UK Wikimedian of the Year 2014

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The UK Wikimedian of the Year is an annual award given by Wikimedia UK to thank those in the UK or abroad who have helped the UK Wikimedia movement. These volunteers and institutions have gone above and beyond the call of duty to help bring open knowledge to all.

The prizes were first awarded at WikiConference UK 2012 at the Science Museum on 12 May. They were awarded again in 2013. The purpose of the awards is to recognise achievement, and inspire efforts for next year!

Categories

Ed Saperia holding his UK Wikimedian of the Year 2014 trophy
  • UK Wikimedian of the Year

The UK Wikimedian of the Year award goes to someone who is not what most of us would call a "Wikimedian". But with his work over the past two years organising Wikimania, he has brought our goal of "Free knowledge for all" to hundreds, if not thousands of new people. He has brought together dozens of organisations and hundreds of volunteers to make Wikimania in London a reality.

  • GLAM of the Year

In summer 2013, the National Library of Scotland launched the first ever Wikimedian-in-Residence programme in Scotland. The Residency has established a self-sustaining and long-lasting relationship between the Library and the Wikimedia community, and has encouraged the growth of the Wikimedia community in Scotland more generally. This award is to thank the National Library for placing their trust in the open knowledge movement - without their enthusiastic support, open culture in Scotland would not be where it is today.

  • Educational Institution of the Year

If you have used Wikipedia to look up a town in Britain, there's a good chance the article owes a debt to the University of Portsmouth. Two decades ago the university set up Vision of Britain website, a gazetteer pulling together a collection of historical sources and statistics on British geography. As it is such a valuable resource, it's often used by Wikipedia editors. In the course of working on this project, possible links between Wikipedia and Vision of Britain emerged. Last year Professor Humphrey Southall who worked on the project ran a course in which first year students each chose a short article on a village in northern England and expanded it. It is heartening to learn the the course will run again next year, and in the words of Professor Southall "I'm satisfied that the quality of referencing stands up against professional work".

  • Honourable Mention

For the release at the end of last year by the British Library of over a million images of 17th, 18th, and 19th century books that were digitised in a partnership with Microsoft in 2008. The original intention by the British Library were to make the images available via its catalogue, but they are now all available on Flickr Commons with associated metadata.

Andy is a dedicated Wikimedian who has among the many things he has done started the Voice Intro Project – a project to make audio recordings in which Wikipedia subjects speak their name and introduce themselves. Associated with that was an event at the BBC which got the corporation to release clips from their archive material under free licenses.

When

The winners were announced by Jimmy Wales during the Wikimania 2014 closing ceremony at the Barbican Centre.

Gallery