Wikimedia 2030/Transition/Reports/Advocacy and GLAM/December 2020/Group C Summary

The following report is part of the Advocacy and GLAM event report, and presents key points from the discussions in the third breakout room: Group C - Initiative 3: Increased awareness about the Wikimedia movement.

Group C video presentation by Michael - 12 December 2020

Discussed questions

• Main question:
  • What do we want to achieve in 18 months?
• Supporting question:
  • What are the immediate steps we need to take?

Discussion Details

• Initiative description: Increase the Sustainability of Our Movement
• Facilitator: Mohsen
• Notetaker: Michael
• Participants: Mohsen, Michael, Uzoma, Mike Edson, Rebecca, Tochi Precious.

Key Discussion Points

Summarized Points

• Advocacy for the movement among GLAM institutions - there are issues with understanding what Wikipedia and Wikimedia means.
  • This also creates problems for individuals defining their role. This problem is multiplied in different cultural contexts, e.g. Iran.
• There is fear regarding basic issues, e.g. losing revenue and visitors if materials are put online. These are still prevalent in negotiating the collaboration.
• Innovation-adoption curve - there is a need for different tactics beyond the innovation that has happened and for adapters we need to develop different approaches.
  • Need to design and run the approaches that can be taken with the adapters. It can include experimenting and testing different approaches.
• There are different statistics and success stories gathered across the movement that can be used in these negotiations.

Detailed Notes

General Context

• Important for groups to understand what Wikimedia is all about and identify with the movement before we an do much. A huge problem . No recognition among partners in my area/context. So increased awareness .
• Situation in my region is the same. Lack of literacy of what we are doing and what the movement its. “If you put images on the internet they will not come to the museum” …trying to help them understand how Wikipedia use .
• Lots of experience over last 10-15 years,, Smithsonian Institution, Europeana, globally. Still a struggle to advocate for open resources, even in big “successful” institutions.
• Echoes concerns, worries, literacy issues in Ireland. National Library did Flickr. Hunt Museum (Jill cousins, formerly Europeana, directing there); it’s slow; effort in measuring impact: it’s not just about dropping images on the Internet.
• Increase Wikimedia movement awareness in Nigeria. Partners do not recognize/understand what Wikipedia, Wikimedia is.

How would you start advocating to a GLAM?

• Ireland is a post-colonial context.
  • Big orgs and small orgs.
  • Main concern is “they’ll make tea towels”, or that other people won’t make money. So, argue that people who want to steal your images will do so anyways…
  • Progress is slow and incremental.
  • Also concerns that nobody will come if we put …
  • You can say Rijksmuseum all you want… but people won’t believe you.
• This strikes me as a classic “innovation adoption” problem. See slide here.
  • Orgs won’t accept advice, examples, on complex change strategy from organizations or people who they perceive as being different than them. So the trick is to establish examples and lines of communication that resonate with the types of institutions and decision makers that we need to influence.
  • Always need to repeat/reinforce the basic facts about Wikipedia, Wikimedia, and the movement, over and over again. Even GLAM decision makers who like wikipedia and want to collaborate DON’T understand.
  • Need to think about a campaign on 3 levels: each group will influence similar people across the GLAM industry.
    • Directors/decision makers
    • Mid-level leaders inside of institutions (curators, registrars, etc)
    • Lower-level practitioners
• The trust/understanding issue is magnified in some regions; skepticism of West; volunteer org; “who are you?”; seeking letters of authority to validate purpose/authority...

/from memory/

Ideas for the 18 months Agenda

• Pick a group of institutions to focus on
• Gather examples, success stories that would resonate
• What statistics/facts exist re: disproving fears of loss of income/visitors.
• Create/test a group of materials,approaches on a group of GLAMs
• Good cautionary note about the need for collaboration. Volunteers, alone, may not be the best people to work with GLAM decision makers.