Hi all,
The full details about what will be happening during Britain Loves Wikipedia are now in - so it's time to start spreading the word about it now. ;-) See the complete info below. Hope to see you at some of the events!
Mike
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http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2010/01/britain-loves-wikipedia/
Britain Loves Wikipedia
Join Wikipedia in photographing and celebrating Britain's cultural heritage in museums, galleries and archives nationwide
29 January 2010, UK: 'Britain Loves Wikipedia' is a month-long competition and series of events to be held in participating museums nationwide from 31 January 2010. People from all ages, backgrounds and communities can take part in the competition, which encourages the public to photograph the treasures of our nation's museums and galleries, actively involving them in digitally recording the collections. All of the photos entered into the 'Britain Loves Wikipedia' competition will be made available under a free license on Wikimedia Commons, and can then be used to illustrate Wikipedia articles.
Museums, Libraries and Archives Council Chief Executive Roy Clare said, "'Britain Loves Wikipedia' provides a stimulating opportunity for museums and Wikipedia to work more closely together for the benefit of the public. This new collaboration enables museums to bring their collections, scholarship and expertise even closer to audiences in digital environments. Wikipedia provides a vivid forum for engaging public interest in the stories within collections held in museums across the country. MLA is very pleased to support this initiative and welcomes the development of partnerships between museums and Wikimedia."
Chair of Wikimedia UK, Michael Peel, said, "Museum collections hold a vast range of objects that have great cultural significance and enhance our knowledge of our origins but are not as well covered on Wikipedia as they deserve to be. With 'Britain Loves Wikipedia', we hope to increase the number of photographs on Wikipedia for the world to share, enjoy and learn from."
The celebration begins at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London on Sunday 31st January from 11.00 am to 4.00 pm in the Sackler Centre; everyone is welcome to come along and take part. Short talks from the Victoria and Albert Museum, Wikimedia UK and the Collections Trust will take place at 11.30 am, accompanied by free tea, coffee, and refreshments, with plenty of time in the afternoon to explore the museum and photograph its collections!
Gail Durbin, Head of Online Museum at the Victoria and Albert Museum, said, "Britain Loves Wikipedia is an innovative way for amateur (or professional) photographers to make things in museums accessible to more people. We are delighted to be hosting Britain's photography community at the kickoff event and look forward to seeing creative new images of our objects."
Britain Loves Wikipedia then continues with:
* On the 6th/7th February, the Museum of Army Flying in Hampshire will be offering free entry to photographers as well as free tea or coffee, and will be allowing flash and tripod photography. * Nottingham Natural History Museum is hosting a "Britain Loves Wikipedia Day" on 11 February, where they will be bringing out a selection of biological and geological objects from their stores and making them available for photography in the museum’s Great Hall (situated in the main Wollaton Hall building.) Objects will include examples of taxidermy (reptiles, birds, mammals) skeletal material, and invertebrates from the biology collections, and various rocks, minerals and fossils from the geology collections. Booking is essential. * The Manchester Museum is running "Darwin’s 201st Birthday Bash Big Saturday" on 13 February (book ahead or on the day); as part of this they will be making objects from their zoology, palaeontology, entomology, botany and geology collections available for photography in the Museum’s Resource Centre on the 3rd floor gallery. * John Muir's Birthplace and Preston Grange Museum will strike a romantic note for Valentines Day, hosting "East Lothian Photographers LOVE Wikipedia!" These host museums are opening up specially for photographers, and are providing a warm Scottish welcome with free tea and coffee to all participants, as well as tours and guides around the museums. * Mill Green Museum will be running "Mill Green Loves Wikipedia" on the afternoon of 16 February - come along to explore the range of, and changes in, the working days of local people. * Bedford Museum will be giving photographers the opportunity to see behind the scenes at thir stores on the 18 February, including a sneak preview their upcoming exhibition ‘Clocking-In’, an exhibition of the working day. Places are limited; booking is essential. * On the 20th February, The British Postal Museum & Archive will open the doors of its Museum Store in Debden, Essex to photographers. The British Postal Museum Store houses a variety of objects including letterboxes, telephone kiosks, postal vehicles, sorting machinery and the desk of Sir Rowland Hill (founder of the penny post). Refreshments will be available to participants and flash photography and tripods are welcome.
Throughout February, you can visit the following museums to take part in the Britain Loves Wikipedia competition:
* Astley Hall, Chorley * Caithness Horizons, Thurso, Scotland * Ceredigion Museum, Wales * Horniman Museum, London * Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery, Glasgow, Scotland * Museum of Army Flying, Stockbridge, Hampshire * National Football Museum, Preston * Old Operating Theatre, London * Royal Air Force Museum, London and Cosford. * Segedunum Roman Fort, Baths and Museum * ThinkTank Birmingham * Victoria and Albert Museum, London * Working Class Movement Library, Salford
Prizes include a WikiReader - a copy of the entire English Wikipedia in your pocket. The best photograph from each RAF Museum site will receive £100 worth of goods from the Museum's shop. The best photograph taken at The British Postal Museum & Archive’s Museum Store will receive a trio of DVD box sets celebrating the work of the acclaimed GPO Film Unit, valued at £75. More prizes will be announced at the launch event on the 31st January.
Britain Loves Wikipedia is organized by Wikimedia UK in collaboration with the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, Collections Trust, Culture 24 and Museums Galleries Scotland. Full information is available at http://www.britainloveswikipedia.org/. An initial event in February 2009 at the Victoria and Albert created over 300 photographs now available on Wikipedia. In June 2009, Wiki Loves Art in The Netherlands created over 10,000 photographs taken at 46 Dutch museums.
On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 11:00 PM, Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net wrote:
Hi all,
The full details about what will be happening during Britain Loves Wikipedia are now in - so it's time to start spreading the word about it now. ;-) See the complete info below. Hope to see you at some of the events!
Good stuff.
People taking pics of objects could perhaps also upload their images to:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/explorerflash/
It's a BBC site connected to the Radio 4 show, currently on every weekday and available on iPlayer, called 'A History of the World in 100 Objects'. It encourages people to upload photos and a bit of text about "important" cultural artefacts. I'm not sure where they set the barrier but I did see someone had uploaded a picture of a Raleigh Chopper, so I'm assuming the remit is pretty broad.
On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 11:00:41PM +0000, Michael Peel wrote:
Hi all,
The full details about what will be happening during Britain Loves Wikipedia are now in - so it's time to start spreading the word about it now. ;-) See the complete info below. Hope to see you at some of the events!
That's brilliant! Thank you! I, along with my parents, will be attending on Sunday. Whether I'll be actually participating or just milling around and meeting other WM-UK people remains to be seen. Or maybe both. :)
Hi,
I had a good day today and I thank everyone for organising this event! I have really enjoyed it, and right now I'm uploading all the 5 photos I took! Aaah shiny shiny iMacs!
-- Regards, Isabell Long. isabell121@gmail.com [[User:Isabell121]] on all public Wikimedia projects. Freenode Community Co-Ordinator - issyl0 on irc.freenode.net PGP Key ID: 0xEB83C2BD
On 31/01/2010 15:12, Isabell Long wrote:
ing this event! I have really enjoyed it, and right now I'm uploading all the 5 photos I took! Aaah shiny shiny iMacs!
I missed the iMacs!
***
Today I have uploaded two couplets to to the wiki:
http://britainloveswikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
The pair first via a mobile phone and the second pair at home.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loopzilla/4319060815/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loopzilla/4319084491/
I question why we cannot have a login on the wiki for the purposes of upload (I am sure is possible to lock down pages as required).
And what does "Enter competition" mean? To me, that would be "register for the event", and then would upload images.
Gordo
Hi Gordo,
It was good to meet you today - even sans hat. ;-)
Today I have uploaded two couplets to to the wiki:
http://britainloveswikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
The pair first via a mobile phone and the second pair at home.
I hope that's the first of many. ;-)
I question why we cannot have a login on the wiki for the purposes of upload (I am sure is possible to lock down pages as required).
The upload system is completely separate from the wiki at the moment; it's a custom set of webpages. That's how it can be used to upload two files at once and add in the appropriate information, without doing any logging in. It also means that the museums can double-check things before they go out to the public.
It would be possible to lock down pages and open up the wiki for editing, but I haven't managed to think up a reason why anyone would want/need to edit it yet outside of the few pages it hosts at the moment...
And what does "Enter competition" mean? To me, that would be "register for the event", and then would upload images.
"Enter your photographs into the competition" would be a more accurate phrase, but is rather long for the sidebar. ;-) You don't need to register for the event, you just enter photographs directly. The aim was to keep things as easy as possible.
Thanks, Mike
On 31/01/2010 22:45, Michael Peel wrote:
Hi Gordo,
It was good to meet you today - even sans hat. ;-)
Today I have uploaded two couplets to to the wiki:
http://britainloveswikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
The pair first via a mobile phone and the second pair at home.
I hope that's the first of many. ;-)
I question why we cannot have a login on the wiki for the purposes of upload (I am sure is possible to lock down pages as required).
The upload system is completely separate from the wiki at the moment; it's a custom set of webpages. That's how it can be used to upload two files at once and add in the appropriate information, without doing any logging in. It also means that the museums can double-check things before they go out to the public.
It would be possible to lock down pages and open up the wiki for editing, but I haven't managed to think up a reason why anyone would want/need to edit it yet outside of the few pages it hosts at the moment...
And what does "Enter competition" mean? To me, that would be "register for the event", and then would upload images.
"Enter your photographs into the competition" would be a more accurate phrase, but is rather long for the sidebar. ;-) You don't need to register for the event, you just enter photographs directly. The aim was to keep things as easy as possible.
Thanks, Mike
It was a fun day - thanks to you and Seddon. I also chatted with some others who turned up for the free tea and coffee (and fruit!).
I will give some thought and perhaps a bit more planning when I next visit a museum (V & A or one of the others). This year's competition seems to require a little more thought and planning, and like it says in the blurb, quality rather quantity this year. Also, the categories, coupled with the copyright issues mean that much of what you see in a museum cannot be competition entry material.
Gordo
On 2 Feb 2010, at 16:23, Gordon Joly wrote:
I will give some thought and perhaps a bit more planning when I next visit a museum (V & A or one of the others). This year's competition seems to require a little more thought and planning, and like it says in the blurb, quality rather quantity this year. Also, the categories, coupled with the copyright issues mean that much of what you see in a museum cannot be competition entry material.
The themes were chosen so that they were broad enough to encompass a wide range of objects - so you should be able to link most things with them, even loosely. You shouldn't be finding this too constraining...
Mike
Yup. You have until 14 March to upload images for the competition...
Mike
On 28 Feb 2010, at 18:23, Gordon Joly wrote:
Last day today?
Gordo
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