Wikipedia:GLAM/NLS/16thMonth Report

Institution Resident's Name Period Covered Date of Report
National Library of Scotland Ally Crockford 12 January - 12 February (Sixteenth month of residency) 13 February 2015

Projects delivered edit

Metrics edit

Accounts Created
  • 5 accounts created as part of a training workshop held on 22 January for the organisers of the University of Edinburgh's Innovative Learning Week editathons:
Image statistics

Tracking the 1,100 images uploaded to Wikimedia Commons using the GWToolset in June/July 2014 has yielded the following statistics:

BaGLAMa (page views for Wikipedia articles containing images from National Library of Scotland)
  • April 2014 - 996,420 views
  • May 2014 - 932,959 views
  • June 2014 - 1,354,381 views
  • July 2014 - 1,328,133 views
  • August 2014 - 1,982,546 views
  • September 2014 - 1,504,452 views
  • October 2014 - 1,503,300 views
  • November 2014 - 1,121,928 views
Glamorous (Percentage of Commons files used on Wikimedia projects from the category commons:Category:Images uploaded as part of NLS-WMUK collaboration)
  • July 2014 - 6.6%
  • August 2014 - 8.12%
  • September 2014 - 8.93%
  • October 2014 (as of 15 October) - 9.03%
  • November 2014 (as of 15 November) - 9.29%
  • December 2014 (as of 04 December) - 10.21%
  • January 2015 (as of 31 January) - 10.74%

Objectives and outcomes edit

National Library of Scotland's Mission Wikimedia UK's Mission
Enrich lives and communities.
Encourage and promote lifelong learning, research, and scholarship.
Provide universal access to information by comprehensively collecting and making available the recorded knowledge of Scotland.
Promote access to the ideas and cultures of the world.
To help people and organisations build and preserve open knowledge, to share and use freely.

Outreach edit

Objective: Delivery of 3+ public workshops for editors (i.e. edit-a-thons); help organise and host other Wikimedia related events for members of the public, Wikimedians, researchers and librarians such as workshops, Edit-athons, meetups, backstage pass tours

16th Month Outcomes:
  • The proposal for funds to run a week of edit-a-thon events in February 2015 as part of the University of Edinburgh's Innovative Learning Week, submitted in collaboration with staff across several departments and schools in the University of Edinburgh and the University Library, was successful
  • An organisation meeting was held on 16 January to confirm details for the series prior to publicising it, and arrange a training event the following week
  • Ran a training event for the organisers on 22 January; the event saw 9 organisers go through training, of whom 5 were completely new to editing Wikipedia.
  • Work organising planned outreach projects - a Gaelic language Wikipedia/Wikisource outreach, and a international symposium exploring IPR and digital access - has continued
  • Gaelic language outreach would involve releasing hundreds of digitised texts in Gaelic or about Gaelic language and culture to Wikimedia Commons and liaising with Scottish educational institutions that have strong Gaelic education programmes to facilitate their transcription and possible translation on Wikisource
  • Symposium would be an attempt to bring together representatives from GLAMs in the EU, UK, and potentially further abroad to discuss their different perspectives of and experiences with IPR, digital content, and facilitating access (open access or otherwise)

Upcoming events edit

Known or Prospective Date Event Name or Description Host or Partner Organisation Scope of event or talk
February 16-20 2015 Women Writers Innovative Learning Week edit-a-thon University of Edinburgh An edit-a-thon to take place during the University of Edinburgh's Innovative Learning Week, focusing on the theme of Women Writers
February 28 2015 Second Volunteer Strategy Gathering Wikimedia UK Second event bringing together interested stakeholders to consider our Volunteer Strategy. Aim to improve and further develop the organisation by creating new approaches to project-based volunteering.
4 March 2015 Connect @ Edinburgh Napier University 'Writing Women Back into History' Editathon Connect @ Edinburgh Napier University An internal editathon for students and staff in the School of Computing and the School of Engineering and the Built Environment at Edinburgh Napier University; supported by WiR@ NLS - organisation and WiR@MGS - training
6-7 March 2015 Dundee Art+Feminism 2015 edit-a-thon University of Abertay, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design Part of the Art+Feminism campaign to improve coverage of women and the arts on Wikipedia. This event will focus on expanding or improving Wikipedia entries for women artists working in new media, particularly those associated with the exhibition Coded After Lovelace; supported by WiR@NLS
9 March 2015 Open.Ed Workshop University of Edinburgh A half-day workshop held at the University of Edinburgh that aims to identify existing initiatives around ‘openness’ in the University and build collective awareness and coordination to accelerate and extend those initiatives. WiR has been invited to give a presentation and contribute to discussion on the role that Wikipedia/Wikimedia has and can have in opening education at the University of Edinburgh
March 2015 Wikimedia Information Session 2015 --CANCELLED-- Grampian Information, Aberdeen A follow on from the Grampian Information Annual Conference in December 2013 had been in development for early-mid March 2015, but unfortunately had to be cancelled.
Spring 2015 Wikipedia Training Capture session (by User:ACrockford) Jisc Scotland, CILIPS MmIT?; Scottish government? Following from the Jisc 'Tales of a Wikimedian in Residence' webinar, Adobe capture would be used to provide a simple but thorough introduction to contributing to Wikipedia for Librarians and FE/HE educators. This would be released under CC-BY-SA license and uploaded to Commons, and also made available by Jisc as a wider learning resource for educators.
Spring 2015 Jisc Rsc Scotland editathon New Jisc Rsc Scotland Offices Jisc Scotland are anticipating a move of house in the near future (date TBC), and have offered up their new offices as a venue for an editathon once they have settled. Topic yet to be determined.
Undetermined date Datafest Scotland 2014 Alwyn Williams Building (School of Computing Science) and Boyd Orr Building, University of Glasgow, Scotland Wikimedia volunteers will be on hand to organise a tutorial on editing Wikipedia

