All,
I am pleased to announce that Wikimedia District of Columbia has selected Leo Zimmermann to lead our Wikipedia Summer of Monuments project. Leo's experience running Wikipedia workshops and reaching out to rural libraries have prepared him for what is our largest outreach project yet. The object of Summer of Monuments is to improve photographic coverage of nationally recognized historic sites in the Southern United States, a region that is underrepresented on Wikipedia. In particular, we have identified ten states where photographic coverage lags behind: Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Our plan is to build on the success we had with Wiki Loves Monuments with a campaign of direct outreach to those historical and cultural institutions who share our mission to improve access to the world's knowledge. To learn more, read our latest blog post: <http://blog.wikimediadc.org/2014/06/introducing-wikipedia-summer-of-monumen…>.
We invite Wikimedians and our allies to join us in this effort to share history on Wikipedia!
—
James Hare
President, Wikimedia District of Columbia
http://wikimediadc.org
@wikimediadc
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. :(
Hi all,
This week, I am continuing NARA's work to improve the transparency of our
contributions to Wikipedia by rolling out a user page
template<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:NARA_user_page> which
will be used for all NARA staff accounts. Here is an example of the
template in action, on the user page of a staff member from our Office of
the Federal Register: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Woo_24>.
To recap our work so far, NARA has published:
- Our internal staff editing
guidelines<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/National_Archives_and_Records_…>
(internally:
July 2012, publicly: September 2012)
- A long-form statement of our
principles<http://blogs.archives.gov/online-public-access/?p=8502> on
our blog (September 2012)
- My personal FAQ <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Dominic/FAQ> about
my paid activities on my user page (October, 2013)
The new template includes language approved by NARA's general counsel's
office for this purpose. It serves the dual purpose of enforcing standard
conflict of interest disclosure language on all NARA staff user pages,
while also giving staff members new to Wikipedia an automatic, visually
appealing user page to start off with. It also places the users into a
category, so that we can easily track all staff accounts.
My hope is that it will also serve as a visual cue for when an account is
operating outside of the bounds of our approved rules of engagement for
Wikipedia—if someone from NARA is editing without this template on their
user page, it probably means they haven't been trained in Wikipedia and
management is unaware of their actions. And finally, of course, I have
written the statement so that it is more than just a disclosure, but also a
positive message to the Wikimedia community about our intentions. Here are
two of the more important statements:
- "We are working to make our holdings, publications, and other
resources more accessible to the public by engaging directly with
Wikipedia."
- "Because the National Archives' educational mission is in line with
Wikipedia's mission to disseminate knowledge freely, I will not make edits
that I do not believe are in accordance with Wikipedia's practices and
procedures."
There is also a note that directs any Wikimedians with concerns about any
NARA staff's edits that they can contact me, as I act as NARA's liaison to
Wikipedia.
I am hoping this method is useful for other institutions. I'd love to hear
any feedback others have on this approach we're taking.
Dominic
Hello,
I am a Wikipedian in Residence this summer at the University of Puget Sound’s Archives & Special Collections, in Tacoma, WA. I am a rising senior and will be working this summer with Katie Henningsen, our Archivist and Digital Collections Coordinator, to make our archival material accessible through Wikipedia.
I recently met with Lianna Davis, Head of Communications and External Relations at the Wiki Education Foundation, and she suggested that I introduce myself to the email list and get connected to other, more experienced Wikipedians. I’m still pretty new to Wikipedia, and may be reaching out to this list for some guidance down the line as I begin to write articles, so I wanted to introduce myself and Katie in advance!
Best,
Kara Flynn ‘15
Wikipedian in Residence
Archives & Special Collections
University of Puget Sound
Thank you for supporting the University of Puget Sound Archives & Special Collections.
Katie L.B. Henningsen | Archivist & Digital Collections Coordinator
UNIVERSITY OF PUGET SOUND
Collins Memorial Library
1500 N. Warner St. #1021
Tacoma, WA 98416-1021
T: 253.879.2669
pugetsound.edu/library
Hi everyone,
Thank you all for your prompt responses and helpful suggestions! I'll be sure to look into the various links you've all sent.
Thanks again.
Best,
Kara
Hi Katie!
Welcome. I recommend three quick tutorials to get up to speed, about an
hour each:
* http://enwp.org/WP:STUDENT - Education program training
* http://enwp.org/WP:TWA - Wikipedia adventure interactive game
* http://enwp.org/WP:PANDS - Plain and simple guide for new editors
For much more in depth background, there's:
https://en.wp.org/Help:Wikipedia:_The_Missing_Manual - Missing Manual
Good luck!
Jake Orlowitz (User:Ocaasi)
The Wikipedia Library
On Fri, May 23, 2014 at 12:10 PM, Sarah Stierch <sarah.stierch(a)gmail.com>wrote:
> Welcome Katie!
>
> I was just at the American Alliance of Museums Conference (there were a
> few of us there) in Seattle this past week, shame I didn't know about your
> work sooner :)
>
> Glad that you have joined us here, I've done many projects and consulted
> on multiple residencies. If we can be of any help here, so let us know.
>
> -Sarah (who lives down the street in Oakland, California!)
>
>
> On Fri, May 23, 2014 at 9:09 AM, Kara E Flynn <kflynn(a)pugetsound.edu>wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I am a Wikipedian in Residence this summer at the University of Puget
>> Sound’s Archives & Special Collections, in Tacoma, WA. I am a rising senior
>> and will be working this summer with Katie Henningsen, our Archivist and
>> Digital Collections Coordinator, to make our archival material accessible
>> through Wikipedia.
>>
>> I recently met with Lianna Davis, Head of Communications and External
>> Relations at the Wiki Education Foundation, and she suggested that I
>> introduce myself to the email list and get connected to other, more
>> experienced Wikipedians. I’m still pretty new to Wikipedia, and may be
>> reaching out to this list for some guidance down the line as I begin to
>> write articles, so I wanted to introduce myself and Katie in advance!
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Kara Flynn ‘15
>> Wikipedian in Residence
>> Archives & Special Collections
>> University of Puget Sound
>>
>>
>> Thank you for supporting the University of Puget Sound Archives & Special
>> Collections.
>> Katie L.B. Henningsen | Archivist & Digital Collections Coordinator
>> UNIVERSITY OF PUGET SOUND
>> Collins Memorial Library
>> 1500 N. Warner St. #1021
>> Tacoma, WA 98416-1021
>> T: 253.879.2669
>> pugetsound.edu/library
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> GLAM-US mailing list
>> GLAM-US(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glam-us
>>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Sarah Stierch
>
> -----
>
> Diverse and engaging consulting for your organization.
>
> www.sarahstierch.com
>
> _______________________________________________
> GLAM-US mailing list
> GLAM-US(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glam-us
>
>
--
Jake Orlowitz
Wikipedia: Ocaasi <http://enwp.org/User:Ocaasi>
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