Thanks for sharing this great news, Dominic! It's really thrilling to see
the substantial progress that's been made in establishing such expansive
strategy relating to Wikimedia. Our long-term projects at influential
institutions like the National Archives are invaluable in illustrating how
relevant our work still is. I'm personally quite proud that the GLAM-Wiki
US Consortium was named, and that the Archives continues to support the
efforts there.
Cheers to an even *more* fantastic National Archives Open Government Plan!
Lori
On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 1:46 PM, Dominic McDevitt-Parks <
dominic.mcdevitt-parks(a)nara.gov> wrote:
Hi all, I have more NARA news to share. The U.S.
National Archives'
updated Open Government Plan
<http://www.archives.gov/open/open-government-plan-3.0.pdf>[1] was just
published on Wednesday with this announcement
<http://blogs.archives.gov/online-public-access/?p=9253>. It places a lot
of emphasis on how the National Archives plans to work with the Wikimedia
community in order to help fulfill its mission, especially the flagship
"Make Access Happen" goal. This is a follow up to the 2012 version
<http://blogs.archives.gov/online-public-access/?p=8115> of the Open
Government Plan, which also mentioned Wikipedia in a less developed way.
From the executive summary, the document notes: "*Over the next two years
we will work to increase the number of National Archives records available
on Wikimedia Commons, continue our work to engage local communities of
volunteer Wikipedians with on-site events, and collaborate on the
development of the GLAM-Wiki U.S. Consortium
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/US/Consortium>.*" On pages
19-20, there is a fleshed out section about the agency's strategic approach
to Wikipedia, which I am copying below:
*Expand Wikipedia Efforts*
NARA has been engaging the Wikipedia community since 2011, when we
welcomed a Wikipedian in Residence and began holding events to build
awareness of the records of the National Archives. In 2013, we welcomed a
full-time employee devoted to engaging the Wikipedia community along with
NARA staff members to promote greater access, reuse, and context for our
records on Wikipedia.
Our work strengthening digitization and description fuels our ability to
make records available on external platforms like Wikipedia. In 2012, we
shared 100,000 digital images from our holdings to Wikimedia Commons. This
work enabled digital copies of our records to be incorporated into
Wikimedia projects and Wikipedia articles. The 4,000 Wikipedia articles
featuring our records received more than one billion page views in Fiscal
Year 2013. Over the next two years we will work to increase the number of
National Archives records available on Wikimedia Commons, which furthers
our strategic goal to “Make Access Happen” and expands re-use of our
records by the public.
We are continuing our work to engage local communities of volunteer
Wikipedians with on-site events, including skills-building workshops and
“edit-a-thons” for improving Wikipedia content related to our holdings. In
addition, we are establishing a model for “scan-a-thons” to enable citizen
archivist stakeholder groups to digitize our records for access.
We have worked to develop policies and best practices for NARA staff and
other professionals to contribute to Wikipedia articles and NARA staff
members regularly engage in sharing our experiences and insights about
Wikipedia with other cultural institutions. We are also collaborating on
the development of the GLAM-Wiki U.S. Consortium, which brings together
archivists, librarians, museum professionals, and Wikipedians to work on
building skills and shared understandings.
The rest of the document touches on other open government, crowdsourcing,
and "citizen archivist" initiatives that may also be of general interest to
you all. It even cites Simple English Wikipedia's definition for "API". As
far as I know, this is likely the most prominent policy document from a
cultural or government agency to enshrine collaboration with Wikipedia in
institutional strategy (though the previous NARA Open Government Plan from
2012 comes close), and I think we succeed in talking about Wikipedia
engagement in a way that Wikipedians will find ethical.
Dominic
[1] For those interested, in the United States each executive federal
agency is required
<http://www.whitehouse.gov/open/documents/open-government-directive> by
law to publish an "Open Government Plan", described as a public roadmap
that details how the agency will incorporate the principles of transparency
and open government into the core mission objectives of the agency. The
link has more information. There is no Wikipedia article on this. :(
_______________________________________________
GLAM-US mailing list
GLAM-US(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glam-us
--
Lori Byrd Phillips
Digital Marketing Content Coordinator
The Children's Museum of Indianapolis
703.489.6036 |