On 3 February 2011 17:59, Tom Morris tom@tommorris.org wrote:
On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 23:39, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
I think offering to replace it with wikipedia based text along the lines of say [[User:Geni/museum_sign]] would fall within 7-8 of:
http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Business_Plan#Mission_and_Objectives
I don't know how much doing such a replacement would cost but I would be surprised if it passed the limit of our micro grant program. Wikimedia-UK would need to be involved to cover use of the logo and the like.
One thing we* could potentially do for the GLAM sector that could be quite helpful is to have a very simple service where they could log in to a website with a nice shortish URL (the sort of length that could be posted on Twitter or printed onto museum signs). They could basically then have some information on the page - a short description, a photo (which would get uploaded on to Commons) etc. They would be encouraged to put up a description that is the same as it is on the physical sign and optionally a photo. They would be strongly encouraged to make both the text CC-BY-SA and to get a photo up it would have to go on Commons.
Imagine it as a sort of 'Open Museum Signs' site. Providing it as a free service would mean that smaller museums could document their stuff online, and it could do QR codes and maybe someone could build a smartphone app (so you could wander around the museum looking at objects and then sharing them with your friends or whatnot).
I sketched something very crappily in Adobe Ideas:
Something like that is all there would be on the page. You scan the QR code, you see the object, and you can choose to read more on Wikipedia.
The point about it is that it would be a nice simple thing the GLAM institutions could control, but the rights for the text would be assigned in such a way that it could be reused on Wikimedia projects and any photos they upload would be put onto Commons. And because there is a link from the object to the article(s) on WP, as they start doing more and more signs, they have a motivation to keep an eye on the articles. For smaller museums, it would be a way for them to start producing structured data (which publicly funded bodies are trying to do more and more) but also be a feeder for Wikipedia.
Providing free tools for museums and other GLAMs might be a good way of getting initial buy-in to the whole collaborating-with-Wikimedia thing during a recession.
- And by 'we', I mean 'hopefully not me'. Well, not yet anyway. I'm
off to the Dev8D conference soon and some museum people go to that, so I may be able to find some people to get the ball rolling. I've also thought of a domain, which I won't share or register if there isn't any interest.
-- Tom Morris http://tommorris.org/
I put together a suggestion similar to this about a year back although I based it around having a new name space rather than a separate project:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Geni/2D_barcodes_and_museums