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Wikipedia:GLAM/State Library of New South Wales/Symposium April 2013

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Summary of the presentation at Wikipedia in HE Symposium, University of Sydney 5 April 2013 by Aliaretiree and Rubicon49bce

Abstract

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The State Library of NSW is part of a state wide project with Wikimedia Australia and the NSW public library network to increase the information about people, places and stories in NSW. This project includes training, a working group of State Library staff, and the first Wikipedian in Residence in an Australian cultural institution.

Innovation Project: State Library of New South Wales

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The State Library of New South Wales has a collection of over 5 million items and aims to "collect, preserve and make accessible the documentary heritage of New South Wales". This includes a focus on the history, life, culture and achievements of people associated with NSW as part of documenting life in New South Wales. The library has particular strengths in Australian history, culture and literature, including Aboriginal studies and Antarctic exploration as well as many other areas.[1]

As a large reference and research library with strong links to the NSW public library network [2] , the State Library of NSW is part of a state wide project in partnership with Wikimedia Australia and the public library network to increase the information in the encyclopedia about people, places and stories in NSW. This project follows on from a successful partnership between Wikimedia Australia and the State Library of Queensland to deliver training into regional areas.[3]

The NSW project includes training for State Library staff, public library staff and local community members, a working group of 13 State Library staff, content contributed to the Wiki Commons and Wikipedia and the first Wikipedian in Residence in an Australian cultural institution.

Challenges

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  1. Discovery: In an increasingly digital world, discovery is a challenge for libraries and other collecting organisations. Library collections are very large and although catalogues provide access points, with more than five million items in the State Library’s collections finding information in context is difficult for many clients, particularly in comparison to the ease of finding information in Wikipedia. The State Library is one of many cultural institutions exploring the potential of Wikipedia to enhance the visibility of digitised collection materials.
  2. Copyright: Understanding and applying the appropriate copyright licencing (eg. Public Domain (PD), Creative Commons) as they apply to images contributed online.
  3. Library brand: Where Library staff interact online as representatives of the Library and contribute materials from the collection to Wiki Commons and Wikipedia some consideration of how the State Library of New South Wales brand is represented is required.
  4. Understanding the Wikipedia ecosystem: The stereotypes about Wikipedia, including the veracity and provenance of information persist in many areas of the wider information community. For many library workers it comes as quite a surprise to discover how the Wikipedia community works and how issues like vandalism and notability are handled. Key aspects of the successful education of Library staff in becoming effective Wikipedia editors have included learning how to interact with Wikimedians, including using User Pages and Talk Pages; accessing internal training and support via the Teahouse; understanding how the Wiki Commons works and how to contribute collection images to the Commons considering copyright and ‘ownership’ of the image; learning to deal with disambiguation and redirects as well as rationalising information between articles.

The Project

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The project is state-wide in scope and intent; the State Library of NSW has long standing relationships with the public library network and clearly the stories of life in NSW are to be found in many communities around the state.

  1. State-wide project : State Library staff are coordinating regional training events in consultation with Wikimedia Australia. The trainers are Wikimedia’s representatives with experience providing training and a good knowledge of the Wikipedia environment and technical editing skills.
  2. A working group of State Library of NSW staff is focussing on the task of editing and creating articles and contributing images to Wiki Commons over a period of 12 weeks. The working group is made up of 11 general library staff and the 2 staff who coordinate the Innovation Project at the Library.
  3. State Library staff attended two training sessions run by 99of9, Wittylama and Whiteghost.ink and working group members also attended a masterclass to build their skills and confidence further. One key aspect of the masterclass was specific advice on contributing collection images to the Commons and building a template to assist staff in this activity.
  4. Priority topics were identified to contribute information about the people, places and stories relevant to NSW from the Library’s collections.

Priority topics

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  • NSW Newspapers – at least 177 unique newspaper titles have existed in New South Wales since settlement. Many of these newspapers are now defunct and a national Newspaper Digitisation project[4] led by the National Library of Australia in partnership with the state and territory libraries is working towards making these papers available in via Trove. The State Library is responsible for ensuring a Wikipedia article exists for each of these NSW newspapers, and where they don’t yet exist to create them. The goal is to create good stub entries and then to engage the wider community of local history librarians and local historians to enhance them.
  • 100 Exhibition objects – during the Library’s centenary celebrations of the Mitchell Collection, 100 collection items were chosen to represent the depth and variety of the Library’s collections. From this list articles are being edited and created to include references to collection items.

Wikipedian in Residence

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The skills required to gain the most benefit from contributing content to Wikipedia are quite detailed. Although over time Library staff could be expected to be self directed learners, building their knowledge and skills as other Wikipedia editors do, the opportunity to have expert advice within the Library to provide support and coaching to staff and to guide the Library in identifying the collection materials that would contribute the most value to Wikipedia has been seized and the Library is delighted to be hosting the first Wikipedian-in-Residence within a cultural institution in Australia and welcomes Whiteghost.ink to work with us for 14 weeks.

Looking ahead

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The Innovation Project is tasked with building skills, knowledge and awareness of tools and their usefulness to the Library in engaging with communities online. Some key examples include contributing historical photographs to the map on Historypin and sharing images and links via Pinterest as well as the working group on Wikipedia. At the end of each working group the project is evaluated and recommendations are made as to transitioning activities to business as usual.

The Digital Excellence Program over the next few years will see the State Library of NSW digitising 52 of its most iconic, at risk and highly valued collections. Many of these items will play an important part in sharing information about life in NSW and the people, places and stories that are relevant to Wikipedia and the wider community.

References

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  1. ^ State Library of New South Wales (2011) About the Library's collections Retrieved 4 April 2013
  2. ^ State Library of New South Wales (2011) About Public Library Services Retrieved 25 March 2013
  3. ^ Wikipedia:GLAM/SLQ Retrieved 25 March 2013
  4. ^ Newspaper Digitisation Program http://www.nla.gov.au/content/newspaper-digitisation-program
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