GLAM/Newsletter/April 2013/Contents/Sweden report

This Month in GLAM – Volume III, Issue IV, April 2013

Sweden report

GLAM handbook version 3; conferences; hackathons and Wiki Loves Public Art

GLAM handbook

Last year, Wikimedia Sverige produced a GLAM handbook called Kulturskatter på nätet, after several meetings with GLAM:s to understand what they needed. The first version was a rather thin and simple leaflet with some basic arguments directed towards GLAM:s on why they should a) digitize and b) work with Wikipedia. Wikimedia Deutschland became interested in the concept and produced a version of their own that was much better than the original one. Now, since April 10, there's a new Swedish version which is even better.

The new brochure, including two cool infographics about copyright law for GLAMs and the digitization process - are easily adapted into many other languages. Just use free software Scribus, research your copyright laws, discuss what issues "your" GLAM:s have with copyright/digitization/Wikipedia, and localize. Already, there is a Finnish version on the way, and the Swedish chapter would love to help out in translating the text into English. Download the zip file here.

Digikult with hackathon

On April 10-11, there was a cultural heritage conference called Digikult, which Wikimedia Sverige helped organize. Kulturskatter på nätet (see above) was presented there first. Present was around 100 persons, which represented all the major GLAMs, university libraries and county boards of Sweden. Most talks mentioned Wikipedia and/or Wikimedia Commons in a positive light, and Lennart Guldbrandsson had a talk at the end (all talks are soon to be uploaded to Digikult.se). From Europeana, Geer Oskam presented some key projects, including Wiki Loves Public Art.

During the conference, there was a hackathon. Instead of competing against each other, the hackers decided to work together to combine three/four databases: Europeana, Wikipedia, lists of cultural institutions and a database of public art. Together this web app produce a list of cultural heritage institutions near a selected point (including one based on your mobile phone's GPS location).

GLAM-WIKI 2013 conference

Wikimedia Sverige was one of the organizations involved in organizing the GLAM-WIKI 2013 conference as part of our project Europeana Awareness. Wikimedia Sverige participated in the preparation of the conference and backed the event financially. At the conference Geer Oskam from Europeana presented about the cooperation between Wikimedia and Europeana so far. Axel Pettersson gave a presentation entitled "Professional GLAM staffers on Wikipedia". There was also a Europeana lead workshop that focused on the GLAMtoolset and on the Sunday there was a small Europeana lead hackathon on top of the other unconference activities.

Wiki Loves Public Art

The preparations for the Wiki Loves Public Art photo contest continued. Amongst other things press releases were sent out, blog posts were written, all the participating countries websites were finalized, lists of artworks were generated on Wikipedia, and all the remaining infrastructure on Wikimedia Commons was set up. In the end five countries, Austria, Finland, Israel, Spain (Catalonia) and Sweden, became ready to participate in this year's contest. In Sweden nine art museums are cooperating and are involved in the contest.