Dear Frederick and wikimedians involved in this Goa initiative,

Kudos on this wonderful step forward. Great team work,

My comments and suggestions inline:

On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 4:26 PM, Frederick FN Noronha फ्रेड्रिक नोरोन्या *فريدريك نورونيا fredericknoronha@gmail.com wrote:

I heard of the GLAM initiative from Nitika and team, when they visited Goa during their previous trip, and facilitated by friends at Goa University, the Krishnadas Shama Central Library (Panjim), etc.

This is great indeed, please try and do more followup events with this partner. Perhaps they may be open to allow use of this venue to have regular meetups. I concur with pradeep's suggestion on trying to build a community around it.

GLAM is hard work as it involves building relationships with institutions that at times are not internet savvy (mostly the case in India barring a few institutional exceptions). It is great you have already made the first few difficult steps. Please keep going.... You are doing great.

Of course, a lot more work is to go into this, but as the starting point, I just thought of listing some prominent institutions here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Galleries,_Libraries,_Museums_and_Archi...

This is a great compilation. Not many states have these barring very few states, *Great start* you folks have made for Goa.

All the information is not yet complete... and some institutions are yet to

get their own pages. But maybe a start. Can you offer any pointers as to how we could get more relevant information about these GLAMs onto the Wikipedia? Any pages one could check up for guidance? FN

*Suggested next steps*

I suggest the following steps you could consider to further your initiative:

1) List museums in your state. (and other GLAM institutions, translate in more indic languages) 2) Expand this list to a table to include a photo and collections details. E,g http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_museums_in_Karnataka

3) Eventually build pages for each of these institutions (from news sources, reliable blogs) E,g: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kempegowda_Museum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Museum_(Bangalore)

Most of the content collated above was from web research of new stories, blogs, et al. Incidentally, no visit to the museum to collate content (though it would help immensely). There is a lot of info out there with careful search of news websites (not all show up on google).

I suggest the structure for museum articles to include the following sections: History, Building, Collections, Visitors, Governance, related pages.

Do remember to use the following Infobox templates: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_museum http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_library

Listing geo location for each museum helps: E,g: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_museums_in_Somerset It helps to generate maps with institutions listed like the following http://toolserver.org/~para/cgi-bin/kmlexport?article=List_of_museums_in_Som... for rendering.

4) Encourage bloggers or flickr folks to release pictures they have taken via CC SA E,g: http://anushankarn.blogspot.in/2012/11/shivappa-nayaka-palace-shimoga.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Shivappa_Nayaka_Palace_Museum_01.jpg (Blogger Anuradha, a home maker, was requested to release her pics of her museum visit via CC SA. She ended releasing her complete collection via CC SA) https://twitter.com/anoopha/status/308931292861456384 (if you ask people normally oblige)

5) Organize a photo shoot specific to a museum. List the photos in a gallery mode with description. E,g: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Lakhota_Museum_Jamnagar (by Rangilo Gujarati https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Rangilo_Gujarati) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_Aerospace_Museum (photos listed as a gallery with annotations, thanks to some pics from Rameshng and his numerous pics http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:HAL_Museum)

6) Further events in collaboration with the GLAM institutions. E,g: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Crafts_Museum (Noopur can share experiences) 7) Get the pages translated in 5-6 indian languages and 5 languages of visit external tourists. 8) Choose 5 key objects/artifacts and create pages for them (and then translate) 9) Do a QR code pilot for the museum. http://wikimedia.7.n6.nabble.com/QRpedia-Swaminarayan-Temple-Mumbai-td493816... (contact Pranav who was behind this) 10) Collaborate and connect two museums - For goa, you could try a portuguese museum which has some artifacts on Goan history.

*Creating pages for GLAM institutions*

To collate the content about a specific GLAM institution the following is suggested:

1) Mainstream news sources from a google search on News. Remember to use the archive search option (this is key to yield results). 2) Check onsite sites of state newspapers (which may all not be indexed by search engines or google news) and indic language news papers. 3) For museums in smaller towns or states you will not find news stories from mainstream media. Blogs and travelogues provide some insight. (but please verify their credibility first) 4) Google books in good place to search old books that document some of the museums to locate relevant references. 5) A visit to the museum always helps.

*Compilation challenges*

A page I have been working on to compile a complete list of museums in Karnataka: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_museums_in_Karnataka The intent through this exercise is to slowly discover and creating a comprehensive list of museums in the state (there is no single reliable list today) and the key collections/artifacts they house. The list was compiled (it is still a work in progress, Karnataka has approximately 50+ per guesstimates) with details pulled out from various sources.

The challenge of collating this list is compounded by the fact that these institutions are managed by multiple entities/bodies like The Archaeological survey of India (ASI), State directorates of Archaeology & Museums (every state has one), private collections and University run institutions. Unlike some other countries there appears to be no single association that has widespread memberships across these groups.

The challenges would be similar for most states in the country.

*Low awareness in public*

In a recent GLAM workshop we did we asked the participants how many museums they thought were in Bangalore. Most people replied with 3 or 4. There are 11 museums in Bangalore excluding the Art Galleries which would be another 8-10!!!. Most wouldnt know of a museum around their neighbourhood.

*GLAM India* The following are useful links for wikimedians interested in GLAM in India:

http://wiki.wikimedia.in/GLAM_India http://wiki.wikimedia.in/List_of_Museums_in_India - an attempt to build a comprehensive list of musuems in India. (helps is needed for many states, please volunteer) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_museums_in_India http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_archives_in_India

Good luck with your GLAM journey. *And kudos!* * * regards Arun

P.S: Apologies for the rather longish email response, hope this is of help to those interested in GLAM.