Presentation of the GLAMwiki toolset at Best in Heritage 2016 in Dubrovnik. The presentation focuses on how museums,archives and libraries can share their digital collections with Wikipedia and in so doing reach a much larger and international audience than what they can otherwise.

1. The GLAMwiki toolset
Share your media collections on Wikipedia!
David Haskiya, Europeana Foundation @Best in Heritage
Imagines, Dubrovnik, 2016-09-22
Danse de trois faunes et trois
bacchantes, Hieronymus Hopfer,
Bibliothèque municipale de Lyon,
Public Domain

2. Outline of my talk
1. Setting the stage - Europeana, Wikipedia, GLAMwiki - what is it?
2. Why would you use the GLAMwiki toolset?
3. How does it work?
4. Cases x 3 and Overall statistics
5. Summary and main takeaways
6. Q&A (and more stats)
The GLAMwiki toolset
CC BY-SA

3. What and who is Europeana?
• We’re a non-profit foundation - idealists and true believers
• A network of likeminded heritage and technology professionals
• An open data platform with many services and drawing on the
collections of nearly 4000 European GLAMs
• Europeana Collections, Europeana APIs
The GLAMwiki toolset
CC BY-SA
“We want to build on Europe’s rich heritage and make it
easier for people to use, whether for work, for learning
or just for fun!”

4. What is Wikipedia?
• Wikipedia is the world’s largest encyclopedia and is available in hundreds
of languages
• Wikimedia Commons is a media library with c. 30 million media objects
free for use - and is the only source of media that Wikipedia (directly) uses
• Together they form the starting point of most citizens search for
information and knowledge online - Wikipedia is ranked as the 7th most
used website globally
What is Wikimedia Commons? Why does Wikipedia matter?
The GLAMwiki toolset
CC BY-SA

5. What is GLAM? And GLAMwiki?
• Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums
• An acronym coined by Wikipedians and has taken on
elsewhere
• The GLAM Wiki Initiative is a loose collective of Wikipedians
and GLAM professionals who work together for the benefit of
both communities
• Why would a GLAM? Because part of our official missions is very
often to share our knowledge and collections with the public on
whose behalf we work
A shared interest between Wikipedians and GLAMs
The GLAMwiki toolset
CC BY-SA

6. Why the GLAMwiki toolset?
• Before the toolset all large uploads had to be performed and coded one by
one by a developer, typically one of a handful of volunteers
• This had caused a long backlog to build up
• The Wiki community decided it was time to develop a tool that librarians,
archivists and museum collections curators themselves could use
• The Wikimedia Chapters of the Netherlands, United Kingdom, France and
Switzerland decided to fund Europeana to develop the toolset
To support large uploads of GLAM content of course!
The GLAMwiki toolset
CC BY-SA

7. How does it work?
• It’s an online tool, a part of Wikimedia Commons
• It takes a GLAM-collections, formatted in XML, and allows the user to map
the metadata to Wikimedia Commons templates
• The tools then kicks off a batch upload, uploading the metadata and media
• Very large batch uploads are supported and the tool works best for such
very large uploads of (hundreds of) thousands media objects
• For smaller uploads of a few dozen or couple of hundred collection objects
there are now other tools, e.g. Pattypan (which is superior for collections
with offline media)
Super brief version - long version here
The GLAMwiki toolset
CC BY-SA

8. Three cases and overall stats
• I will now quickly present three cases of GLAMs doing uploads to
Wikimedia Commons using the tool
• For each case I will provide statistics of use showing the
enormous reach a GLAM can gain by sharing their collections on
Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia
• Then I’ll share the overall statistics
Rijksmuseum, the British Library, and the Nordic Museum
The GLAMwiki toolset
CC BY-SA

