| Institution | Resident's Name | Period Covered | Date of Report |
|---|---|---|---|
| National Library of Scotland | Ally Crockford | 8th July - 8th August 2013 (First month of residency) | 8 August 2013 |
Projects Delivered
editThe first month has primarily focused on introducing and orientating myself to the different teams within the library. Orientation sessions included discussions regarding the ideas, interests, queries, and concerns that staff had with the programme. Such sessions were held with:
- Rare Books
- Manuscripts
- The Scottish Screen Archives
- Maps Collection
- International Collections
- Modern Collections
- Ingest Managers
- Collection and Interpretation Managers
- Deputy National Librarian and Acting Chief Executive
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. |
Objectives include delivery of the following:
Public Outreach
editObjective: Delivery of 3+ public workshops for editors (i.e. edit-a-thons)
- 1st Month Outcomes:
- Identified and launched preliminary organisation of multiple public events, including
- “The Wikimedian is In” outreach initiative (Launch on 3 Sept); periodic sessions of 2-3 hours in length will be held during which time the WIR will be visibly located in the George IV Bridge building (contains reading rooms). Information pamphlets will be on hand; staff members and readers (including academics, researchers, etc) will be able to inquire about the programme and register interest.
- Identified and launched preliminary organisation of multiple public events, including
- ‘Title TBC’ Backstage Pass Edit-a-thon (end 2013, early 2014) – preliminary discussions are under way with the curators of the forthcoming Homecoming exhibition (which will look at how Scots have influenced or changed the world, title TBC) regarding the possibility of holding backstage pass edit-a-thons in conjunction with this exhibition.
- Women in Science (WISWIKI) series of edit-a-thons (end 2013, March 2014 – preliminary organisation is under way for a series of one or more edit-a-thons (depending on resources) focusing on women in science which will be organised by the NLS to coincide with events planned as part of Women’s History month in March 2014.
- The NLS has also offered support for an RSE Women in Science event organised with the Medical Research Council to be held towards the end of 2013
- A third event is also being considered with the British Geological Society or the Edinburgh University Medical School.
- Women in Science (WISWIKI) series of edit-a-thons (end 2013, March 2014 – preliminary organisation is under way for a series of one or more edit-a-thons (depending on resources) focusing on women in science which will be organised by the NLS to coincide with events planned as part of Women’s History month in March 2014.
- JISC Scotland Webinar (9 October) - to be held by WiR; the aim is to introduce other GLAM organisations to the Wikimedia mission, and to encourage them to incorporate Wikimedia projects going forward by providing information on current initiatives.
- Depending on the success of this initiative, recorded webinars using Adobe Captivate may be organised which would focus on a brief introduction to contributing to Wikimedia projects
- JISC Scotland Webinar (9 October) - to be held by WiR; the aim is to introduce other GLAM organisations to the Wikimedia mission, and to encourage them to incorporate Wikimedia projects going forward by providing information on current initiatives.
Staff Workshops
editObjective: Delivery of 7+ workshops for National Library of Scotland staff and researchers, or related institutions.
- 1st Month Outcomes:
- Training sessions for 2 teams within the library, the Digital Access team and the Maps Collection team, have been organised for the weeks of 12 August and 19 August, 2013. In addition, a reunion and refresher workshop has been organised for NLS and other GLAM staff who attended Andrew Gray's training in Nov, 2012 (19 August). These sessions have been designed to train individuals with unique access to existing digital collections who have expressed an interest in contributing as soon as training is available. Staff to be trained include those with knowledge of:
- A handful of brief training sessions are also being offered for managers etc. who are keen to contribute but unable to attend longer training sessions.
Contributor Communities
editObjective: An increase in the number of Wikipedia/Institution contributors
- 1st Month Outcomes:
- In addition to training NLS staff, there are on-going attempts to make contact with active Wikimedians in Scotland (both in person and online) and other individuals interested in Open Knowledge
- WiR will attend the second Glasgow Meet-Up on 18 August
- WiR will be giving a lightening talk at the Open Knowledge Foundation Edinburgh's Open Data Meet-up on 22 August
- WiR hopes to attend the first OpenData Glasgow event on 27 August
- In addition to training NLS staff, there are on-going attempts to make contact with active Wikimedians in Scotland (both in person and online) and other individuals interested in Open Knowledge
- Monthly ‘Wiki and Biccy’ training/meet-up sessions have been proposed. Inspired as much by knitting circles as by Wikipedia meet-ups, these would be very informal gatherings to be held at different NLS sites
- tea and cake will be served
- both trained and untrained staff members and local Wikimedians of all levels of experience will be welcome to attend, and encouraged to practice, make connections, discuss possible collaborations, and ask questions/improve their editing skills.
- Monthly ‘Wiki and Biccy’ training/meet-up sessions have been proposed. Inspired as much by knitting circles as by Wikipedia meet-ups, these would be very informal gatherings to be held at different NLS sites
- Now that a clearer schedule of projects and goals has been outlined, a (mini) publicity campaign will be launched including blog posts for the WMUK blog and the NLS blog, an article in the NLS Discover magazine, contributions to “This Month in GLAM” newsletter, and introductions from the WiR on a collection of relevant mailing lists.
Material for future digitisation
editObjective: The identification of material for future Wikimedia digitisation projects.
- 1st Month Outcomes:
- Initial drafting of an NLS policy regarding the releasing of digitised material has been preliminarily discussed; while this process will take some time, plans have also been outlined to facilitate the release of material on a case-by-case basis until that time.
- Very preliminary discussion has taken place regarding the prospect of crowdsourcing projects which may be incorporated into future NLS ditigisation projects.