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Grants:Project/Rapid/Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton/Pilot project at Geoscience Museum

< Grants:Project‎ | Rapid
statusNot funded
Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton/Pilot project at Geoscience Museum
Pilot project at Geoscience Museum USP, the idea is to run a pilot project to understand all the challenges will be necessary to face to digitalise the whole museum. In this process, I'll already photography all possible holotypes and meteorites that my equipment can handle. This collections are the most important of the museum.
targetWikidata and Wikimedia Commons
start date15 Jun
end date15 September
budget (local currency)7'000.00
budget (USD)1'762.47
grant typeindividual
grantee• R.T.Argenton
contact(s)• rodrigo.argenton(_AT_)gmail.com


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Background edit

About the situation of Brazilians museum (especially university museums)

Brazil is a third world country, and museums are not a priority, for that reason it's quite common to see thefts (i.e. São Paulo Museum of Art#Theft (2007), Museu da Chácara do Céu (2006)), fires (i.e. National Museum of Brazil#2018 fire, Instituto Butantan#2010 fire), floods (Museu Casa do Pontal (2016)) ...

And the new federal government (2019-) already cut 30% of the investments in universities (some light about this question), all the biggest universities in Brazil, including USP, are public schools, and almost all the biggest museums are under a public university administration. They also cut scholarships [1], that maintain most of the museum researchers, and students, that make the museum engine keep going...

As a result, some museums will close (as some hospitals), and digitalisation that was already costly for them, will be impossible to accomplish. In this catastrophic scenario, any digitalisation initiate could be the only register of items, so it's utterly important to have this serious digitalisation projects running in Brazil, especially now.

The Museum

The Museu de Geociências do Instituto de Geociências da USP, or Geoscience Museum of the Geoscience Institute of the University of Sao Paulo (USP), is a public museum that belongs to the USP located in the Cidade Universitária Armando de Salles Oliveira ("University city").

The museum today have more than 5'000 items in permanent exhibition. The collection of the museum includes holotypes of minerals, some rare gems, one of the largest Brazilian meteorite, a great collection of rocks and minerals.

  • some photos took by students in a educational project
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About me

I'm here since 2006, having contribute with a lot of online and offline activities. More recently with GLAM projects, including the digitalisation of a Mathematic museum, where by myself I photograph almost all items of the museum:

Project Goal edit

Establish a pilot project at Geoscience Museum USP, the idea is to run a pilot project to understand all the challenges that will be necessary to face to digitalise the whole museum.

In this process, I'll already photography all possible holotypes and meteorites that my equipment can handle. This two collections are the most important of the museum.

The pilot also will be a step to future works with the museum so the final goals are:

  1. The priority in this pilot is establish an ongoing set of activities with Geoscience Museum USP, such as educational programmes, edit-a-thons, photo walks, courses, in order to focus on improving content around their knowledge trough the whole Wikimedia Movement spreading it for the Humankind;
  2. Improve the methodology of activities with partnership, including digitalisation, courses, workshops;
  3. Bring high educational value images unpublished at Wikimedia Movement and inaccessible for most Brazilians.

Project Plan edit

Activities edit

Tell us how you'll carry out your project. What will you and other organizers spend your time doing?

  • Only me (5 hours per day x 5 times per week between photographing and editing):Photography in all possible ways the whole holotype and meteorites collection, using the available material, even showing the current limitations;
  • Me and museum staffs:Upload all the already available pictures of the collection (photos took by the phone, just to have a record), this will help in the organization, and we could have already a record of this items.
  • Me and museum staffs: Start the organization of all metadata of all the items of the museum to be uploaded at Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata;
  • Museum staffs:Do a check up with the museum to see all important statements to be purposed at Wikidata to better describe a mineral, holotype, meteorite, gems;
  • Me:Check all the equipment necessary to photography all the items;
  • Me and museum staffs:Check between all ~12'000 items which of they are items to be digitalised, and brought to Wikimedia Movement;
  • Me and Wikimedia volunteers:At least one edit-a-thon at Museum about Wikidata;
  • Me and Wikimedia volunteers: Workshops about Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons, Mbabel, Pattypan, and other tools and communities to the museum staffs and others interested at the Geoscience college.

