Wikipedia:GLAM/Wellcome/1st Month Report

Institution Resident Period Covered Date of Report Full Report
Wellcome Library Alice White 04 May - 04 June 2016 (first month of residency) 16 June 2016 1st Month Report - read in full
Wellcome Library Alice White 04 June - 04 July 2016 (second month of residency) 16 July 2016 2nd Month Report - read in full
Wellcome Library Alice White 04 July - 04 August 2016 (third month of residency) 8 August 2016 3rd Month Report - read in full
Wellcome Library Alice White 04 August - 04 September 2016 (fourth month of residency) 16 September 2016 4th Month Report - read in full
Wellcome Library Alice White 04 September - 04 October 2016 (fifth month of residency) 4 October 2016 5th Month Report - read in full
Wellcome Library Alice White 04 October - 04 November 2016 (sixth month of residency) 18 November 2016 6th Month Report - read in full
Wellcome Library Alice White 04 November - 04 December 2016 (seventh month of residency) 9 March 2017 7th Month Report - read in full
Wellcome Library Alice White 04 December 2016 - 04 January 2017 (eighth month of residency) 9 March 2017 8th Month Report - read in full
Wellcome Library Alice White 04 January - 04 March 2017 (ninth month of residency) 27 March 2017 9th Month Report - read in full
Wellcome Library Alice White 04 March - 04 April 2017 (tenth month of residency) 21 April 2017 10th Month Report - read in full

Content

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As there is already a great deal of Wellcome media on Commons, the first month of the residency has focussed on reviewing this and thinking about how it can be better used, better described, better categorised, and then possibly supplemented. In addition, I created a project page for the residency: Wikipedia:GLAM/Wellcome

Activities & Events

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Event Name Date Location Attendees New Users Gender breakdown
Library Staff Development Session: Introduction to Wiki 1st June 2016 Darwin Room, Wellcome Trust 35 N/A N/A

Objectives

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Wikimedia UK's objectives Residency's objectives
Strategic Goal 1: Increase the quality and quantity of coverage of subjects that are currently underrepresented on Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia projects, with a particular focus on cultural content Develop a policy and workflow for adding to Wikimedia, Wikipedia, etc., in a sustainable and ongoing fashion that will continue long after the residency ends.

Add more resources to Wikimedia Commons.

Strategic Goal 2: Support the development of open knowledge in the UK, by increasing the understanding and recognition of the value of open knowledge and advocating for change at an organisational, sectoral and public policy level 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.

Be an advocate for open knowledge within the Library and externally.

Strategic Goal 3: To support the use of the Wikimedia projects as important tools for education and learning in the UK
Develop, involve and engage with WMUK volunteers Organise and host Wikimedia-related events.

Work with the Library to develop an outreach policy to coordinate contributions from the Library and the wider communities to support the development of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia community in under-represented areas.

Outcomes

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This month the main outcomes have been linked with advocacy, identifying resources and opportunities for wiki-at-work:

  • Meeting the staff at the Wellcome and explaining the residency.
  • Exploring possibilities for projects and showing how Wikimedia can be a useful link with existing work.
  • Promoting interest and engagement by dispelling myths or worries about editing (for instance, showing the visual editor, explaining how Talk pages work, discussing edit-wars).

Partnerships/Potential Collaborations

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  • I had a meeting with Peter Findlay from JISC: he is interested in planning some events in late October to coincide with the launch of the digitised UK Medical Heritage Library (https://archive.org/details/ukmhl).
  • Catherine Southworth from the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Regenerative Medicine has been in touch via email about a Stem Cell editathon, to be held in late July. The Wellcome has lots of resources from Codebreakers that could be used.
  • Harriet Martin from The Hub (https://wellcomecollection.org/what-we-do/hub) expressed an interest in arranging edit-training for the outgoing Hub participants sometime this summer (and for herself and other Hub Management), and then for new Hub participants in the Autumn, so that editing Wikipedia is embedded in their work from the outset. She was particularly excited to be shown the Talk pages where participants and the wider public could discuss information and how it is communicated.

Planned activities

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  • Basic training is being planned for Wellcome staff (Library, Collections & Trust) over the next month and beyond.
  • A competition is being planned to encourage staff to boost the number of Wellcome Images in Wikimedia Commons that are currently in use on Wikipedia.
  • I am going to attend June’s London Wikimedia Meetup to discuss the project with volunteers.
  • Plans have been initiated to change workflows to incorporate Wikimedia and make it easier for staff to engage:
    • Ongoing discussions with Cecy Marden to provide information to researchers as they are in the process of making their work Open Access, so that they then link to this OA work in Wikipedia.
    • The Library Blog team will be trained to edit, and will incorporate this into the process of blogging so that information not online is added and linked.
    • Web Producer Chloe Roberts and I are going to look into creating a “Cite on Wikipedia” button, for the blog initially and then possibly for wider use across the Wellcome’s websites.
    • Early discussions have been held with Jonny Kram from the Insight Research Analysis team about putting a list of Wellcome Fellows online, linking with ORCids,
  • July will be a month focussed on outreach:
    • 2 large conferences are being targeted: Science in Public and the conference of the Society for the Social History of Medicine. Experts attending these conferences will be provided with information on the project and encouraged to participate as expert evaluators and editors.
    • I’ll be discussing events and training with people from organisations in the field of mental health and psychiatry, to establish a diverse and knowledgeable group of people participating in the project.
  • Longer-term plans are being made for wiki-events to coincide with the launch of an exhibition on Bedlam in September. We are also building plans for events themed on “missing persons” and a “Wellcome Graveyard” (for Halloween).

Press about the residency

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  • Many people tweeted about the residency when the project page was launched (particularly other libraries).
  • Filming in the Library is being edited by John Lubbock and will soon be available to communicate more widely about the project.
  • There’s also been a foray into public outreach:
    • Wellcome staff have been discussing the residency at conferences including Preventing Mental Illness: Past, Present and Future and sounding-out interested researchers (including both those funded by the Wellcome and others who might be interested in the topic of history of mental health).
    • External conferences have been booked to reach out to a wider audience, including Science in Public and the annual conference of the Society for the Social History of Medicine.
    • We’re compiling a list of organisations who may want to get involved with the history of mental health theme.
    • We filmed a short interview in the Library to communicate the project - this should be going online next month.