Grants:TPS/Shyamal/Wikimania/2014/Report

Welcome back from Wikimania 2014!

Participant

Shyamal

English Wikipedia Commons

Outcome

Option 1: Shared Experience: What is one way you shared something from your experience with your community (either locally or globally), after the event?

Add a link here to a blog post or newsletter you wrote about your participation afterwards, or to a meet-up you organized to share your experience with your local community.

Option 2: Learning Pattern: What is one useful learning pattern you can share with the Wikimedia movement?

Some thoughts on conference venues - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:Learning_patterns/Conference_venues

Option 3: New Creation: What was one useful outcome that was created at the event for the Wikimedia movement?

Add a link to something new that was created as a result of your participation in this event (for example, you might link to a new tool that you and your co-participants worked on at the Hackathon, or to pages created in a workshop you participated in).

Connections

I have been especially interested in meeting librarians apart from actually visiting some libraries/archives in the UK (post Wikimania) - including the British Library, Natural History Museum, Zoological Society of London. A lunch meetup of several librarians was quite interesting and I found that most if them represented countries that had a system for public access. I believe that en:WP:RX is particularly valuable and found that very few librarians were aware of it. It certainly seems like a multi-language system that is a bit friendlier for librarians might be something worth thinking of.

Another informal meeting with some members of Wikimedia UK and the British Library seems to offer much, especially in relation to India-related content.

The late evening self-organized unconferences at the entrance of the Thistle Barbican, much to the displeasure of the hotel, were particularly useful in understanding the complexities, policies and politics.

Anything else

The Wikimania travel grant allowed me to visit the British Library, the library and archives of the Natural History Museum (at London and at Tring), the Zoological Society of London and I was also invited to speak at the South London Botanical Institute on the basis of my work on the English Wikipedia article on Allan Octavian Hume. Results from these research opportunities on Wikipedia and other media forthcoming.

http://muscicapa.blogspot.in/2014/10/an-artist-ahead-of-his-time.html