[Wikimedia-l] Board vote on narrowing focus

[Sarah Stierch]

Hi all,

I have a comment inline below. Humor me on my rampage about the US and 
our desperate need for a more organized GLAM movement in this giant 
country.


On 11/2/12 8:01 AM, Samuel Klein wrote:
>
>> * Institutional support for the GLAM related activities in the US (until
>> the US Federation is fully functional, if ever)
>>
> I agree there is room for a global GLAM support for regions that don't have
> local [chapter] organization.  Why do you feel this is a special problem
> for the US, compared to other archive-rich parts of the world - given the
> two regional chapters and numerous present and past Wikipedians in
> residence?
>
>

The United States is a legendary place when it comes to this discussion. 
Numerous fellow-US-Wikipedians and myself have spent countless nights 
mulling over this. If you live outside of Washington, D.C. and New York 
City vicinities, the Wikipedia world in the US is a VERY lonely place. 
Perhaps not for everyone, but for many more than you'd think. I meet 
Wikipedians in the US who have no clue there is a grant program. Like 
some countries in global south - I know Wikipedians in Chicago who 
attend meet-up's with 2 people on a regular basis. I mean Chicago? 
Really? Yup.

I live in San Francisco. I'm lucky: I'm wrapping up a year long 
fellowship, I'm a social butterfly, but it took me almost one year of 
doing GLAM projects on my own budget before I realized that I could 
apply for a grant to go to a conference. I thought there was no way I'd 
get a grant to attend a museum conference. Lori Phillips has done a lot 
of work in her one year coordinator position. She has tried her best to 
bring together US Wikipedians - and for many of us, that's like herding 
cats. She's redone our website, she's created a blog, and she's got 100 
GLAMs breathing down her neck who want Wikipedians in Residence - all 
this while GLAMs are undergoing hiring freezes and are lucky if they can 
send one staff member to a conference where Lori, myself, and/or Dominic 
speak about the subject.

The development of the US GLAM Consortium[1] was a concept Lori hoped 
could make up for a few things: the lack of chapters in the US (the US 
is like Russia - it's freaking huge, and having two small chapters on 
one side of the country doesn't necessarily help those of us in 
Oklahoma, Indiana, New Mexico, or Oregon, per se), the lack of GLAM 
organization around the subject, etc. We've got a great group of 
advisors from some of the biggest GLAMs in the US - however, the 
Consortium has no money. GLAMs don't have the free cash to throw at 
organizing it, and the Foundation won't support it unless a GLAM steps 
up to throw money in - if they do the Foundation will match them. And 
we've had little to no luck thus far at getting outside funding. But, 
most of these GLAMs have hiring freezes, can't even afford to pay a 
Wikipedian in Residence a small stipend, and all of the staff members on 
the US Consortium project are doing it as volunteers. One of the most 
important things we need to do is have a Consortium meeting - in person, 
not online - and we can't financially fund it because of this matching. 
I don't blame anyone we're working with - Asaf is great and he works his 
ass off and cares a lot for what we're all doing. But, in the US - we 
can't financially do a lot of things because we're limited by distance, 
lack of chapters, and situations like this matching thing. I get we 
can't rely on the Foundation for everything, but in the US, outside of 
one area, it's the only thing we have.

And trust me - having "numerous present and past Wikipedians in 
residence" doesn't make up for having financial and chapter support. 
While it's great that museums want to fly us around the country to talk 
about our projects - they can't afford it. I was asked to speak at one 
of the finest museums in the United States - the Met of the West, so to 
say, and they had to cease planning the talk because they can't afford 
to bring me down from San Francisco to LA, and I surely can't afford to 
do that myself. And a ticket to fly to LA generally costs about $150 - 
not expensive. And there is only so much that me, Dominic and Lori can 
do. (And that's having families, jobs and school)

I could go on and on and on about this, but, a few of us in the GLAM US 
movement have learned that we can ask the Foundation for grants when 
needed, and we are grateful, but, other than that, you're on your own - 
and many of us also know that if we had a US GLAM Consortium - who needs 
to meet in order to get the ball rolling - then we'd probably have a 
chance to bring in outside funding and so forth. I'm continuously 
grateful for the support participation grants have given me, but this 
isn't about me, I'll be okay - it's about the large scale impact in the 
US which we still need to make.

Things have started to move a bit though - organizations like the Open 
Knowledge Foundation have taken notice that we need better organization 
regarding OpenGLAM in the US. It just takes time, and we've wasted a lot 
of it already.

And no, I'm not starting a chapter anytime soon. Someone else can do 
that. :)

-Sarah


[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/US/Consortium

-- 
*Sarah Stierch*
*/Museumist and open culture advocate/*
 >>Visit sarahstierch.com <http://sarahstierch.com><<