As many of you know, the National Library and its Trove service include a
WP citation code in the "cite this" drop down in all search results (along
with permalink, and various standardised footnoting styles). At the
Library we are currently in the midst of a very broad tech and
database integration process - part of which is revisiting what kinds of
citations are useful where. I'm going to a meeting next week to discuss
where the WP citation sits within this and I'd really appreciate some
feedback:
1) What effect does the Visual Editor have on the provision of this kind of
code. Is it even useful anymore to provide pre-filled wiki markup?
2) Which kinds of results are useful to have this service provided, and
which are irrelevant? I believe the best use-case is for individual
newspaper articles within Trove. However, I believe that there is little/no
value in providing this service for individual book results in the NLA
catalogue
search (because WP just wants the ISBN, not the fact that it's in any
individual library's collection). However - what about manuscripts, music
scores, unpublished collections of personal papers, digitised maps.... Is
it useful to have this service provided in those circumstances?
-Liam / Wittylama
(In this case I'm asking from my professional capacity as employee of the
NLA)
--
wittylama.com
Peace, love & metadata
To kick off the research project with University of Queensland and the
Australian Paralympic Committee (APC), we are going to celebrate the
Wheelchair Rugby Tri-Nation competition being held in central Sydney (in St
Mary's Cathedral Square) on Wed 18 - Fri 20 September by following it up
with an edit-a-thon at the State Library of New South Wales on Saturday 21
September. For the full details see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/State_Library_of_New_South_Wale
s/Paralympics_Workshop
Tony Naar of APC has generously offered *free* tickets to the wheelchair
rugby games to edit-a-thon participants. Yippee, we love *free* stuff! Both
daytime and evening matches are available to fit around your other
commitments. See here for the dates/times:
http://www.paralympic.org.au/games-amp-events/be-influence-wheelchair-rugby-
tri-nations
Tony is hoping that attending these fast-paced action-packed competitions
between the world's top national teams (Australia, USA, and Canada) will
inspire you to write about Wheelchair Rugby (aka *Murderball!*) at the
edit-a-thon:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheelchair_rugby
but, of course, contributions on any aspect of disability sport or related
themes are welcome at the edit-a-thon.
Hawkeye7 will be leading the WMAU side of the edit-a-thon; many of you will
be aware of his strong track record in this area. And we hope that we will
get a good turnout from our Sydneysiders and their relatives/friends/etc.
Remember non-editors can still help with research and normal writing
(mark-up can be added by others) so they are most welcome. And you can also
participate electronically too!
So, what to do now:
1. Go to
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/State_Library_of_New_South_Wale
s/Paralympics_Workshop
and sign up for the edit-a-thon (physically or electronically)
2. Check the competition dates/times
http://www.paralympic.org.au/games-amp-events/be-influence-wheelchair-rugby-
tri-nations
3. email Tony Naar (cc-ed) Tony.Naar(a)paralympic.org.au with your ticket
requests
4. practice screaming yourself hoarse to cheer on the teams (we'd rather you
didn't scream at your fellow edit-a-thon-ers!)
Any questions? Ask me. I might not know the answer but I probably know who
to ask!
Kerry
Although I know many of our WMAU members are experienced Wikipedia editors,
I am aware that we do have some members who are not and would welcome some
opportunity to learn more about it.
We aren't in a position to run large group formal training in most cities
(for a variety of reasons) but it's possible to do one-on-one informal
training so long as there is a volunteer available in your area.
So, if you are someone who would like to get some one-on-one training,
please contact me and let me know what area you are in. I will then call for
volunteers for that area to assist and, if successful, put you in touch to
make a mutually convenient arrangement to get together.
One comment. Obviously it's up to the individuals to make whatever
arrangements they are comfortable with, but I must point out that there are
risks associated with meeting with a stranger in a private setting (this is
always a consideration when conducting interviews in research projects). It
might be preferable to meet in a library or other public place in the first
instance.
Kerry
Dear All,
I have just returned from a meeting at the State Library of New South
Wales<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Library_of_New_South_Wales>at
which it was confirmed that our proposed WWI editathon will take place
on site on 23 November.
This is a great opportunity for us because the Library will provide:
- one of its best rooms (a private and spacious one);
- its expert curators (along with their expertise and their white gloves);
- a newly launched website (containing new resources); and of course
- items from its collection (including rare and usually unavailable
material) which we can look at, learn from, and use, to improve WP
articles. For example, on the topic of WWI, the Library holds many diaries
and manuscripts from the period.
This is the first time that an Australian cultural institution has opened
its doors to us in this way. It builds on the good relationship developed
during my short time there as Wikipedian-in-Residence and will help us to
get more Australian content into the encyclopedia, as well as offer a rare
chance to get up close to our history and to documents recording our
stories.
As you can see from the Library's project
page<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/State_Library_of_New_South_Wales>,
they have connected this editathon to their own work. On the editathon
project page,<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_edit-a-thons/Australia>they
have already set out a wide range of resources to make things easier
for us. In fact, the librarians are devoted to making information easier to
get and skilled at doing just that.
Please sign up on the editathon page if you would like to participate. The
room has space for newbies and for potential Wikipedians as well. The
Library is happy to have us bring friends on the day to learn about being
an editor or about the wonderful collection that it looks after on our
behalf.
Hope to see you there or online,
Whiteghost.ink
We've had a few reports of donation banners by Australian WP readers at this
unseasonal time of the year, so I made some enquiries and it appears that
WMF is running these banners for anonymous users on a "once off" basis. Many
of you will probably not have seen them yourselves as you are probably
normally logged-in when you use WP. I believe the normal donation banner
campaign will still take place at the end of the year.
I thought you might like to be aware of these donation banners in case
anyone asks you about it. Note, it is supposed to be a "once off" experience
and the team would like to hear if there is any evidence that individuals
are seeing a lot of these banners. Of course people using multiple computers
might see them "once off" on each computer (not sure there is much that can
be done about that).
If you'd like to know more about it, please see:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2013#July_1.2C_2013_Updatehttp://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fundraising_2013#First_two_weeks_of_the_new_f
iscal_year.2C_July_15.2C_2013_Update
Kerry
Hi All,
This is only tangentially related to Australia, so if you prefer your
emails to be strictly on topic then please move on.
Since late July, Úsáideor:HusseyBot has been uploading recently free
articles from Fréamh an Eolais onto the Irish Wikipedia. "Fréamh an
Eolais", which roughly translates as "root of knowledge" is an Irish
language scientific encyclopaedia composed by Matthew Hussey, a science
academic at the Institiúid Teicneolaíochta Bhaile Átha Cliath (Dublin
Institute of Technology). The content in Fréamh an Eolais has recently
been licensed under as CC-BY-SA and also under the GFDL, thus making it
eligible for inclusion on Wikimedia projects. It includes not just
information on scientific concepts themselves, but also biographies of
notable people in the world of science.
http://ga.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speisialta:Contributions/HusseyBot
Unfortunately, a lot of these articles do not have images or categories
yet, and as Irish Wikipedia is still a small project it may take a long
time before these new articles are linked up with the wealth of other
information available in the Wikisphere. However (and this is where you
come in), it's relatively easy by looking at the translations to determine
what each article is about, and from there to add images from Commons or
categories from other similar articles.
Even if you can only do a couple of articles, any help would be appreciated!
Cheers,
Craig Franklin