On Thu, Aug 30, 2012 at 1:04 PM, Sarah Stierch <sarah.stierch(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:
I also know it's frustrating about money. As
someone, like you, who
comes from the GLAM world, I know that funding isn't being thrown at these
types of projects on a whim, especially large scale consortium type
projects, by GLAMs. If only we had a contingent of grant writers (haha!)
and available funds from the movement (Chapters, WMF, whatever) that could
contribute to this. I also agree that an in person meeting is KEY to making
that happen - we all know the power of GLAMcamp. Without GLAMcamp I would
not be as involved in this as I am, nor care as deeply as I do.
I really doubt that, anytime soon, significant resources are going to be
shared by GLAMs for these projects that don't' directly relate to their own
direct mission (i.e. funding a Wikipedian in Residence is more ideal than
funding a consortium). GLAMs and Wikimedians want to see this consortium
happen, but, I do think it'll take "Movement money" to make it come
together. Just having initial funds to have a meeting and get the ball
rolling in person is ideal, IMHO.
Some Wikimedia movement money *is* available to support the US GLAM-Wiki
community: the Grants program[1] may be tapped for support to fund an
in-person meeting, but, speaking for the Wikimedia Foundation now, we feel
the burden of proof of the value of GLAM-Wiki collaboration has been amply
satisfied by now, and it is time for other partners to share the initiative
(and, yes, the funding), from here on. We would therefore gladly consider
funding an in-person meeting under a cost-sharing or matching model.
It's also so aggravating about the tools - I also have a feeling that if
the consortium can get off the ground with a meeting,
that tools can be
developed via GLAMs. I'm hoping our event at MCN can help inspire that too
- having tech folks from WMF and MediaWiki volunteers engaged with GLAMs in
the US is important - and I know that if GLAM tech folks were made more
aware of the opportunities with MediaWiki they'd probably have more
interest in developing tools that benefit both sides. I also think it'd be
cool to have more GLAM hackathons (at THATcamp, etc.), but, we'd need
additional MediaWiki folk support for that (hackers, people who can help
lead).
Are many of the consortium stakeholders coming to MCN? Is it perhaps
possible to co-locate the consortium in-person meeting with that? (just
thinking out loud)
Asaf
[1]
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Index
--
Asaf Bartov
Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>
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