Wikimedia at the 20th ICOM-CC Triennial Conference/Program

Conference program

Trade fair

Meet representatives from European Wikimedia affiliates at our stand in the trade fair, from Tuesday the 19th to Thursday 21st September, between 9:00 and 18:00 h. We also have a program of talks and Q&A sessions, which are described below.

Impromptu meetings


Time / Days	Tuesday 19	Wednesday 20	Thursday 21
11:00-11:30			How to approach Wikipedia, if you are a museum? (Q&A about Wikipedia) (6) Francesc Fort (Wikimedia Spain/Amical Wikimedia) Marco Chemello (Wikimedia Italia)
11:30-12:00	Your digital volunteer program: Unleashing the Power and Potential of Collaboration Between Museum Collections and the Wikimedia Community (1) Núria Ribas (Amical Wikimedia)	Wikibase, Linked Open Data and Museums (4) Christos Varvantakis, Valerie Wollinger (Wikimedia Deutschland)	Introduction to Wikipedia: Solving doubts and refuting common misconceptions (7) Francesc Fort (Wikimedia Spain/Amical Wikimedia)
12:00-12:30	Wikimedia Strategy and the New Museum Definition (2) Sandra Becker (Wikimedia Switzerland)		Wikisource Loves Manuscripts: Digitising manuscripts to bring underrepresented languages to the Internet (8) Fiona Romeo (Wikimedia Foundation)
12:30-13:00	How a Wikimedian in Residence can help your collections reach new and wider audiences (3) Rute Correia (Wikimedia Portugal)	Digital preservation and conservation: the role of Wikimedia projects in building collective memory (5) Rubén Ojeda (Wikimedia Spain)	Digital preservation: evidence from Empowering Italian GLAMs’ case studies (9) Alice Fontana (Wikimedia Italia / University of Turin)

Abstract of the meetings

(1) Your digital volunteer program: Unleashing the Power and Potential of Collaboration Between Museum Collections and the Wikimedia Community: In an age marked by unprecedented connectivity and access to information, the collaboration between museum collections and the Wikimedia community, known as GLAMwiki stands as a powerful catalyst for the democratization of knowledge, preservation of cultural heritage, and the fostering of a global learning ecosystem. Amical Wikimedia, the thematic organisation fostering Catalan language and culture in Wikimedia projects, has a long symbiotic relationship with museums in Catalan speaking areas. This session highlighs its transformative impact on the dissemination and enrichment of cultural and historical artifacts.
(2) The Wikimedia Movement Strategy and the New Museum Definition: The Wiki movement strategy and the New Museum Definition have a lot in common which is why working together helps both sides for success. The talk will focus on joined perspectives of knowledge creation processes opening up museums for digital research. Digitizing cultural heritage provides access for everybody from everywhere.
(3) How a Wikimedian in Residence can help your collections reach new and wider audiences: Opening up collections using Wikimedia tools may seem overwhelming for GLAM institutions less familiar with such platforms or community guidelines. Having a Wikimedian in Residence (WiR) can ease the process, as these professionals already have the Wiki-expertise needed to undertake the mission. In this session, we will showcase how having a WiR at NOVA FCSH (a Lisbon-based social sciences faculty) was crucial for researchers working with History and cultural heritage to be able to share their collections with civil society - bursting the bubble of academia, and taking knowledge and culture closer to the general public.
(4) Wikibase, Linked Open Data Web and Museums: Wikibase is free and open-source software that stores and organizes information that can be collaboratively edited and read by humans and by computers, translated into multiple languages and shared with the rest of the world as part of the Linked Open Data web. In recent years, institutions from the cultural sector increasingly employ and experiment with Wikibase to create and manage their own linked open knowledge bases. Its flexibility allows curators, archivists, designers and researchers to build their own data models to suit their needs. It allows the creation of complex databases for collections and data that often defy standardisation and normative archiving, and to connect their data with other knowledge bases around the world. In this interactive workshop, we will provide an introduction to Wikibase and its role in the linked open data web, and we will closely look at several use-cases of Wikibase from museums and other cultural heritage institutions. Participants can bring their own use-cases, and we will collaboratively explore the scope for engaging with the Linked Open Data web.
(5) Digital preservation and conservation: the role of Wikimedia projects in building collective memory: Since 2001, Wikipedia and its sister projects have played a leading role in providing access to knowledge. Thousands of people work tirelessly to compile and share the sum of human knowledge, and collaboration with cultural institutions is key in this process. Likewise, Wikimedia projects have proven to be excellent allies in preserving and disseminating collective memory in the face of catastrophes, conflicts and policies that have endangered or destroyed heritage elements. In this session we will present opportunities offered by Wikimedia projects to preserve and disseminate museum collections, as well as different examples.
(6) How to approach Wikipedia, if you are a museum? (Q&A about Wikipedia): Cultural institutions (GLAMs) like museums are often interested to collaborate to Wikipedia contents, as it is an invaluable asset, but they do not know how to begin, and when they try, they may unfortunately fail in many ways their first approach to the Free Encylopedia and its community. We'd like to analyze together the most frequent issues we experiment when a museum turns to Wikipedia for the first time without a specific training/experience. We identify the most common mistakes, and we suggest how to prevent them. We'd also like to answer to your questions if you work for a museum or other institution and you want to operate with Wikipedia successfully.
(7) Introduction to Wikipedia: Solving doubts and refuting common misconceptions: Since its inception in 2001, Wikipedia has become the central agent of the knowledge ecosystem in the internet. In this presentation, we will introduce Wikipedia and the Wikimedia ecosystem for audiences who are curious about this powerful tool but have no experience on interacting with the Wikimedia movement. Afterwards, we will solve doubts from the audience in English, Spanish, French and Chinese.
(8) Wikisource Loves Manuscripts: For many languages, the sources of their knowledge are not available online. We’re supporting Wikimedia communities to digitize and transcribe manuscripts. Once digitized, these manuscripts are used to establish underrepresented languages on the Internet, through Wikimedia projects. For example, a new Balinese Wikisource is being used in university programs to teach young people to type in their own script. We’re also using digitized manuscripts to develop open Optical Character Recognition models for languages that aren’t supported by Google or other commercial services. This will make it much easier for communities to transcribe manuscripts and share the knowledge they contain.
(9) Empowering Italian GLAMs (a project lead by Wikimedia Italia, ICOM Italia, Creative Commons Italia, and the Department of Economics and Statistics of the University of Turin) aims to make Italian institutions aware of Open Access and start contributing to Wikimedia projects. Empowering Italian GLAMs project also includes a research part that - through 5 case studies - aims to investigate the accessibility model currently adopted by institutions to preserve their digital resources, through the creation of a Data Management Plan (a model created to help institutions understand what they have online, under what licence and so on) and questions on organisational aspects.