Hi everyone,
As you may have noticed in the Annual Plan, the Wikimedia Foundation has
proposed more support of GLAM-Wiki. I want to happily announce that *Alex
Stinson* will be expanding and transitioning his role as Wikipedia Library
Coordinator to lead this new position as *GLAM-Wiki Strategist *within the
Community Engagement department at WMF. He will continue to report and
work closely with me in Wikipedia Library land, which I'm very happy about!
I'll let Alex introduce himself and his thoughts on the position, why it
matters, and what its goals are.
Best,
Jake Orlowitz
User:Ocaasi (WMF)
Head of the Wikipedia Library
jorlowitz(a)wikimedia.org
--
Hi all!
I am particularly excited to be shifting towards helping with GLAM-Wiki
support. I plan to bring my long history of working in Wikimedia outreach,
first as a volunteer in GLAM and the Education program and then as an
employee with the Wikipedia Library, to improve our global GLAM impact [1].
As we point out in the proposed annual plan, [2] GLAM-Wiki has a long
history as a programmatic strategy for volunteers and affiliates. These
programs have collected some of our best content, pushed our technologies
beyond their limits, and created a considerable volume of contributions
from both Wikimedians and experts for over 8 years.
However, as these practices become more and more sophisticated and varied,
volunteers from smaller communities without connections to the leaders of
successful projects have found themselves unable to replicate this success,
or replicating many of the mistakes from earlier projects. At the same
time, larger initiatives have been hindered by a lack of investment in
infrastructure and technology.
WMF has been a great supporter of GLAM through grants and affiliate
support, but we can do more. We haven’t provided consistent global
connection, communication and support for GLAM-Wiki resources and tools.
My goal is to help GLAM spread throughout our communities and potentially
tens of thousands of organizations that - as folks like Liam Wyatt have
been advocating from the beginning - share our same values: freely sharing
knowledge with the world.
Below I have outlined our approach for the GLAM-Wiki Strategist role [3]. I
want to use the next few months to listen and evaluate the needs of the
communities actively involved in GLAM-Wiki work to make sure that I
prioritize projects correctly. I am also going to be at Wikimania, and have
already talked to a number of GLAM-Wiki leaders at Wikimedia Conference.
My role as strategist is to consult, collaborate, organize, and plan. So,
please reach out to me with your questions, thoughts, needs or other
feedback.
Cheers,
Alex Stinson
GLAM-Wiki Strategist
Wikimedia Foundation
astinson(a)wikimedia.org
[1] A little about me
I have been working with the Wikipedia Library since May 2014, developing
the Library’s publisher partnerships, building relationships with dozens of
community and language leaders across our volunteer movement, crafting a
broader strategy for engaging the largest libraries and international
reference networks, and project managing tool and metrics improvements for
our program.
I also designed and deployed the successful #1Lib1Ref campaign (
1lib1ref.org)
that drew nearly 30,000 viewers, 5 million tweet-impressions, and hundreds
of participants from the library world to Wikipedia in our first ever
viral, global micro-contributions drive for quality improvement.
In my volunteer, time I try to stay active as User:Sadads, where I am
mostly active on English Wikipedia ( >98,000 edits). I have been actively
writing content about literature and novels since 2008. I have always
thought of our movement as a community with a lot of opportunities around
partnerships and collaboration.
I was also one of the early adopters of GLAM-Wiki in the US: While still
in college, I approached the Smithsonian in 2010 about a partnership,
establishing the dialogue which grew to one of our most successful
long-term cultural partners within the movement. I have learned from those
early attempts and have led GLAM-Wiki relationships with a handful of
smaller organizations while in school and as a volunteer.
I am also a long time supporter of the Education program: I was trained as
part of the Public Policy Initiative's first round of "Campus Ambassadors",
the project that became first the U.S. and then the Global Education
Programs.
I am based in Southern Vermont, where I enjoy hiking, the local and the
local food culture. In my spare time, I try to produce sustainable food
through my garden and homebrewing-- I just put in 4 rows of potatoes, and
am about to start most of my summer crops.
[2] *Annual Plan for GLAM*
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2016-2017/…
[3] Some thoughts on the GLAM-Wiki Strategist Role
What I hope to do:
* Help lead efforts to evaluate and improve our GLAM-Wiki documentation,
and develop resources that make GLAM-Wiki a more approachable strategy for
volunteers, especially in communities which don't have much experience in
partnerships with formal organizations.
* Connect with and learn from the network of community leaders supporting
partnerships with GLAM and other organizations
* Help document and share the most successful, repeatable GLAM-Wiki project
models coming from our communities.
* Connect community leaders and outside organizations who approach
Community Engagement and other Wikimedia Foundation departments about GLAM
partnerships with the best volunteer leaders, resources, or learning
materials.
* Communicate GLAM and GLAM-Wiki needs with teams and departments within
WMF, including Community Resources, Strategic Partnerships and Engineering
teams. I have already started these conversations, and hope to be able to
share what I have been working on in the next couple months.
* Support strategic movement relationships with global organizations
(IFLA, ICOM, UNESCO, OCLC, Internet Archive, etc ) which can expand
opportunities for GLAM-Wiki programming and partnerships by local
affiliates.
What I won't be doing:
* Creating partnerships with local cultural heritage organizations
* "Coordinating" in any strong sense of the word -- It's not my role to be
“in charge” of what others are doing in the GLAM-Wiki space -- instead my
aim is to facilitate access to better tools and resources that help community
leaders coordinate these partnerships more easily and effectively.
What I would like to learn from the community and GLAM program leaders in
the next few months:
* Where does our community of GLAM-outreach leaders need the most support?
* What are the greatest technology barriers preventing the creation of
easy-to-create and scalable relationships with cultural heritage
organizations?
* What are the best opportunities for expanding GLAM-Wiki strategies to new
or emerging communities with less partnership experience or affiliate
support?
* How can we help a greater range of Wikimedia volunteers participate in
partnerships with our GLAM allies?
I am very optimistic about the opportunities for GLAM-Wiki work, especially
as Wikimedia becomes leaders of open and linked data, through projects like
Wikidata -- and I want to make sure our communities have the tools and
support to take advantage of that leading role in sharing cultural heritage
knowledge around the world.
-Alex