New years reception.The National Library of the Netherlands and the National Archive of the Netherlands hosted the Wikimedia Nederland New Years Reception 2014 on the 18th of January. After a word of welcome by the organisers a few new projects were presented. Visitors could also visit the current exhibition of the National Archive, get a tour through the depots of the National Library, follow a short course on editing Wikipedia or join a guided tour through The Hague. The reception ended with the prize ceremony of Wiki takes The Hague, a local Wiki loves monuments event that was organised on the 22nd of September in 2013
Small grants.
Three requests for financial support of activities benefiting the Wikimedia projects were received and accepted :
€ 150 to support an edit-a-thon on art and feminism
€ 500 to support the development of a tool to improve the presentation of information generated through Wikidata.
€ 254,10 for a subscription to a database to improve Wikipedia- articles on restaurants.
The small grants programme is open to all members of the Wikimedia-community, regardless of whether or not they are WMNL members.
Writing contest.
The Wikipedia community organised its annual writing contest and awarded prizes to four articles on the Dutch language Wikipedia for their outstanding quality. WMNL supported the contest by providing and distributing the prizes.
Kick-off 550 years Staten Generaal.
The first meeting of the Staten Generaal, the predecessor of the Dutch parliament, took place on January 9, 1464. The project 550 jaar Staten Generaal has been launched to mark that this happened 550 years ago. The focus of the project is to improve information on the history of the Dutch parliament by writing articles, organising edit-marathons and meetings with experts. This project is an initiative of Wikipedians, and is supported by WMNL both financially and logistically
Content donation University Museum Utrecht.
The University Museum in Utrecht launched a new website of their collection. The museum announced at the launch of the site that they will donate the content - about 5500 images that are currently available and more images that will become available in the future - to Wikimedia Commons. The donation is scheduled for May this year, the GLAMwiki toolset will be used for the donation. The donation will lead to more available content and higher quality images of pictures that are already on Wikimedia Commons.
Wikipedians in Residence.
There are currently 6 Wikipedians in Residence (WiR) in the Netherlands. The last to be announced is Maarten Jansen, who is already working at the Amsterdam Museum. 5 WiR's and WMNL had a meeting to discuss their projects, the notes of this meeting are public (Dutch). WMNL is going to organise a workshop on using the Europeana GLAM Wiki mass-upload tool for the WiR's and other staff of their host organisations.
OpenGLAM Benchmark Survey.
The Open Knowledge Foundation, the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, Europeana and Wikimedia Nederland are working together to conduct the Open Glam Benchmark Survey in the Netherlands. The goal of this survey is to gain an overview of the extent to which cultural heritage institutions are adapting to new trends such as setting up a digital strategy and their willingness to open up content. The survey was first conducted in Switzerland by the Bern University of Applied Sciences. 17 countries have shown interest to participate.
Rathenau Instituut.
WMNL Executive Director Sandra Rientjes gave a presentation about the Wikimedia projects at the Rathenau Instituut and discussed potential cooperation. The Rathenau Instituut studies and stimulates the formation of political and public opinion on science and technology. They are interested to see how debate about science and technology is reflected on Wikipedia.
Media. On Wikipedia's birthday (January 15) WMNL chairman Ziko van Dijk was interviewed on Radio Rijnmond. WMNL executive director Sandra Rientjes was interviewed in the BNR radio-programme Digitaal.
A full overview of media coverage can be found here.
Newsletter. On behalf of WMNL, the Wikimedia Foundation sent out a message to all individuals from the Netherlands who donated via the fundraising banner on Wikipedia. In the days after this message went out 400 people subscribed to the WMNL newsletter.
Annual report and accounts. Treasurer Paul Becherer and the WMNL office jointly prepared the annual report and accounts. These will be audited in February and presented to the General Assembly on March 29.
The board convened on 9 January in Utrecht. One of the topics was the preparation of the next general assembly in March, including the recruitment of new board members and the preparation of the annual report for the members.
The board is on a track to receive better 'job descriptions' for board members, initiated by secretary Frans Grijzenhout with external professional support.
Brainstorm session Education project on February 1.