How will you let others in your community know about your project (please provide links to where relevant communities have been notified of your proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions)? Why are you targeting a specific audience?

What will you have done at the end of your project? How will you follow-up with people that are involved with your project?

At the final stage of this project, the idea is to have a structured project to digitalise the around ~12k items of this museum, also stablish a ongoing agenda of activities with the museum.

Impact edit

How will you know if the project is successful and you've met your goals? Please include the following targets and feel free to add more specific to your project:

Quantitative
  1. Upload at least 600 mobile photos of the items of the museum collection to Commons;
  2. Upload at least 30 photos in a very high quality to Commons;
  3. Create at least 30 new entries at Wikidata;
  4. improving at least 100 items at Wikidata;
  5. Also at least 5 new statements to better illustrate items at Wikidata.
Qualitative
  1. Be able to have a solid project at the end of this pilot;
  2. Make the museums staffs have enough ability to understand and help us in the path;
  3. Create a solid bridge between the Movement and the Museum;
  4. Understand all challenges and figure out all the possibilities to a solid project

Resources edit

What resources do you have? Include information on who is the organizing the project, what they will do, and if you will receive support from anywhere else (in-kind donations or additional funding).

I have access to a high-end camera with a macro lens, a lot of experience in specialised editions as this one, and a lot time at Wikimedia movement, including some GLAM activities, and workshops.
The director of the museum is directly connected with this project, and will provide two staffs to catalogue and provide the data needed.

What resources do you need? For your funding request, list bullet points for each expense:

Name Cost Justification
Transport (bus and train) and food ~3'000 BRL It's quite expansive go there, and eat at the campus, however I can't have the luxury to not eat around there, as it's a giant campus, and go outside and comeback will cost almost the same, and a lot of time to do it. The museum also is ~1h20min from my home.
Photographic material insurance ~3'000 BRL The campus is not a safe place to walk with equipment, especially in Brazil, where a camera can cost the same as brand new car. (due to the exchange and the 100% tax in importation of all photographic equipment), I'll use some bored material and my own equipment to run this pilot, it would be interested do not have a high stress of walk around with cameras without the insurance.
Other random stuff needed ~1000 BRL AA batteries for the flash, acrylic glass (as base to photograph), papers (also to photograph), MDF (to create rotational bases), some lamps...
Total 7'000 BRL


Endorsements edit

  •   Strong support The least one can say about the proponent is: he delivers! About the project: it will pay off. The previous GLAM-Wiki initiative Rodrigo Tetsuo Argenton has developed with the support of a RG has brought 327 images to Wikimedia Commons --most of them have received a quality or educational relevance recognition. These images are being used in 248 pages in 32 wikis [2]. It is also important to bring some context about Brazil here: Brazilian museums do not digitize by themselves --a recent study has indicated that less than 10% of museums in Brazil have at least one item from their collection digitized [3], basically because these institutions are just trying to survive, in circumstances in which they fear being shut down or destroyed by the government--, and if we want to bring content from the Global South to the projects and deal more systematically with decolonizing open knowledge, we must understand the reality an editor from the South deals with and support what he needs; what is needed for this project appears to be quite straightforward and justified. I appreciate you putting so much volunteer energy onto this work, Rodrigo. Thanks! --Joalpe (talk) 11:13, 16 May 2019 (UTC)
  •   Support This initiative will contribute to filling content gaps in the projects. The goal to work on several Wikimedia projects is definitely a plus. The expertise is there. --- Darwin Ahoy! 00:22, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
  •   Support Per above, Argenton works are wonderful and widespread on WM projects. Thanks for the initiative! Ixocactus (talk) 01:05, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
  •   Support I love Argenton's work! We desperately need his help. Tetizeraz (talk) 12:46, 1 June 2019 (UTC)
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