Grants:Project/Rapid/Ambrosia10/NDF2021 Conference/Report
Goals
editDid you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went? Yes I believe I did meet my goals of at least 5 meaningful engagements with attendees at this GLAM conference. Despite the "in person" event having to rapidly transition to an "on line/virtual event", and the difficulties this entailed for establishing opportunities for private conversations, I was able to raise the awareness of the Wiki community within NZ with numerous attendees. I had conversations concerning the needs and desires of GLAM organisations wanting to engage with Wikipedia, Wikidata, WikiCommons and Wikisource. I believe I raised the awareness of how the Wikimedia community in New Zealand might be able to facilitate more engagement with the GLAM community. I was also able to make connections between specific attendees and New Zealand editors working in and running projects in areas where the two could collaborate.
Although I was disappointed that NDF22 was forced by the Omicron outbreak in New Zealand to transition to a virtual conference this did have an extremely bright side effect. As the virtual ticket price was significantly less than the full price I gained permission from the Wikimedia Rapid Grants folk to pass on two virtual tickets to two other New Zealand Wikipedia editors. Both Lisa Maule En:User:Pakoire - project coordinator of Wikipedia:WikiProject New Zealand/Pacific Arts Aotearoa, and one of the Wikipedian in Residence - Kasi Valu En:User:Friagatewayfinder attended the conference and were able to establish firmer links to the wider GLAM community. I see this as the most valuable outcome of being funded to engage with the NDF22 conference. Being able to facilitate introductions and well as encourage attendees to meet with both Lisa and Kasi has raised the profile of their mahi (work) and ensured that not only they can access resources held by GLAMs to further their project aims but also that GLAMs can also leverage off this to ensure their content and artists they treasure can be covered by that wonderful project.
Outcome
editPlease report on your original project targets. Please be sure to review and provide metrics required for Rapid Grants.
| Target outcome | Achieved outcome | Explanation |
| 5 - 10 meaningful engagements/conversations with GLAM organisations or representatives of the same concerning the potential or current Wiki related collaborations between GLAM organisations and Aotearoa New Zealand editors | I had what I would regard as at least 5 meaningful conversations with GLAM representative regarding various WikiProjects and the possibilities of further engagement and interaction with the same. | Some of the main conversations I undertook included:
|
| Undertake to tweet actively about the conference presentations attended to assist Wiki editors, particularly international editors who will be unable to physically attend, to participate via social media in the wider discussions concerning NDF21. | I did actively tweet during the conference and feel I did ensure other Wiki editors were able to at least be aware of the discussions taking place during NDF22. However my ability to do this was compromised as I was concurrently attempting to engage with attendees at the same time on the conference platform during the presentations. I tended to prioritise this latter effort in order to attempt to achieve my first target outcome. | This compromised outcome will hopefully be somewhat rectified when the recordings of the presentations are released onto Youtube in a month. There are certain presentations that I think will be of particular interest to the wider Wiki community including Mike Dickison's presentation on Wikimedia, GLAM + cultural heritage - the perfect combination!, James Taylor's presentation on GLAMs, Wikipedia and Aotearoa New Zealand's Histories and most importantly Harley Couper, Heritage Specialist, and Elisha Rolleston, Archivist and Researcher, Tauranga City Libraries presentation Whoops, I think we’re racist: Launching Pae Korokī, rethinking access, metadata, treaty partnerships, and the universe next door. This latter presentation was the highlight of the conference for me as it went into detail and gave a structure to how a GLAM is dealing with giving guidance on the reuse of culturally sensitive works. I and other Wikimedians at the conference have already brought this presentation to the attention of Liam Wyatt User:Wittylama as well as to other GLAM influencers such as Europeana's Douglas McCarthy and Dr. Andrea Wallace, Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of Exeter and OpenGLAM advocate. Once the presentation is available on Youtube I intend to ensure other interested parties are made aware of the presentation including other Wikimedians working in and with GLAMs. This presentation has already sparking much excitement and discussions amongst the NZ GLAM community on how to indicate appropriate reuse of culturally sensitive works including amongst our National Museum, the National Library and the National Archives employees. |
Learning
editProjects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:
- What worked well?
- What did not work so well?
- What would you do differently next time?
