GLAM/Newsletter/May 2022/Contents/Italy report

This Month in GLAM – Volume XII, Issue V, May 2022

Italy report

May inside and for museums

Edit-a-thon at Museo Egizio in Turin

The May 23 edit-a-thon was held in the impressive Gallery of the Kings of the Egyptian Museum in Turin, Italy, where Wikimedia Italia, Museo Egizio and Archivio Storico Ricordi collaborated for the first time, with the participation of Creative Commons Italy. The goal was to increase the free content available on Wikipedia and related projects dedicated to Giuseppe Verdi's opera "Aida," to which, on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of its first performance, the Egyptian Museum is dedicating the exhibition "Aida, daughter of two worlds." Open to the public until June 5, the exhibition brings together archaeology and opera history in an original way.

The cultural project dedicated to Aida, edited by Enrico Ferraris, aims to open up reflection on the significance of Verdi's opera as a turning point in the confrontation between Europe and nineteenth-century Egypt. Thanks to the contribution of Wikipedia volunteers, but also to melomaniacs or students who would like to contribute their knowledge for the first time on the free encyclopedia, Aida and its very rich history will be able to have all the space they deserve on Wikipedia in Italian.

All sharing a contact with "Aida," set designers such as Philippe Chaperon and Auguste Alfred Rubé, opera singers such as Paolo Medini, Giuseppe Fancelli, Pietro Mongini and Eleonora Grossi, but also conductor Ionel Perlea, the Fluminense Lyric Theater and Scafati's satirical opera "Aida" can therefore now count on a new Wikipedia entry. The work of Wikimedian volunteers, coordinated and aided in finding reliable sources by experts from the Egyptian Museum and the Ricordi Historical Archives, has led not only to the creation of nine new entries, but also to the expansion of 21 and the creation or modification of 14 items on Wikidata.

Wikidata competition

On May 18, Wikimedia Italy participated at the International Museums Day by supporting the Wikidata competition for the Italian and Ukrainian communities. Same as last year, from May 4 to 18 there was the contest that rewards volunteers from projects that add and improve the most items on Wikidata.

In keeping with the spirit of solidarity and cooperation of the day, Wikimedia Italy has chosen to support a specific project related to Ukrainian museums. In fact, in addition to awarding the three best volunteers who will dedicate themselves to Italian museums, it will also support six prizes for volunteers who will dedicate themselves to museums in Ukraine. All volunteers, from any part of the world, can participate by dedicating themselves to increasing the amount of data available on Ukrainian museums.

Helping to increase shared knowledge about Ukraine's cultural heritage is a way of showing closeness to communities affected by a conflict, emphasizing the value of the Wikimedia projects as a space for collaboration and protection of common heritage.

New project promoted by volunteers

New proposals supported by the second call for volunteer projects 2022 have been approved. Six projects funded, for nearly 34,000 euros made available for volunteer ideas by Wikimedia Italy. One of them is on the GLAM: Fostering open access with Wikidata. Two volunteers with the support of Firenze University Press have proposed a project that aims to exploit the potential of Wikidata as a tool for collecting and enhancing scholarly research data starting with the import of article metadata. Taking the metadata of the journals Substantia and Caryologia, which are published in open access, they will upload and reconcile the data of the authors of the articles on Wikidata, the large collaborative database of the Wikimedia projects, which offers the possibility of making different databases talk to each other and make the information and data available to an immense audience of users. This will make research and information about authors and the institutions of which they are a part even more easily accessible online.

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