Internal impact edit

Objective: Organise and host workshops for Library staff to explain how they can directly contribute their knowledge and expertise to develop Wikipedia articles; deliver 7+ workshops for National Library of Scotland staff and researchers or related institutions; develop infrastructure for sustainable partnership between NLS and WMUK after residency ends

16th Month Outcomes:
  • Note: After some members of staff at the NLS raised concerns regarding the release of content onto a CC-0 license on a mass scale, uploads were put on hold to allow for internal conversations regarding the releasing of digital content onto open licenses. Internal events - workshops and seminars - are under way to encourage discussion and reach a consensus
  • Organisation for an internal seminar at the NLS on access to digitised public domain content online continued, with confirmation of a chair as well as a scribe, and the outline of a structure for the event. Information will be gathered via survey in advance of the seminar, which is currently set for February 27 2015

Contributor communities edit

Objective: Help establish relationships with the Scottish Wikimedia community, editors and projects

16th Month Outcomes:
  • Fifth Glasgow Wikimeet held at CCA Saramago Cafe on 1 February 2015; WMUK's interim CEO User:dcfmyers came up from London to attend and to speak to ScotWiki volunteers and contributors about their experiences working with Wikimedia/Wikipedia and how Wikimedia UK could best support them in future. There were 7 attendees, a mix of old and established Wikimedians, and approximately 30-40% women. Many new faces attended, some who have been editing Wikipedia for several years or as many as 10, and all expressed an interest in continuing to attend meetups if they were able. The prospect of holding the next Edinburgh-based meetup near Haymarket station to make access easier for out-of-town attendees was proposed, and how to best reach Wikimedians and potential Wikimedians outside of mailing lists was discussed. A fascinating and very interesting meetup!
  • The NLS Digital Access manager has proposed organising a live webinar training session for the GLAMWiki mass upload tool on Commons, based on the experiences of the WiR during the trial releases in June. The aim of this webinar would been to provide a dual perspective from a Wikimedian (User:ACrockford) and a Librarian (User:Triptropic) to prepare Wikimedians on how best to work with GLAMs (in particular smaller organisations where the metadata may not be as easily manipulated and there are few or no staff dedicated to digital access), and also to familiarise GLAM staff with the tool. This webinar would be recorded and released on a Wikicompatible license on Commons for future users. Tentatively planned for April 2015.

Material for future digitisation edit

Objective: Explore adding digital resources such as digitised books, articles, photographs and posters to Wikimedia Commons; work with staff, including librarians and curators, to identify areas of Wikipedia and sister projects that could be enriched with resources and knowledge from the Library’s collections

16th Month Outcomes:

After some members of staff at the NLS raised concerns regarding the release of content onto a CC-0 license on a mass scale, uploads have put on hold for the time being. Conversations regarding the Library's implementation of the Metadata and Digital Content Licensing Policy (approved Spring 2014) are ongoing

  • See above re: the internal licensing seminar taking place on 27 February. Depending on how long it will take to secure approval to move forward with the uploads, it may be necessary for the uploads to progress as a volunteer project with XML metadata provided by the NLS digital team, instead of as an internal project
Once the Library has reached an internal consensus and uploading resumes, the schedule outlined in earlier reports will generally be followed. This content will include: