(apologies for cross-posting, but it's a UK topic, a MILHIST topic, GLAM topic and an education topic all rolled into one) You might be interested to know that Wikimedia UK has lent its support to a bid led by a researcher at University of Birmingham, supported by Oxford University and also the Imperial War Museum, for a project funded by JISC to categorise and prioritise the UK's cultural heritage related to World War I.(1) This isn't a partnership per se though it may well lead to one. The only commitment we have made is to write a letter and go to a meeting, and the outcomes will be very long-term. However I think it's significant because 1) It is good recognition that the Wikimedia movement is a stakeholder in the development of heritage and educational resources. (The phone call when someone from Oxford was saying "we really think your support would add weight to what we're doing" was, erm, interesting) 2) It gives us as an organisation formal access to a strong network of world-leading institutions focusing on this particular task 3) It's also relatively unusual for a Wikimedia organisation to provide support to someone else to apply for third-party funding in a competitive tendering process, but in this case the Wikimedia UK board thought it was quite justified in pursuit of our objectives. This should help us build up our network of institutional partners, particularly (but not exclusively) aimed at the World War I centenary, and help lay the groundwork for some exciting collaboration work in the future. Any questions, or if you'd like to express your interest in being involved in future work on the World War I centenary, please give me a shout. Chris (1)JISC's Invitation to Tender: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/fundingopportunities/funding_calls/2011/09/JISC%20ITT… Wikimedia UK's letter of support (and a bit of a manifesto): http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Birmingham_JISC_support.pdf The people whose bid we are supporting (though nothing specific about it here): http://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/activity/warstudies/index.aspx _______________________________________________ cultural-partners mailing list cultural-partners(a)wikimedia.ch http://lists.wikimedia.ch/listinfo/cultural-partners

You might also be interested in knowing about a WWI Centenary project that Europeana is doing - http://www.europeana1914-1918.eu/en (That's not the final site BTW) I believe they're trying to collate similar records from cultural institutions across Europe to be able to tell the story of the same events from all sides' own records. Perhaps that's a potential tie-in with the UK project. Just keep it in mind :-)