Dear all,
Here's an update on the GLAM initiative at Crafts
Museum<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/CM> [1]
and an invite to an edit-a-thon.
There have been a number of meetings and conversations with the Director of
the Crafts Museum and the museum staff over the past few weeks to plan out
the project. In these meetings, we have explained what is Wikipedia, how
it is used, how it can be useful to the Museum, how can staff members
benefit if they edit and how can Indian handicrafts & handlooms benefit by
more and better content on Wikipedia.
A few things became clear very early on. The language of the project needs
to be primarily in Hindi because the staff members are most comfortable in
Hindi. Another point is that since they are all starting from the very
basics, we should set realistic targets like taking things 5 articles at a
time to begin with.
Two outreach workshops for the museum staff have now been conducted in
Hindi. These covered approximately 8-9 staff members - out of which 6 have
created usernames and started editing. It gives an immense sense of
satisfaction and inspiration to see that so many of them are excited by
this project and they edit voluntarily even after the workshop is over!
(In fact, the clear message sent by the Director was that it was not a
compulsory task - so all the folks editing are doing so out of choice!)
Check out the article on Crafts Museum (शिल्प संग्रहालय,_दिल्ली) in Hindi
Wikipedia<http://hi.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%B6%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%B2%E0%A5…80>!
[2]
The Hindi aspect is an important point to note because English would have
been the preferred language because it gives greatest audience and is the
most convenient for other language community (Indic and beyond) to use as a
foundation if they want to create / improve the respective articles on
their respective Wikipedias. In this case, I visualize articles primarily
starting off in Hindi, and then moving to English - and then onwards to
other languages. In fact, the project page has now been created here on
Hindi
Wikipedia!<http://hi.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%95%E0%A…
The MoU has been signed with Wikimedia India Chapter - for which I'd like
to thank Arun and the EC. The MoU was also important because it formalizes
the taking of pictures of objects and their uploading to Commons. User:Yann
has already done a wonderful job as you can see on the Crafts Museum
project page here at the GLAM project page for Craft
Museum<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/CM>CM>.
[1] User:Arag0n also came in last week and took some wonderful images that
we hope to see soon.
I am currently working with the Director to see how Craft Museum can
improve the infrastructure for its' staff and to figure out how best to
free up time for the museum staff to support this initiative.
There is an innovation that I have tried which I wanted to share because
many community members might find it useful - and it's got nothing to do
with GLAM! There have been a number of meetups and outreach sessions in
Delhi - after a long time. One challenge I was facing was how to keep
engaged with participants of meetups and outreach sessions - and to
constantly encourage them to edit. What I did was shift the meetup up
venue to Crafts Museum itself! Its fun to see new editors and museum staff
get surprised that many people are editing one article at the same time.
That's when they really experience the magic of Wikipedia. This is working
well and I will continue to work on it. The next step is to invite
existing Hindi community members to Crafts Museum - which should happen in
the next couple of weeks.
The next event that we are planning - which is also why I'm writing is to
invite you to an *edit-a-thon on April 21st at 14:00 hrs (IST) (08:30 hrs
GMT)*. This week, instead of the Delhi meetup, we plan to have an editing
session at the Museum itself. You can sign up here. [4] You can be
anywhere in India or the world(!) to join in - and you can choose to edit
in any language - including Hindi, English, any other languages (Indic or
otherwise!) We'll also be active on the *#wikimedia-in* IRC channel, tweet
about it from @crafts_glam and have started a Facebook
group<http://www.facebook.com/CraftsMuseumGlam>am>.
The museum staff and Delhi community members will be editing at the Museum
- but the museum staff will also be available to help out giving insights
and references for articles.
Really hoping to see all of you participate and make this a big success
across languages! :)
Thanks
Noopur
[1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/CM
[2]
http://hi.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%B6%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%B2%E0%A5%8D%E0%A4%AA_…
[3]
http://hi.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E0%A4%B5%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%95%E0%A4%BF%E0%A4%AA%…
[4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Meetup/Delhi/Crafts_Museum1