Dear Frederick and wikimedians involved in this Goa initiative,
Kudos on this wonderful step forward. Great team work,
My comments and suggestions inline:
On Wed, Mar 20, 2013 at 4:26 PM, Frederick FN Noronha फ्रेड्रिक नोरोन्या
*فريدريك نورونيا <fredericknoronha(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I heard of the GLAM initiative from Nitika and team, when they visited Goa
during their previous trip, and facilitated by friends at Goa University,
the Krishnadas Shama Central Library (Panjim), etc.
This is great indeed, please try and do more followup events with this
partner.
Perhaps they may be open to allow use of this venue to have regular
meetups. I concur with pradeep's suggestion on trying to build a community
around it.
GLAM is hard work as it involves building relationships with institutions
that at times are not internet savvy (mostly the case in India barring a
few institutional exceptions). It is great you have already made the first
few difficult steps. Please keep going.... You are doing great.
Of course, a lot more work is to go into this, but as
the starting point,
I just thought of listing some prominent institutions here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Galleries,_Libraries,_Museums_and_Arch…
This is a great compilation. Not many states have these barring very few
states, *Great start* you folks have made for Goa.
All the information is not yet complete... and some institutions are yet to
get their own pages. But maybe a start. Can you offer
any pointers as to
how we could get more relevant information about these GLAMs onto the
Wikipedia? Any pages one could check up for guidance? FN
*Suggested next steps*
I suggest the following steps you could consider to further your initiative:
1) List museums in your state. (and other GLAM institutions, translate in
more indic languages)
2) Expand this list to a table to include a photo and collections details.
E,g
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_museums_in_Karnataka
3) Eventually build pages for each of these institutions (from news
sources, reliable blogs)
E,g:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kempegowda_Museum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_Museum_(Bangalore)
Most of the content collated above was from web research of new stories,
blogs, et al. Incidentally, no visit to the museum to collate content
(though it would help immensely). There is a lot of info out there with
careful search of news websites (not all show up on google).
I suggest the structure for museum articles to include the following
sections:
History, Building, Collections, Visitors, Governance, related pages.
Do remember to use the following Infobox templates:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_museum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_library
Listing geo location for each museum helps:
E,g:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_museums_in_Somerset
It helps to generate maps with institutions listed like the following
http://toolserver.org/~para/cgi-bin/kmlexport?article=List_of_museums_in_So…
for
rendering.
4) Encourage bloggers or flickr folks to release pictures they have taken
via CC SA
E,g:
http://anushankarn.blogspot.in/2012/11/shivappa-nayaka-palace-shimoga.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Shivappa_Nayaka_Palace_Museum_01.jpg (Blogger
Anuradha, a home maker,
was requested to release her pics of her museum visit via CC SA. She
ended releasing her complete collection
via CC SA)
https://twitter.com/anoopha/status/308931292861456384 (if you ask
people normally oblige)
5) Organize a photo shoot specific to a museum. List the photos in a
gallery mode with description.
E,g:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Lakhota_Museum_Jamnagar (by Rangilo
Gujarati <https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Rangilo_Gujarati>)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAL_Aerospace_Museum (photos listed as a
gallery with annotations, thanks to some pics from Rameshng and his numerous
pics <http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:HAL_Museum>)
6) Further events in collaboration with the GLAM institutions.
E,g:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Crafts_Museum (Noopur can
share experiences)
7) Get the pages translated in 5-6 indian languages and 5 languages of
visit external tourists.
8) Choose 5 key objects/artifacts and create pages for them (and then
translate)
9) Do a QR code pilot for the museum.
http://wikimedia.7.n6.nabble.com/QRpedia-Swaminarayan-Temple-Mumbai-td49381…
(contact
Pranav who was behind this)
10) Collaborate and connect two museums - For goa, you could try a
portuguese museum which has some artifacts on Goan history.
*Creating pages for GLAM institutions*
To collate the content about a specific GLAM institution the following is
suggested:
1) Mainstream news sources from a google search on News. Remember to use
the archive search option (this is key to yield results).
2) Check onsite sites of state newspapers (which may all not be indexed by
search engines or google news) and indic language news papers.
3) For museums in smaller towns or states you will not find news stories
from mainstream media. Blogs and travelogues provide some insight. (but
please verify their credibility first)
4) Google books in good place to search old books that document some of the
museums to locate relevant references.
5) A visit to the museum always helps.
*Compilation challenges*
A page I have been working on to compile a complete list of museums in
Karnataka:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_museums_in_Karnataka
The intent through this exercise is to slowly discover and creating a
comprehensive list of museums in the state (there is no single reliable
list today) and the key collections/artifacts they house. The list was
compiled (it is still a work in progress, Karnataka has approximately 50+
per guesstimates) with details pulled out from various sources.
The challenge of collating this list is compounded by the fact that these
institutions are managed by multiple entities/bodies like The
Archaeological survey of India (ASI), State directorates of Archaeology &
Museums (every state has one), private collections and University run
institutions. Unlike some other countries there appears to be no single
association that has widespread memberships across these groups.
The challenges would be similar for most states in the country.
*Low awareness in public*
In a recent GLAM workshop we did we asked the participants how many museums
they thought were in Bangalore. Most people replied with 3 or 4. There are
11 museums in Bangalore excluding the Art Galleries which would be another
8-10!!!. Most wouldnt know of a museum around their neighbourhood.
*GLAM India*
The following are useful links for wikimedians interested in GLAM in India:
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/GLAM_India
http://wiki.wikimedia.in/List_of_Museums_in_India - an attempt to build a
comprehensive list of musuems in India. (helps is needed for many states,
please volunteer)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_museums_in_India
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_archives_in_India
Good luck with your GLAM journey. *And kudos!*
*
*
regards
Arun
P.S: Apologies for the rather longish email response, hope this is of help
to those interested in GLAM.