User:Jason.nlw/1 Month Report

WiR at the National Library of Wales. 1st Month Report

Projects delivered

The focus during the first weeks of the residency has been on meeting teams from various departments in the Library. This has been a chance to clarify the nature of the residency and to promote its goals and objectives. These meetings have been used to discuss ideas or concerns and to build up a network of useful contacts. Initial sessions have been held with:

• Archives and Manuscripts
• Welsh Screen and Sound Archive
• Education services
• Volunteer co-ordinator
• Digital collections researcher
• Web team
• Metadata team
• Computer systems
• Peoples Collection Wales management (NLW Partner)
• Wales at War
• Exhibitions
• Chief Executive/Head Librarian

Objectives and outcomes

Public Outreach

The objective is to hold a minimum of 6 public events or workshops (Edit-a-thons) during the course of the residency (12 months). Each event will have a target audience and a well-defined subject for editors to work within. Based on preliminary discussions here is a list of proposed events (one is confirmed).

1st month Outcomes:

• Welsh Photographers edit-a-thon (April 10th) – This edit-a-thon ties in with the launch of a major exhibition at NLW on the life and work of Phillip Jones Griffiths. The event will be held at the NLW with support from the Visual Images Curator. (Link)

• The Laws of Hywel Dda Edit-a-thon (Spring 2015) - An event focused on improving content relating to the laws of Hywel Dda and aspects of Welsh society under Welsh Law (e.g. Women’s rights). The event will be supported by Dr Sara Roberts, founder of cyfraith-hywel.cymru.ac.uk – a major online academic resource for the study of Welsh law.

• Wales at war. WWI edit-a-thon (Spring 2015) This event will be held at NLW and will focus on improving content relating to the Welsh role in WWI with support from the Wales at War team and academics/students

• Y Wladfa Cymraeg (The Welsh Colony) Edit-a-thon (summer 2015) – Marking 150 years since the arrival of the first Welsh Colonists in Patagonia, this Edit-a-thon will be organised with Peoples Collections Wales who are running a programme of events to mark the anniversary.

• Early Science Edit-a-thon (Summer 2015) – Organised to tie in with the launch of a major exhibition at NLW this event will focus on improving content related to early examples of scientific study in Wales.

• WWI, Gallipolo Edit-a-thon (August) – Drawing on contributors from the 1st WWI edit-a-thon the focus will be on all content relating to the Gallipoli campaign, in which the Welsh regiments played a key role. This will tie in with the centenary of the campaign. Location to be confirmed.

• Rugby World Cup Edit-a-thon – (Autumn 2015) – To celebrate the Rugby World cup we will ask Wikipedians and sports enthusiasts to improve content about the sport, the players and famous games. I am hoping to secure a venue in Cardiff for this event.

• Welsh Biography Online, Wiki-data project (Launching in March) –This project is aimed at ingesting Welsh Biography Online data into Wikidata so that it becomes part of the Authority Control script on Wikipedia. 8-10 volunteers have expressed an interest and training will begin shortly.

Staff Workshops and Events

The objective is to engage with staff and to promote digital connections by inviting staff to learn more about Wikipedia and how to edit.

1st month Outcomes:

• 1 hour introductory presentation (20 Feb 2015) – Separate presentations will be delivered in English and Welsh. The talk will focus on explaining the goals and aspiration of Wikipedia, the goals of a Wikipedian in Residence and the benefit of the collaboration to Wikipedia/Wikimedia, the NLW and the wider community.

• A series of workshops will be organised following the above presentation. These will be offered to all staff and members of the NLW volunteer program. They will focus on developing editing skills.

• Staff Edit-a-thon. All staff who take part in training will be encouraged to attend an Edit-a-thon, to edit topics of their choosing. The event will follow the conclusion of initial training workshops.

Digital collections for release

The objective is to identify and release digital archives to Wiki-commons, primarily for use in Wikipedia articles.

1st month Outcomes:

• A preliminary list of archives to upload to Wiki-commons has been compiled and has been submitted for approval from the senior management team. If approved around 20,000 images could be uploaded to Wiki-commons. Further details will be given in next month’s report following the outcome of the request.

• Discussions are underway with Metadata and Systems teams regarding the use of GLAM Wiki Tools as a sustainable and long term solution to uploading images to Wiki Commons.

Building Bridges

The objective is to affect changes to NLW culture, guidelines, policy and procedure in order to create a sustainable relationship with Wikimedia UK and Wikipedia and to promote the open knowledge ethos.

1st month Outcomes:

• Peoples Collection Wales – The NLW is a major partner to this Welsh government funded project to digitise and share Welsh images. Currently all contributions are licenced on a Non-Commercial licence. Initial discussions with management have led to a commitment to review this policy and to consider offering a choice of Non-Commercial and open licences to future contributors with the view of uploading images on an open licence to Wiki-commons.

• Exhibitions - The use of QRpedia codes will be trialled in a major upcoming exhibition at NLW on the life and work of Phillip Jones Griffiths (Opens 27th June 2015). As part of this commitment to Wikipedia it has initially been agreed to release a sample of images from every future NLW exhibition to Wiki commons.

• ‘Cite on Wikipedia’ – A ‘Cite on Wikipedia’ button will be added to many of our online resources beginning with ‘Welsh Newspapers Online’. The Button generates a citation in Wiki-markup to be copied directly into the Wiki Editor. Europeana use this feature on their website.