Oxford libraries and museums May 2015

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As part of the Bodleian Libraries' Wikimedian In Residence project, Martin Poulter gave an internal workshop for staff in Oxford's libraries on Wednesday 6th May 2015. The title was "Working with the Open Culture movement: How cultural organisations are engaging researchers and the public through Wikimedia". As a result of the first workshop, a follow-up was requested specifically for museum staff, which happened on Thursday 2nd July.

Abstract

Slides used in the first workshop

This workshop looks at varied ways in which the cultural sector is using Wikipedia and other free sites to crowdsource improvements, context and scholarly uses of their content. As well as Wikipedia, we will look at sister projects including Wikisource, Wikibooks and Wikidata. This is an opportunity to get practical suggestions for how to use Wikimedia in your own work.

Some links for further reading and exploration

How a book digitised into the Internet Archive can be used in the Wikimedia system to reach readers and benefit from crowd contributions

Links for museums

Evaluation

First workshop

There were 11 attendees, of whom 9 were women. They came from various parts of the Bodleian, from a college library, and from Oxford University Museums. An additional person arrived at the end and took handouts.

Nine evaluation forms were returned.

I enjoyed this workshop (1=Strongly disagree, 5=Strongly agree)

Mean: 4.7. All answers agreed (i.e. put a 4 or a 5).

I learnt new things in this workshop

Mean: 4.6. All agreed.

The materials handed out are useful

(Note: this question is stipulated by Wikimedia UK for training events where people learn to edit Wikipedia, so maybe not relevant here.)
Mean: 4.0 (six out of eight answers agreed)

I had a good understanding of Wikimedia before the workshop

Mean: 3.0

I have a good understanding of Wikimedia now.

Mean: 4.0 (seven out of nine answers agreed)

I will do something different in my work as a result of attending.

Mean: 4.1 (seven out of nine answers agreed)

Tell us at least one thing which would have improved this workshop for you
  • A little bit longer!
  • Discussion of conflict of interest for institutions contributing
  • Acoustics - but that's not presenter's fault!
  • Improved acoustics
  • Acoustic! Not easy to hear speaker
  • Maybe something more on organising editathons or applications (e.g. Derby museums example) - specific activities we'd like to be doing as cultural organisations.
  • Starting from a little further back + giving a more basic intro
  • (2 blank)
Any further comments to add - either positive or negative
  • Very exciting, thanks.
  • Learned lots about Wikidata that I will def. use!
  • It's only an hour- if more time allowed it would have been nice to have time looking at an example before moving to the next item. Better idea of how to assess quality. Thank you!
  • Really good - increased my enthusiasm to work with wiki, both professionally and personally.
  • Engaging and informative presentation
  • Might be better to use the screen at the head of the table to prevent obscuring the screen.
  • Engaging presenter - style good but assumed quite a lot of knowledge. Made me want to learn more about the topic which is positive!
  • (2 blank)

Second Workshop

Five evaluation forms out of 8 attendees, though one attendee had already attended the first workshop and filled out an evaluation there.

I enjoyed this workshop (1=Strongly disagree, 5=Strongly agree)

5, 5, 5, 3, 4. Mean: 4.4

I learned new things in this workshop

5, 5, 5, 4, 3. Mean: 4.4

I had a good understanding of Wikimedia before this workshop

3, 3, 3, 3, 2. Mean: 2.8

I have a good understanding of Wikimedia now.

4, 4, 4, 4, 3. Mean: 3.8

I will do something different in my work as a result of attending.

5, 5, 3, 2, 3. Mean: 3.6

What is the most surprising thing you learnt about in this workshop?
  • Wikidata and its potential
  • Types of Wikipedia uses. How images are organised in Wikipedia
  • The mechanics of how Wikipedia (& Wikimedia) works. Interesting tools - e.g. QRpedia + multi-lingual routes; creating historical timelines
  • I was impressed with the number of different Wikis available in different languages
  • Minefield on the subject of image licensing still not really being sorted/ agreed within sector/ law
Tell us at least one thing which would have improved this workshop for you
  • Perhaps setting out roadmap at the start so as to head off too much copyright diversion?!
  • Maybe some info sent in advance as b/g reading? Although appreciate it often doesn't get read.
  • If there was more time, perhaps a quick demonstration of how you upload an image / edit content. More case studies about impact within the arts + culture sectors.
  • I would have liked to have heard more about Wiki's 'terms and conditions' re. image uploading, and what implications this had on users and contributors as well as the IP rights holders ('license laundering' etc.)
  • Handout slides to add facts/ thoughts to.
Any further comments to add - either positive or negative
  • I wonder whether a short presentation to the more general staff of individual museums would fall within your remit? (Yes it would- have sent follow-up email to attendees offering further activities. - MLP)
  • Thanks Martin!
  • Very interesting and has made me want to explore, though not sure if I have the confidence! I use Wikipedia every day for work as a curator and would love to give something back. I think a cross-museums backstage pass event would be a great next step. We're already working on one for Instagrammers so having that model might make it fairly straightforward. Thanks again, Martin.
  • I still think there are problems with quality control: it's all very well to let anyone 'improve' an image by playing around with it and re-publishing, but often this compromises the integrity of the work. I realise you can potentially 'control' this by getting notifications, but I think that this creates unnecessary work at levels that are potentially unsustainable. I also think there needs to be some restriction on file size and resolution to help protect the creators' IP and avoid misuse (the e.g. you used was 3.5k pixels at 300ppi - which is potentially 'publishable' whatever its inherent quality.)
  • I think it would be good to continue the conversations about image licensing between museums and libraries and see if we can come to a policy we're both comfortable with. This would encourage our participation in Wikimedia and other similar ventures. An engaging workshop; delivered well (for the bit I was there for!)

Reflections

First workshop

  • This really, really needed to be a one-and-a-half-hour session: I'd condensed it to an hour in the hope of attracting more of an audience, but that was the wrong trade-off.
  • Some things I cut out weren't very important, but it would have been worth spending a lot more time on the "Wikipedia comprehension" section as the audience were understandably interested in quality.
  • The audience seemed most excited about Histropedia timelines, image restorations and Wikisource copy-editing: understandably, the tangible outputs.
  • A powerful exercise involved clicking the "Recent changes" button on English Wikipedia, pointing out the latest entry, then clicking "Recent changes" again. A dozen new edits had been made in those several seconds. I hadn't been planning to do that in this particular workshop, but it was a useful way to answer a question about the collaborative nature of the site.
  • I should have moved the chairs beforehand to make sure the audience sat where they could see both me and the screen.
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