- What worked well:
- The ability to pass on two tickets to two other New Zealand editors was fabulous. It meant I could make introductions during the conference of Lisa, the project coordinator to GLAM folk I already knew and that I could support a relatively new editor to engage more with the GLAM community. I believe this will really assist both the Creative New Zealand funded Pacific Arts Aotearoa project gain wider awareness in the GLAM community and ensure that this awareness will result in greater collaboration between the members of that project and GLAMs in New Zealand. I am of the opinion that this resulting collaboration can assist the Wikipedian editors in residence, all of whom are of Pacifica decent, to become more embraced and supported by both the NZ GLAM and Wiki communities. I'm confident this will have a flow on effect both in ensuring content about Pacifica people is improved in various wiki projects but also in growing the number of Pacifica editors. Just attending the conference has had some wonderful networking flow on effects. For example although I was unable to make contact with Sarah Tassell - a newly appointed Te Papa (National Museum of New Zealand) Natural History Collections manager - during the conference, she has subsequently reached out to me to set up a meeting to discuss ways in which Te Papa can engage better with the Wikipedia and Wikidata biodiversity community. (This meeting did subsequently take place and assisted in ensuring I was able to assist with Te Papa's plans to undertaken more engagement with the Wiki community).
- What did not work so well?
- The changing of the conference to an online platform made my wider engagement with attendees a challenge. It is much easier to approach and discuss Wikiprojects and collaborations at an "in person" event when you can rely on other attendees to provide introductions and to suggest contacts. This challenge was somewhat mitigated by my ensuring that not only did I engaged with attendees on the conference virtual platform, responding to questions and discussions and in general encouraging engagement with me, but I also did the same on Twitter using the conference hashtag #NDF22. Because several of us Wikimedians attending the conference were keen to provide a more social platform to enable free ranging discussion, we also ran a meetup each morning tea, lunchtime and afternoon tea break on the Whereby platform. However, although many of us publicised this opportunity to meet both on the conference platform and on twitter, comparatively few attendees took the opportunity to engage with us on that platform. However those conference attendees that did so, gave us the opportunity to educate them about what we do, and ensured they were aware of the Aotearoa New Zealand user group and gave them particular people to make contact with should they wish to progress with their ideas for engagement with us.
- I also made a point of leaving messages on attendee "profiles" explaining particular WikiProjects that may be of interest to the attendee or to the GLAM they were representing and giving my details in an attempt to facilitate conversations. Unfortunately I only received one reply as a result of those messages.
- What would you do differently next time?
- I believe I did the best I could in encouraging the GLAM community to engage with me on the conference platform, via twitter and via the numerous meetups we held on the Whereby platform during the conference.
- I suspect the fact that it was such a quick turnaround from an in person event to an online event (it was only three weeks), and that it took attendees a while to familiarise themselves with the conference platform, had a significant dampening effect on attendee engagement with me during the conference. I am aware that although the GLAM conference attendees were attempting to attend the conference exclusively, many were also required to assist their GLAM organisations with planning for and managing the current Omicron outbreak. Wellington (the city where I and many of the attendees live) also had an extremely toxic and sometimes violent "anti vaccine mandate" protest taking place during the conference. This protest was on Parliament grounds and the surrounding streets, including on the premises of the National Library (where the original in person conference was intended to be held), and near the National Archives. This caused significant distress amongst the Wellington GLAM community and ensured that their appetite for anything other than pure conference attendance was reduced. What I would do differently next time is not attempt this type of engagement with stressed GLAM professionals while there is exponential growth of COVID cases in New Zealand for the first time and concurrently having the city where I and many of the attendees live and work suffer from an extremely toxic "protest".
Finances
editGrant funds spent
editPlease describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on. The funds forwarded to me by the Wikimedia foundation - NZ$745 - was all spend on an "in person" ticket to the conference. This ticket was transformed into three "virtual" conference tickets enabling myself, Lisa Maule and Kasi Valu to attend the conference after the conference was forced to become an online event as a result of the current Omicron outbreak in New Zealand.
Remaining funds
editDo you have any remaining grant funds? None.
Anything else
editAnything else you want to share about your project?
I have asked Lisa and Kasi to do a brief report back on their experiences at the conference.
Lisa Maule En:User:Pakoire reported back the following:
Summary – NDF Lisa Maule
Most of my work history has been in the performing arts sector which in New Zealand is made up of individual contractors and small organisations. For me attending the two-day online National Digital Forum gave me a greater sense of the GLAM sector. It connects strongly in the heritage work I do in Wikipedia, Wikidata and Wikimedia Commons, and to my other work as cultural producer. It was also insightful to attend an online conference, which I have not experienced before, it is likely I will help organise an online New Zealand WikiCon for later in the year, so this attendance was a good thing in common for a few of us to be discussed.
Notes The forum started with Courtney Johnston, the CE of Te Papa talking about staff in cultural museums understanding damage done over history through their colonial collections policies and curation, but their audiences mostly being unaware of this. At the end of the first day I saw the conversation reflected with a discussion between Seb Chan, (ACMI, Australia) and Honor Harger (Marina Bay Sands and Art Science Museum, Singapore). They were talking about the report Future of Arts & Culture, Drivers and Impacts for the Next Decade. Seb Chan from ACMI in Australia was describing a ‘collapse of trust in institutions’. Articulated was a stressor between the commercialisation of a big spectacular and ‘small stage’ events. In the report is this statement:
Arts and culture need to rethink its conception of “publics” as well as its role as a public good that can actively seed new futures. https://futureofartsandculture.org
Anna Fifield is the Editor of The Dominion Post and Stuff Wellington Newsroom. In her keynote speech she described the broader cultural shift that has been occurring in New Zealand that includes and honours Māori culture, people and traditions, including the use of Māori language words in media. This was in relation to an apology last year for 160 years of racism from her organisation.
