyle, a community organizer and educator, who had no previous experience working with the Wikimedia community. ”

“ In its pilot year, the OTS has created a network out of previously isolated Wikimedia engagement across the library system, trained staff, and volunteers across and beyond UTL, and helped launch formal projects that deepen institutional engagement. The OTS has also continued to contribute to Wikipedia, expanding their editing scope to the appropriate use of archival sources and the development of tools, which help bridge the gap between Wikipedia and Wikidata. Through the OTS, UTL has systematically deepened its contributions to the open Web. ”

“ In terms of the National Library of Scotland's involvement with GLAMWiki collaborations and an on-going relationship with Wikimedia, it seems to me that the best opportunities for a lasting relationship lie in the release of digital content, the incorporation of that content into Wikipedia as widely as possible, and the continued support of events in collaboration with other organisations, groups, or individuals. At present, the lack of involvement with curatorial staff, education and outreach staff, and events management staff, make sustaining this kind of support in particular difficult. ”

“ Wikipedian in Residence roles are high risk/high reward roles for institutions: they cost a fair amount of money, in terms of the role itself and supervising the role, but it ensures that someone in the staff has the energy and time to integrate Wikimedia, either through its projects or at the least its values of openness and public access, into the organizational strategy. However, when an organization isn’t ready for that kind of strategic commitment, it’s still worth designating an advocate from outside the organization, to experiment within existing collections or resources. ”

“ 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 impact of the OTS pilot so far demonstrates that a full-time position dedicated to Wikimedia and other open technology projects holds great potential to better link open-access library resources and archival and special collections to the Web. ”

“ The provision in 24 § first part 1 the copyright law, where the exemption in the authors exclusive rights are limited to depictions, does not give Wikimedia the right to from it's database with photographies of art works permanently placed on or by public places outdoors, transmit works by the internet to the public. Where the activity is done for a commercial purpose has no significance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As a community working with libraries, the Wikimedia community is still learning what consistently creates desired outcomes, and how to best serve the missions of both communities, institutions and Wikimedia. Within this shifting context and understanding of how these collaborations work, it behooves Wikimedia allies in the library community to continue iterating upon what we know about community engagement: public programming around access to knowledge is something that librarians have much more experience with than the Wikimedia community. ”