The GLAMwiki toolsetShare your media collections on Wikipedia!David Haskiya, Europeana Foundation @Best in Heritage Imagines, Dubrovnik, 2016-09-22

Danse de trois faunes et trois bacchantes, Hieronymus Hopfer, Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon, Public Domain

Outline of my talk

1. Setting the stage - Europeana, Wikipedia, GLAMwiki - what is it?

2. Why would you use the GLAMwiki toolset?

3. How does it work?

4. Cases x 3 and Overall statistics

5. Summary and main takeaways

6. Q&A (and more stats)

The GLAMwiki toolsetCC BY-SA

What and who is Europeana?

• We’re a non-profit foundation - idealists and true believers

• A network of likeminded heritage and technology professionals

• An open data platform with many services and drawing on the

collections of nearly 4000 European GLAMs

• Europeana Collections, Europeana APIs

The GLAMwiki toolsetCC BY-SA

“We want to build on Europe’s rich heritage and make it easier for people to use, whether for work, for learning or just for fun!”

What is Wikipedia?

• Wikipedia is the world’s largest encyclopedia and is available in hundreds

of languages

• Wikimedia Commons is a media library with c. 30 million media objects

free for use - and is the only source of media that Wikipedia (directly) uses

• Together they form the starting point of most citizens search for

information and knowledge online - Wikipedia is ranked as the 7th most

used website globally

What is Wikimedia Commons? Why does Wikipedia matter?

The GLAMwiki toolsetCC BY-SA

What is GLAM? And GLAMwiki?

• Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums

• An acronym coined by Wikipedians and has taken on

elsewhere

• The GLAM Wiki Initiative is a loose collective of Wikipedians

and GLAM professionals who work together for the benefit of

both communities

• Why would a GLAM? Because part of our official missions is very

often to share our knowledge and collections with the public on

whose behalf we work

A shared interest between Wikipedians and GLAMs

The GLAMwiki toolsetCC BY-SA

Why the GLAMwiki toolset?

• Before the toolset all large uploads had to be performed and coded one by

one by a developer, typically one of a handful of volunteers

• This had caused a long backlog to build up

• The Wiki community decided it was time to develop a tool that librarians,

archivists and museum collections curators themselves could use

• The Wikimedia Chapters of the Netherlands, United Kingdom, France and

Switzerland decided to fund Europeana to develop the toolset

To support large uploads of GLAM content of course!

The GLAMwiki toolsetCC BY-SA

How does it work?

• It’s an online tool, a part of Wikimedia Commons

• It takes a GLAM-collections, formatted in XML, and allows the user to map

the metadata to Wikimedia Commons templates

• The tools then kicks off a batch upload, uploading the metadata and media

• Very large batch uploads are supported and the tool works best for such

very large uploads of (hundreds of) thousands media objects

• For smaller uploads of a few dozen or couple of hundred collection objects

there are now other tools, e.g. Pattypan (which is superior for collections

with offline media)

Super brief version - long version here

The GLAMwiki toolsetCC BY-SA

Three cases and overall stats

• I will now quickly present three cases of GLAMs doing uploads to

Wikimedia Commons using the tool

• For each case I will provide statistics of use showing the

enormous reach a GLAM can gain by sharing their collections on

Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia

• Then I’ll share the overall statistics

Rijksmuseum, the British Library, and the Nordic Museum

The GLAMwiki toolsetCC BY-SA

Rijksmuseum, Japanese prints

• 1854 prints in total uploaded as part of the GLAMwikitoolset beta testing

• The prints are only a small part of the full Rijksmuseum collection, the

entire collection was actually uploaded

• The collection includes the prints of many well-known Japanese artists like

Hokusai and Hiroshige

• On Wikipedia they’re used in a wide variety of articles from the very

general, like the article about dragonflies, to the specific, e.g. an article

about a specific well-known print

A subset of a beta upload

The GLAMwiki toolsetCC BY-SA

• c. 120 000 views of the files in

Wikipedia articles - per month*

• The files are used in 16 language

versions of Wikipedia

• The Plum Park in Kameido alone is

viewed c. 17 000 times per month

in the articles on Wikipedia in which

it is included

• Technical quality is high with

images typically 6 megapixels or

higher

Some stats

Nordic Museum

• 1051 files in total

• Illustrations from 19th century fashion magazines

• Uploaded by the Nordic Museum as part of the Europeana

Fashion project

The GLAMwiki toolsetCC BY-SA

A museum of the cultural history of Sweden and the Nordic countries

• c. 50 000 views of the files in Wikipedia

articles - per month*

• The file on the left is viewed c. 20 000

times per month in the Wikipedia

article about Victorian fashion

• The files are used in 11 language

versions of Wikipedia

• Technical quality is medium with

images typical around 2.5 megapixels

Some stats

The British Library

• 437 files in total

• Only one of the collections they have shared on Wikimedia

Commons

• Illuminated manuscripts, drawings, maps and more

• Tip: Like the British Library, use OpenRefine to wrangle your

metadata before uploading it

The GLAMwiki toolsetCC BY-SA

One of the first libraries to use the tool on their own initiative

• c. 1.7 million views of the files in

Wikipedia articles - per month*

• The White Rabbit from Alice in

Wonderland is viewed c. 250 000 times

per month

• The files are used in over 50 language

versions of Wikipedia

• Technical quality is medium with

images typically around 2 MP

Some stats

Overall statistics

• The GLAMwiki toolset has by now been used by 157 users...

• ...to upload 748 771 files...

• ...of which 20 012 files have been used in 27 476 Wikipedia

articles

• In August 2016 alone those Wikipedia articles were viewed 21 279

191 times

• Meaning that if the pattern holds the files will have been viewed

around 240 million times in 2016.

The GLAMwiki toolsetCC BY-SA

If you weren’t already convinced!?

Main takeaways

• As a library, archive or museums, Wikipedians and Wikipedia are natural

collaboration partners for you

• Working together you can both fulfill your missions of sharing knowledge

better

• The statistics are there to prove the incredible reach that pro-active

outreach to the public via Wikipedia can result in

• The GLAMwiki toolset can help you share your collections on Wikimedia

Commons and in extension, Wikipedia

If you forget all else, remember this!

The GLAMwiki toolsetCC BY-SA

September 22, 2016

The Music Lesson, Louis Moritz,1808, Rijksmuseum , Public Domain

National Library of Scotland

• 1288 files in total

• Photographs, prints, drawings, maps and more

• When the GLAMwiki Toolset went into beta testing the

Wikipedian in Residence at the National Library of Scotland just

picked up the tool and made the uploads with no help from

Europeana dev team

The GLAMwiki toolsetCC BY-SA

One of the first libraries to use the tool on their own initiative

• c. 2.5 million views of the files in

Wikipedia articles - per month*

• The files are used in over 50

language versions of Wikipedia

• Technical quality is high with

images typically 6 megapixels or

higher

Some stats

National Heritage Board, Sweden

• 975 files in total

• Only one of the collections they have shared on Wikimedia

Commons

• Illuminated manuscripts, drawings, maps and more

• Tip: Like the British Library, use OpenRefine to wrangle your

metadata before uploading it

The GLAMwiki toolsetCC BY-SA

A small beta upload

• c. 24 000 views of the files in Wikipedia

articles - per month*

• The image of Art Blakey is viewed c. 12

000 times per month

• The files are used in about 25 language

versions of Wikipedia

• Technical quality is low with images

typically slightly below 1 MP

Some stats