Fifield made the point that editing, curating and programming are the same, as we ‘make the choice what is featured and the framing of it too. A new role for news media is that of the "explainer journalist", this to some extent is what Wikipedia does well in my opinion.
Details from other speakers and talks during the event included a lot of the ‘public good’ that is going on in the sector. Curators pushing museums to repatriate objects back to Indigenous communities and also people with their institutional knowledge (Glenda Taituhi), the rich way a Wikipedia article about a place can address the new schools curriculum in New Zealand for local based history that has been piloted by Auckland Museum, ways that data can positively affect people in a museum or on a website, either in an engaging presentation, through it’s participatory open nature or through being a conduit for access, such as the Digital Pacific project.
Significant bodies of work from the conference were two models of working from two different institutions. One was presented by Jacinta Paranihi-Anae from the New Zealand Government data department which is a model of working called Ngā Tikanga Pae. This model is used to inform data practice and its success has meant it is now used more widely and is replacing the previous model to guide safe and ethical use of government data. This model is very strongly framed with Mātuaranga Māori (Māori knowledge).
The other model Waka Hourua is from the Tauranga City Library. It came from work done to recognise and integrating Mātauranga Māori into the practices of Tauranga City Libraries, and is used with their online collections Pae Korokī. It includes an approach to licensing and meta data that will likely be adapted by other organisations because of the way it addresses the use and display of Māori items in the digital platform. The model includes and imbeds an analysis of "Pākehā culture" ("settlers" / white people / the government) which addresses the colonial history of New Zealand.
I have an idea to bring both these models forward for discussion with the New Zealand Wikipedia User group as we become an Incorporated Society and develop strategy and build our culture.
One of my takeaways from many of the conversations and topics is how important it is that Wikipedia articles reference and contextualise sources of information and also use current sources to avoid reflecting a racist tone. This has to happen as part of widening the ethnic diversity of editors which I feel is important for the ongoing validity of Wikipedia.
Other outcomes:
- Added the Digital Pacific website as a resource to the Pacific Arts Aotearoa project page, and reached out to the presenters for a follow up conversation.
- I connected with Clare Butler the Māori Digitisation Advisor at the National Library of New Zealand as a follow up to some questions that arose for me about the use of Māori data and ethics in connection to Wikidata and Wikipedia when I was working on the Performing Arts Aotearoa WikiProject.
- Meeting scheduled with Andy Fenton from NZME about software that might be applicable for an online project.
- Meeting scheduled about Wikipedia projects with James Taylor and his team from the Auckland War Memorial Museum Tamaki Paenga Hira. (James is the Online Collections Information and Partnerships Manager).
- I am now more understanding of digital access for hearing impaired and the language New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) through discussion in the sign language conference channel and the excellent advocacy by Te Papa and staff member Amos Mann and NZSL consultant Theresa Cooper in their presentation
Kasi Valu En:User:Friagatewayfinder communicated the following:
Attending the NDF22 conference was a privilege to access such wisdom from innovators and veterans within the field of data. As a wikipedian in residence, under the mentorship of Lisa Maule, for the Wikiproject New Zealand/Pacific arts Aotearoa, it was important to harvest the way leading statistic and data organisations collate and conserve data over a prolonged amount of time, especially for our indigenous and Pasifika communities. Having the opportunity to be privy to such knowledge but also connect with Pasifika leaders who are shifting our oral histories into the digital Vā (space), will be key to expanding my skills to uplift and increase the online content of our Pasifika artists. From the two day conference, I’ve been introduced to a series of national service providers that specialise in archival data and information regarding the histories of Pasifika peoples, but also the necessary urge to question, scrutinise and contest such recordings. I valued Jacinta Paranihi (Senior advisor at StatsNZ) regarding the way we must navigate the work of cataloguing information with culturally appropriate protocols. Highlighting the importance of not only what is collected as a product, but how one can better their processes to ensure the data is representative of the realities of Indigenous and Pasifika peoples, that have in the past been unjustly represented, and therefore are deeply affected by government policies that use data to create programmes and policies that do not serve the needs of marginalised communities. Overall I am grateful for this experience, as it will inform my practice within researching, but also encourage my own whānau and pasifika communities to engage with data in a more proactive sense, to better understand the ramifications of what a census is.