Wikimedia & MuseumsWhy we need them and what we can do about it

Liam Wyatt

• Treasure houses

• Public funding for public good

• Custodians of our cultural heritage

• 90% not on display

• (primary) research institutes

• IRL volunteer community

• Visitors and groups

• Experts

GLAM institutions:

• Curation• Interpretation• Preservation/Restoration• Valuation• Museology• Librarianship• Metadata• Archiving• Provenance• Art history• ...

Dedicated to best-practice in:

“Explore the past, Document the present,

Engage the public.”

Build a Relationship

(i.e. don’t try and steal their stuff)

“content liberation”

• Ring them up - ask for the “outreach” or “education” person (or “web-strategy”).

• Someone in the organisation is already “doing” social/web2/O.A.

• Visit, have a chat. • No camera, no proposals. • Meet for introductions -

no obligation. • Prepare. What do they care

about? What is their presence on Wikimedia projects.

Initial contact

Most of the work is not visible

Build a

relationship

(i.e. this should be beneficial in both directions, not just getting ‘photos of things’)

su!ainable

• Run an event:• Backstage Pass• Wiki Loves Art• Featured Article• Host a Local Meetup• Write in their Newsletter

• Learn their perspective:• ‘Access rights’ not just

copyrights• Business & funding model• Innovations they’ve tried

You might be pleasantly surprised

(n.b. “statement of significance” = notability)

http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/collection/database/?irn=7177&img=131713

How can we work together to build sustainable relationships that are mutually beneficial?

http://glam.wikimedia.org.au

Recommendations

• Technology

• Law

• Education

• Business

to GLAM sector

to Wikimedia community

to government

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM-WIKI_Recommendations

Did you know?There’s a 2 year queue to join:

Theme 1: Metadata

• to know what we’re using of theirs, where, and statistics of its usage

• to know when we’ve changed/added improved their content and to export those changes back

• us to enable machine readable metadata

• us to use their metadata consistently and comprehensively

They want:

Theme 2: The real thing

• not try and make GLAMs redundant

• encourage people to get a personal experience rather than just online

• find ways for recognition of expert input

• highlight our quality assessments and encourage external peer review

They want us to:

Theme 3: Information

• documentation about free licensing

• someone to contact

• to know how to do more things with no extra money or time

• to learn how to edit and for it to be easier

• to see how NPOV is compatible with interpretive debate

They want:

Theme 4: Moral rights

• us to take greater care in dealing with moral rights of authors - not just copyright

• Indigenous cultural rights: not all culture was meant to be free

They want:

Credits

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:School_children_in_Louvre.jpg Hu Toya, cc-by-sa

• http://punditkitchen.com/2008/04/04/political-pictures-navy-liberate-shit/

• http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CandlestickTelephoneGal.jpg, PD

• http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bucephala-albeola-010.jpg MdF, cc-by-sa

• http://www.powerhousemuseum.com/dmsblog/index.php/2009/04/02/working-with-wikipedia-backstage-pass-at-the-powerhouse-museum/ Paula Bray, cc-by-sa

• http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Glam_wiki_1.jpg David Howe, cc-by-sa

• http://picasaweb.google.com/mathias.schindler/Australien#5368793653845814850 Mathias Schindler, cc-by-nc-nd

thank you

• lwyatt@wikimedia.org.au

• wittylama.com