Hi everyone,
i'm pleased to announce that i've completed an upload to Commons of
around 2500 images in high resolution (2400px) related to the overseas
history of the Netherlands. The upload contains a trove of maps from
the Dutch East and West India Companies, ground plan of colonial
fortifications, bird’s eye views of landmarks and harbours throughout
the world by Johannes Vingboons, and beautiful, often coloured, prints
from printed journals of voyages and expeditions. Depicted are places
all over the world where the Dutch were active, including Indonesia,
West Africa, South Africa, East Asia, "New Amsterdam" (New York) and
Surinam.
The website contains over 6000 images, but for this specific upload
i've focused on the 2500 images from the collections of the National
Library of the Netherlands (Koninklijke Bibliotheek) and the National
Archive (Nationaal Archief) because i'm a Wikipedian in Residence for
those institutions.
One of the reasons why i think this upload is interesting is because
the metadata is of high quality. Every image is extensively described
in both Dutch and English, properly dated, contains author information
and most of them are geolocated. For example, here's a picture of
Banda Neira, a small settlement in Indonesia:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AMH-6165-NA_Bird%27s_eye_view_of_Ba…
All images are in the public domain, but for this upload all the
metadata was released under a CC-Zero license as well.
Some technical details: i didn't use the GWToolset but the good old
Pywikibot. All the metadata of the original XML dumps, and a
'translated json' format is available in the source of every image
page, more or less the same as how the GWT does it.
More information about this upload can be found at the following places:
* Project page on Commons:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Atlas_of_Mutual_Heritage
* Category with all images:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Media_from_Atlas_of_Mutual_Heri…
* Python source of the data mapper and upload bot on Github:
https://github.com/hay/pywikibot-hay/tree/master/scripts/amh
* Atlas of Mutual Heritage: http://www.atlasofmutualheritage.nl
Kind regards,
-- Hay
I'm curating [sic] the @WeAreWikipedia Twitter account for the next
week. Please follow it, if you use Twitter.
Suggestions for topics/ links to tweet wil be welcome.
Especially of written on used, high-denomination bank notes ;-)
--
Andy Mabbett
@pigsonthewing
http://pigsonthewing.org.uk
Dear all,
yesterday, the Bouchout Declaration on Open Access to Biodiversity
data went live, signed by over 50 institutions and organizations. This
opens up a new level of engagement for Science GLAM activities, and I
would like to encourage you to have a look at
http://bouchoutdeclaration.org/
to see
- whether you would like to sign as an individual,
- whether you could bring up the idea of signing with an institution
or organization that has not yet signed up, or
- whether any of the signatories might be a partner in some of your
OpenGLAM/ GLAM-Wiki activities.
I’d be happy to answer any questions you may have on that, and you can
also contact the team behind the declaration via
bouchout(a)plazi.org .
Cheers,
Daniel
--
http://www.naturkundemuseum-berlin.de/en/institution/mitarbeiter/mietchen-d…https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Daniel_Mietchen/Publicationshttp://okfn.orghttp://wikimedia.org
Hi all,
I am very happy to announce that the first three batches of digital content from the National Library of Scotland's collections have been successfully uploaded to Wikimedia Commons this week! This follows the acceptance in March 2014 of a library-wide policy that places all NLS-generated metadata under a CC-0 licence; digital content will be released under either a CC-0 or CC-BY-NC-SA licence (for the time being the NLS has chosen to licence its master .tiff files as CC-BY-NC-SA but the policy will be reviewed annually so we can only hope this is temporary). The Library will be issuing an official press release early next week and the policy itself will be available on our website.
Although it's a small batch yet, this is still extremely exciting progress and is the result of a combined effort from the NLS and Wikimedia UK; hopefully it is just the first in many projects of this type both at the NLS and at other Scottish organisations!
See the released content here:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Tay_Bridge_disasterhttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Construction_of_the_Forth_Bridgehttps://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Scotia_Depicta
Cheers,
Ally
Ally Crockford
Wikimedian-In-Residence
National Library of Scotland
George IV Bridge
Edinburgh EH1 1EW
Scotland, UK
e: a.crockford(a)nls.uk<mailto:a.crockford@nls.uk>
t: (0) 131 623 3797
w: http://www.nls.uk<http://www.nls.uk/>
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National Library of Scotland, Scottish Charity, No: SCO11086
This communication is intended for the addressee(s) only. If you are not the addressee please inform the sender and delete the email from your system. The statements and opinions expressed in this message are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of National Library of Scotland. This message is subject to the Data Protection Act 1998 and Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002. No liability is accepted for any harm that may be caused to your systems or data by this message.
www.nls.uk
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 | http://loribyrdphillips.com/
