Press releases/Wikimedia Commons 5 million files

This press release is currently a draft, it has not yet been released.

Milestone: 5 Million Media Files on Wikimedia Commons

A mosaic of 1,200 of the 5 million media files, forming the Wikimedia logo

N September 2009, The Internet: Wikimedia Commons, the media repository site used by Wikipedia, today reached the 5 million media files milestone. Every one of these media files is available under a free license, such that anyone can use them for any purpose. Wikimedia Commons is the largest free media repository on the internet. The repository is constructed and maintained completely by over 800,000 volunteers, of which over 20,000 have been actively participating in the last month.

The media files come from a wide range of sources, from personal photography by its users to images from public domain archives. Everyone from every path of life can contribute to the repository, increasing the amount of public domain and freely-licensed educational media content available to the world.

One of over 1,700 featured pictures, and the winner of the "Commons Picture of the Year" competition in 2008

Wikimedia Commons started 5 years ago this month. It reached 4 million media files a mere 6 months ago, on the 4th March 2009, after taking 8 months between the 3 and 4 million media files milestones. Amongst the 5 million files are 1,700 "featured" pictures - the very finest on Wikimedia Commons.

In the last year, it has seen several substantial donations of media files. Bundesarchiv -- the German Federal Archive -- donated nearly 100,000 images in December 2008. In March 2009, the State and University Library Dresden donated nearly 250,000 images. These donations have been mutually beneficial -- the archives have benefited from the work of Wikimedia volunteers in categorizing these images, checking their descriptions, linking them with appropriate metadata and adding the images to Wikipedia articles. This lead to increased visibility of their works online, with a substantial increase in visitors to their websites and purchases of prints of the images.

An image of the excavation at Uriconium, Shropshire, taken by Francis Bedford, donated by Regionarkivet

In August 2009, Regionarkivet (Sweden) donated high-resolutions scans of 27 images by important 19th century photographers to Wikimedia Sverige and Wikimedia Commons. These included works by the British photographers Francis Bedford and Roger Fenton.

It has also seen influxes of nearly 10,000 media files from two recent free photography competitions of public domain works held by museums: Wikipedia Loves Art was held in museums world-wide, and Wiki Loves Art was held in museums across the Netherlands. Wikimedia UK is currently planning Britain Loves Wikipedia, a similar event to take place in museums across the UK, aimed at making Britain's cultural heritage more visible, freely across the world, via the internet.

EDITORS NOTES

About Wikimedia Commons:

Wikimedia Commons is a free image and media file repository, and is a sister project to Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia. It was started on 7 September 2004, and is operated by the Wikimedia Foundation.

About Wikimedia UK:

Wikimedia UK is the local Wikimedia chapter covering the United Kingdom. Wikimedia UK is an independent organization that supports free and open knowledge throughout the United Kingdom, including promoting and supporting the projects of the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation.

About the Wikimedia Foundation:

(NB: included only if WMF is working with us on this press release)

The Wikimedia Foundation Inc. is a nonprofit, charitable organization dedicated to encouraging the growth, development and distribution of free, multilingual content, and to providing the full content of its wiki-based projects to the public free of charge. It operates some of the largest collaboratively-edited reference projects in the world, including Wikipedia, one of the world's 10 most-visited websites.

All projects of the Wikimedia Foundation are collaboratively developed by volunteers using the MediaWiki software. Their content may be freely used, freely edited, freely copied and freely redistributed subject to the restrictions of that license.

Further information:

• Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/
• Featured pictures on Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Featured_pictures
• Britain Loves Wikipedia: http://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/Initiatives/Britain_Loves_Wikipedia

Contact details:

Andrew Turvey, Secretary, Wikimedia UK

• Email: secretary@wikimedia.org.uk
• Phone: +44 (0)7988 013 646

Paul Williams, Wikimedia UK

• Phone: +44 (0)7979 804 715