AvoinGLAM 2023

The work in 2023 focused mainly on realizing Wiki Loves Living Heritage.

In addition to the key projects, we are planning to maintain a regular program around issues regarding new challenges to open cultural heritage in the form of webinars, presentations or workshops. They are serving the Finnish GLAM community, but are also directed to a global audience on a case by case basis.

We are planning to fundraise for two of our longstanding projects, that are not covered by the plan: Wikidocumentaries project and Hack4OpenGLAM co-creation event. We also have the opportunity to run a more local Hack4FI instead of a global online Hack4OpenGLAM.

The rough plan below describes the main elements in our funding application. The funding decisions may force us to cut or change the activities.

Core group 2023

Tove Ørsted
Tuomas Nolvi
Kimberli Mäkäräinen
Kaj Arnö
Maria Virtanen
Aki Pohjankyrö
Kristen Tcherneshoff
Julia Brungs (in private capacity)
Ranjit Menon
Tuukka Hastrup
Minna Turtiainen
Rupesh Vyas
Andrew Gryf Paterson

Projects

Wiki Loves Living Heritage

The project has focused on the following goals:

Bring together Wikimedia affiliates, focal points and heritage communities to work together on program related to living heritage, and together develop further the formats that they are already working on.
Facilitate bringing data about the world's living heritage to Wikimedia projects, in order to give them visibility, and to allow the topics to be enriched and interconnected through constant work though the collaborations.
Explore best practices to challenges in open sharing of living heritage, where living people and communities as well and vulnerable forms of heritage are involved.

Most of AvoinGLAM 2023 funding was directed towards the project, but significant external funding was required to allow focusing on the project rather completely during 2023.

We wish to thank European Heritage Days, Workshop intangible heritage Flanders & Flemish Commission for UNESCO in Belgium, Quebec Council for Living Heritage, Finnish Heritage Agency, Dutch Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage, and Swiss Federal Office of Culture for their support!

The campaign main page is in Wiki Loves Living Heritage, and the project's metrics page can be accessed at Wiki Loves Living Heritage/Metrics. The event log for this project can be found on the project main page.

Highlighted activities

Wiki Loves Living Heritage Launch event

The launch webinar kicked off the activities in Wiki Loves Living Heritage 2023

Ethics of Open Sharing

Exploring practices for the responsible sharing of documentation on traditional knowledge, skills, rituals, or information that is not meant for the public. Collaboration with the Creative Commons working group on the Ethics of Open Sharing, Wikimedia Culture & Heritage and Let's Connect

Wiki Loves Safeguarding Living Heritage in Europe

The European Network of Focal Points for the 2003 Convention (ENFP) launched a photo contest for the whole Europe with theme of safeguarding living heritage, for the documenting of people making efforts to take care, transmit and safeguard the living heritage of humanity.

Wiki Loves Living Heritage in Singapore

Wikimania 2023 organizers teamed up with National Youth Achievement Award (NYAA) and the National Heritage Board (Singapore) (NHB) to arrange public photo competition on Wikimedia Commons. Altogether 1,180 photos were submitted and the winners were chosen by the Wikimania 2023 participants and awarded in the final ceremony.

Presentations related to the the work on Wikimedia projects

Bring your data to Wiki Loves Living Heritage at WikidataCon

Susanna Ånäs, AvoinGLAM

A prerecorded video was presented at WikidataCon on the topic of importing data about living heritage to Wikidata. The recording is subtitled in English and Chinese and available on YouTube.

Stretching Meta

Susanna Ånäs, AvoinGLAM

Wiki Loves Living Heritage uses Meta-wiki in ways it was not designed to work. The presentation runs through the different features and techniques used.

Modelling Living Heritage

Susanna Ånäs, AvoinGLAM

The presentation at the Wikidata Data Modelling Days delved into detail in modelling data for living heritage. View the recording.

Wikidocumentaries

Wikidocumentaries is a central piece of the AvoinGLAM proposal for a media commons. It is meant to be a browser for linked open materials across repositories, and a workshop platform for user contributions. With the support from the General fund we were able to mentor a Google Summer of Code intern to create a workflow for uploading images from Wikidocumentaries to Structured Data on Commons.

Wikidocumentaries to import images from the web to Structured Data on Commons

Zexi Gong and Susanna Ånäs

During the summer of 2023, we embarked on a Google Summer of Code project with Zexi Gong to create un upload workflow from Finna via Wikidocumentaries to Wikimedia Commons. Zexi was mentored by Tuukka Hastrup and Susanna Ånäs.

Wikidocumentaries for Collaboration

Tuukka Hastrup, AvoinGLAM

Tuukka Hastrup presented the work that has been done specifically this year to bring the Wikidocumentaries project forward. We mentored a Google Summer of Code intern, Zexi Gong, who realized the workflow from displaying images from external repositories on Wikidocumentaries and choosing to upload them to Wikimedia Commons with SDC statements. Tuukka also talked about image faceting in Wikidocumentaries that made use of the SDC data.

Postponed / cancelled activities

Case studies and experiments – Crisis and GLAM – We are constantly on the lookout for opportunities to arrange experimental activities for exploring the reuse of open cultural heritage materials and advancing the digital competencies in the culture & heritage domain. Furthermore, we wish to develop formats to confront destruction and degeneration of cultural heritage by means available to open culture advocates. This year did not provide opportunities for dedicated activities, but these themes are constantly considered in all our planning.

Dataviz – The collaboration between AvoinGLAM, Aalto University, Visualizing knowledge conference and Wiki World Heritage was postponed due to partners' capacity issues. A collaboration with the Aalto University information design studies is planned for 2024.

Outreach & training – With the full focus on Wiki Loves Living Heritage, AvoinGLAM focused less on activities that have been characteristic for previous years: workshops, webinars, capacity building beyond Wiki Loves Living Heritage.

Office & team

Administration & documentation. AvoinGLAM coordinator runs the activities. AvoinGLAM works mostly remotely, but has a base at URBAN3 premises at Maria01.
AvoinGLAM core meetings. AvoinGLAM is not incorporated, and OKFI functions as the fiscal sponsor. Currently the board activities have been conducted by a group of regular members, but the board of OKFI
Representation & participation. The coordinator will represent AvoinGLAM in various committee meetings. The volunteer members can additionally/alternatively represent AvoinGLAM.

Community activities

Community meetups AvoinGLAM contributes to promoting open access to cultural heritage in the global context, advocating in Finland with the Finnish community. We arrange a few meetups for the community to come together, in addition to programmatic activities.
Participating at events The coordinator will attend (online or in person) seminars, festivals, summits, or hackathons. We will support overall 5 in-person attendances at relevant events for community members.
Working groups The coordinator takes part in strategic or thematic community activities in Wikimedia, Creative Commons and others. Volunteer members are invited to join the activities.

AvoinGLAM at GLAM Wiki 2023

Going forward, AvoinGLAM is starting to establish governance practices to ensure stable operations. This includes more controlled strategic planning as well as better defined participation structures.

In GLAM Wiki 2023, AvoinGLAM presented altogether 5 different presentations from four presenters.