Wikipedia:GLAM/NLS/8thMonth Report

Institution Resident's Name Period Covered Date of Report
National Library of Scotland Ally Crockford 13 February 2014 - 13 March 2014 (Eight month of residency) 13 March 2014

Projects delivered edit

Metrics edit

Accounts Created

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.

Public 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

8th Month Outcomes:
  • A talk about the NLS WiR programme was delivered at the EDGE Conference 2014 in Edinburgh on 28 February; approximately 40 people were in attendance over two days and the response was extremely positive. Contacts within Edinburgh City Libraries were made.
  • A similar workshop focusing on the NLS WiR programme and introducing participants to Wikipedia policies and guidelines was held at the National Library of Scotland, hosted by Special Libraries Association Europe (SLA Europe) on 4 March. Approximately 15 people were in attendance and once again there was a positive response, with several participants expressing interest in attending future events. Contacts with SLA Europe board members and representatives were made.
  • The Scottish Women in Contemporary Art Wikifest and Editathon on 13 March went well overall; while participation in the drop-in session was low, the round-table discussion was very active and saw approximately 15 participants gather to discuss Intellectual Property Right and Art with relation to digital open access policies. Approximately 50% of the participants stayed for the following editathon, where 7 participants (100% women), some new and some existing contributors, created and improved several articles on women artists (metrics pending)

Upcoming public events edit

Known or Prospective Date Event Name or Description Host or Partner Organisation Scope of event or talk
19 March 2014 What I Know Is Symposium University of Stirling (organised by Greg Singh) Raise awareness of Wikimedia projects amongst students/researchers/staff at University of Stirling.
20 March 2014 TaPRA Wikipedia Workshop, Glasgow Toni Sant, HATII, University of Glasgow Introduction to Wikipedia and training session, followed by an exploration of ways to contribute to Wikimedia other than by writing encyclopedia articles (e.g. sharing images; rendering structure data in visual form; giving research a suitable license), a Q&A, and hands‐on Wikipedia editing which will lead into an editathon of relevant pages.
21 March 2014 Scottish Women in Computing Editathon University of Edinburgh (organised by NLS and BCSWomen Edinburgh) Follow up to December's BCS Women in Computing event at the IBM offices in Edinburgh, part of the Women Who Shaped Scotland series of events taking part this month.
Spring 2014 Wikipedia Training Capture session (by User:ACrockford) Jisc Scotland, CILIPS MmIT? 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 2014? 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.
April/May 2014 EduWiki symposium - Venue TBC (Edinburgh, Dundee, Stirling?) Wikimedia UK etc. It has been (informally) suggested that a one-day symposium to be held in Scotland will replace the EduWiki conference since WikiMania will be in London in 2014.
Early May 2014 'Wha's Like Us' Backstage Pass event(s) National Library of Scotland As part of the NLS's Winter/Spring exhibition, 'Wha's Like Us: A Nation of Dreams and Ideas', which also corresponds with Scottish Homecoming in 2014, a backstage pass will focus on adding content on Scotland's people, history, and culture drawn from the remit of the exhibit itself.
12-14 June 2014 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 on 13 June
18 June 2014 Wikimedia Information Session Grampian Information, Aberdeen A follow on from the Grampian Information Annual Conference in December, I have been asked to present a similar talk as part of the Grampian Information AGM in June. Details to follow.
June 23-24 2014 Library Science Talks 2014: Wikimedians in the Library CERN Library, Swiss National Library Swiss National Library in Bern, the CERN Scientific Information Service in Geneva and the Association of International Librarians and Information Specialists organise an annual series of 'Library Science Talks'. Talk would bring together international and Swiss Wikimedians as well as Librarians to discuss the Wikimedian in Residence programme: possibilities, benefits, difficulties, experiences.
Sept/Oct 2014 Wikimedia & Libraries Information session (by User:Graeme Arnott and User:ACrockford) CILIPS MmIT General introduction to Wikimedia, background to GLAM:Wiki collaborations, details about NLS WiR programme, ScotWiki network of volunteers, aims and goals, specific examples of successful projects, etc.

Staff workshops and events 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

8th Month Outcomes:
  • While no NLS staff-only events were held this month, several Library staff attended the SLA Europe workshop as did several NLS researchers and staff at related organisations.
  • A staff training event for 20 February has been postponed to 31 March.
  • Drop-in training sessions at the University of Dundee Main Library gathered primarily Library staff, all of whom expressed an interest in holding future Wikipedia events in Dundee and provided contact details.

Contributor communities edit

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

8th Month Outcomes:
  • An ORG events organiser has proposed a meeting of representatives from different Open groups in Scotland to be held at the end of the month; User:Graeme Arnott is currently in discussion regarding the hosting of this event in Glasgow.
  • A ScotWiki meetup in Edinburgh is being organised for 30 March (or 13 April) - details forthcoming

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

8th Month Outcomes:
  • The proposed trial release of NLS digital content to Wikimedia commons has been approved and will go ahead beginning April 2014. In addition to the content previously approved for the Flickr account, several hundred additional images and files have been selected for upload. Currently, the Scottish Bridges digital collection has been identified for initial upload once a template has been created.
  • Following a conversation with curators at Edinburgh City Libraries during the 2014 EDGE Conference, a second Wikimedia Takes Edinburgh photo expedition has been proposed for July 2014. The event would specifically be designed to correspond with the release of images from the NLS' and Edinburgh City Libraries' shared collection of 19th and early 20th century photographs of Edinburgh (prospect of a 'now and then'-type focus was raised)