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| ;Canadian Copyright Collection from the British Library on Wikimedia Commons | | ;Notes from a Wikimedian in Residence |
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| [[File:The_farewell_(HS85-10-30885).jpg|200px|thumb|right|alt=A photo from the Picturing Canada collection|A photo from the Picturing Canada collection]]
| | ''This post was written by John Cummings, Wikimedian in Residence for the Science Museum and Natural History Museum'' |
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| ''This post was written by Andrew Gray and Philip Hatfield and was originally published on the [http://blog.wikimedia.org/2013/07/01/picturing-canada/ blog of the Wikimedia Foundation here]''
| | I’m the Wikimedian in Residence for the Science Museum and Natural History Museum, the Science Museum invited me to work with them share their knowledge with a wider audience. I love Wikipedia and I think you should too, I love it because of how it’s made and who reads it, I know it’s not perfect but we can all work together to make it better. |
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| July 1st was Canada Day, and Wikimedia UK and the British Library announced the release of [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:British_Library/Picturing_Canada 2,000 historic photographs of Canada].
| | '''How Wikipedia is made''' |
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| Since September 2012, we’ve been working to digitise a collection of historic Canadian photographs and release them onto Wikimedia Commons and into the public domain. The collection itself was acquired between 1895 and 1924 and consists of photographs supplied to support [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_deposit copyright deposits] by Canadian photographers between those years. This came about through an arcane piece of colonial law, known snappily as the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_law_of_Canada#Colonial_copyright_law Colonial Copyright Law], which sought to extend British copyright protection across the empire, while also ensuring the collection of published material from these same areas. In practice, the law was a failure; only a few territories ratified it and even fewer actually deposited materials. Until 1925, however, Canada did implement the law and the Ministry of Agriculture effectively administrated the collection of copyright deposits. A copy of every item was sent to Ottawa and to London, where it was archived by the British Museum and then neglected for decades.
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| Materials collected from Canada included printed books, sheet music, maps and, of course, photographs. While the photographs were seen as trivial and undervalued at the time, what can now be perceived through the collection is a broad and human view of Canada at a crucial point in its history; a thirty year period when the Confederation developed politically, economically and socially, while garnering an international reputation. The collection itself provides views on this changing nation, from Vancouver to Halifax, with many unknown camera workers alongside well-known figures such as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._W._Micklethwaite Frank Micklethwaite] or [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Notman William Notman].
| | How Wikipedia works, in the voices of a few of those who make it |
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| All of this combines to create a strange mix of photographic subjects. Photographs of soldiers leaving for World War I are filed alongside images of cute kittens and men wrestling bears; trains are depicted steaming across the nation while boats continue to ply the water-ways; major cities are shown rapidly growing, while new settlements make their first marks in the dirt; and Eastern European immigrants rub shoulders with the First Nations.
| | Wikipedia is written entirely by volunteers, there are 100,000 regular contributors. Anyone can edit Wikipedia, you don’t even need a username, it sounds like a terrible idea but it works, it’s the biggest encyclopedia ever made and is available in 285 languages. It’s funded by donations and hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation in San Francisco. |
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| Since Monday marked the 146th anniversary of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Confederation Canada’s Confederation], it seemed an appropriate time to note the upload of the collection to Wikimedia Commons. There are currently just over 2,000 photographs uploaded, each with a duplicate full-resolution TIFF copy, with more to come in the following weeks. All the images are in the public domain, and are freely available for use and reuse – please, enjoy!
| | Museums spend a great deal of time, money and effort digitising their collections and want the same thing as Wikipedia, to educate people. |
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| You can see more details on the collection on [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/British_Library/Picturing_Canada Wikimedia Commons]. <span class="plainlinks">[http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2013/07/canadian-copyright-collection-from-the-british-library-on-wikimedia-commons/ <nowiki>[</nowiki>...<nowiki>]</nowiki>]</span>
| | <blockquote>"The Science Museum Group’s mission is to make sense of the science which shapes our lives, help create a scientifically literate society and inspire the next generation"<p>''—The Science Museum Group’s Strategic Ambitions 2012–2022''</blockquote> |
| | <blockquote>"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s what we’re doing"<p>''—Jimmy Wales, Co Founder of Wikipedia''</blockquote> |
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| | The National Media Museum recently released around 400 images under a Creative Commons license. By releasing their images they’re able to reach a huge worldwide audience on Wikipedia. <span class="plainlinks">[http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2013/07/1733/ <nowiki>[</nowiki>Continues ...<nowiki>]</nowiki>]</span> |
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