9. Rijksmuseum, Japanese prints
• 1854 prints in total uploaded as part of the GLAMwikitoolset beta testing
• The prints are only a small part of the full Rijksmuseum collection, the
entire collection was actually uploaded
• The collection includes the prints of many well-known Japanese artists like
Hokusai and Hiroshige
• On Wikipedia they’re used in a wide variety of articles from the very
general, like the article about dragonflies, to the specific, e.g. an article
about a specific well-known print
A subset of a beta upload
The GLAMwiki toolset
CC BY-SA

10. • c. 120 000 views of the files in
Wikipedia articles - per month*
• The files are used in 16 language
versions of Wikipedia
• The Plum Park in Kameido alone is
viewed c. 17 000 times per month
in the articles on Wikipedia in which
it is included
• Technical quality is high with
images typically 6 megapixels or
higher
Some stats

11. Nordic Museum
• 1051 files in total
• Illustrations from 19th century fashion magazines
• Uploaded by the Nordic Museum as part of the Europeana
Fashion project
The GLAMwiki toolset
CC BY-SA
A museum of the cultural history of Sweden and the Nordic countries

12. • c. 50 000 views of the files in Wikipedia
articles - per month*
• The file on the left is viewed c. 20 000
times per month in the Wikipedia
article about Victorian fashion
• The files are used in 11 language
versions of Wikipedia
• Technical quality is medium with
images typical around 2.5 megapixels
Some stats

13. The British Library
• 437 files in total
• Only one of the collections they have shared on Wikimedia
Commons
• Illuminated manuscripts, drawings, maps and more
• Tip: Like the British Library, use OpenRefine to wrangle your
metadata before uploading it
The GLAMwiki toolset
CC BY-SA
One of the first libraries to use the tool on their own initiative

14. • c. 1.7 million views of the files in
Wikipedia articles - per month*
• The White Rabbit from Alice in
Wonderland is viewed c. 250 000 times
per month
• The files are used in over 50 language
versions of Wikipedia
• Technical quality is medium with
images typically around 2 MP
Some stats

15. Overall statistics
• The GLAMwiki toolset has by now been used by 157 users...
• ...to upload 748 771 files...
• ...of which 20 012 files have been used in 27 476 Wikipedia
articles
• In August 2016 alone those Wikipedia articles were viewed 21 279
191 times
• Meaning that if the pattern holds the files will have been viewed
around 240 million times in 2016.
The GLAMwiki toolset
CC BY-SA
If you weren’t already convinced!?

16. Main takeaways
• As a library, archive or museums, Wikipedians and Wikipedia are natural
collaboration partners for you
• Working together you can both fulfill your missions of sharing knowledge
better
• The statistics are there to prove the incredible reach that pro-active
outreach to the public via Wikipedia can result in
• The GLAMwiki toolset can help you share your collections on Wikimedia
Commons and in extension, Wikipedia
If you forget all else, remember this!
The GLAMwiki toolset
CC BY-SA

17. September 22, 2016
The Music Lesson, Louis Moritz,
1808, Rijksmuseum , Public Domain

18. National Library of Scotland
• 1288 files in total
• Photographs, prints, drawings, maps and more
• When the GLAMwiki Toolset went into beta testing the
Wikipedian in Residence at the National Library of Scotland just
picked up the tool and made the uploads with no help from
Europeana dev team
The GLAMwiki toolset
CC BY-SA
One of the first libraries to use the tool on their own initiative

19. • c. 2.5 million views of the files in
Wikipedia articles - per month*
• The files are used in over 50
language versions of Wikipedia
• Technical quality is high with
images typically 6 megapixels or
higher
Some stats

20. National Heritage Board, Sweden
• 975 files in total
• Only one of the collections they have shared on Wikimedia
Commons
• Illuminated manuscripts, drawings, maps and more
• Tip: Like the British Library, use OpenRefine to wrangle your
metadata before uploading it
The GLAMwiki toolset
CC BY-SA
A small beta upload

21. • c. 24 000 views of the files in Wikipedia
articles - per month*
• The image of Art Blakey is viewed c. 12
000 times per month
• The files are used in about 25 language
versions of Wikipedia
• Technical quality is low with images
typically slightly below 1 MP
Some stats