GLAM – Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums.
Wikimedia – the organisation behind Wikipedia, its image library Commons and many more information projects.
In the last few months, Wikimedia volunteers have run a number of successful collaborations with cultural institutions such as the British Museum and the V&A. Based on this successful start, Wikimedia UK has set up a GLAM Outreach Taskforce to roll out the program across the rest of the UK.
Our goal is to establish a UK wide program of partnerships between Wikimedia and Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums, that will:
- work together with cultural institutions as they open up to the digital age
- help to freely and widely liberate the knowledge they hold
- engage volunteers and professionals in making better use of Wikipedia and sister projects for improved public access to GLAM collections
- link our volunteers and digital presence with willing cultural partners to mutual benefit
The UK GLAM task force is supported by, and reports to, the Wikimedia UK board. There are a number of free events and institution relationships in the pipeline with GLAMcamp London in June being the formal kick-off for the UK GLAM network (it’s free and open to GLAM professionals and prospective GLAM ambassadors).
Here is what is coming up in the next month:
- 4 June –British Library English & Drama edit-athon
- 22 June – National Railway Museum workshop in York
- 24 June – GLAMcamp London, the first GLAM ambassador network event and hosted by the British Library
A larger list of institutions where we have made contact or are currently working with to establish partnerships or hold events with is at GLAM events. In the context of how we started the concept of GLAM ambassadors in the UK at the British Museum only a year ago, this rapid and remarkable progress is only possible because we were pushing on a door that many institutional professionals were ready to open.
As well as edit-a-thons and workshops, we are establishing innovative approaches for museums. Derby Museum was not the first museum to make their collections internet enabled and smart-phone friendly by using QR codes, but they were the first in the world to use QR pedia so that their collection became automatically available in multiple languages by using Wikipedia’s Korean, Chinese, Spanish and over two hundred and fifty other language versions (see this unauthorized guerilla video).
Would you like to help?
- Sign up and come to one of our events
- Join Wikimedia UK or join our email discussion list to discuss future events and plans
- If you work within an GLAM institution and would like to see an outreach event for e-volunteers to increase access to your collections, email Fae or glam(at)wikimedia.co.uk
- We need your help expanding Wikimedia’s GLAM e-volunteer network, particularly for locations outside London. Drop me
a note with your ideas if you would like to see your loved local institution be at the forefront of this knowledge revolution - Finally, this isn’t just for big institutions in London, we are keen to collaborate with specialist associations and local museums everywhere in the UK (and in all languages)
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