Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.
Open Wiki GLAM of Serbia (Serbian: Отворени вики пројекат ГЛАМ Србије) is a project intended for galleries, libraries, archives and museums on the territory of Serbia, with the desire to develop two-way cooperation in creating and improving access to cultural and historical treasures of our land on the Internet.
In cooperation with the Register of National Internet Domain Names of Serbia, Wikimedia Foundation, Youth Center of Belgrade and EUnet, Wikimedia Serbia organized conference Open Wiki GLAM of Serbia, which took place on February 24, 2012 in Youth Center of Belgrade
Our lecturers and guests from several foundations and cultural institutions talked about the following topics:
Ways of protecting intellectual property on the Internet and Creative Commons licenses
Importance of having cultural heritage on the Internet and ways of their presentation
Wikimedia projects as a platform for dissemination of free content and information
Wikimedia projects as a means of communication, information and education
Digitization technology of QR codes and their application in GLAM institutions
The second part of this project is starting an Internet portal with a .rs top level domain that will provide information about CC licenses, ways of protecting intellectual property on the Internet and examples of completed projects with the same or similar institutions. http://glam.wikimedia.rs (in EN)
The representatives of Wikimedia Serbia organized a conference on February 24, 2012 named Open Wiki GLAM of Serbia, as a part of a project of the same name, intended for GLAM institutions. With the goal of promoting Wikimedia projects and developing cooperation between Wikimedia chapters, the event, held in Belgrade, gathered about 70 representatives of libraries, archives, museums, galleries, foundations, state institutions and organizations. Beside the presentation by the hosts, the conference program included lectures by special guests from India, Italy, France and Czech Republic, who shared their knowledge and experiences with the audience.
The audience had the pleasure to see presentations by the director of Ebart media archive, Velimir Ćurgus, and the director of the digital library Rastko, Zoran Stefanović.
Conference program was divided into six parts, which are further explained.
Wikimedia Foundation is, according to the latest top list by The Global Journal, among 100 best organizations in the world. Although Wikipedia is one of the most visited sites on the web, many people don't know how Wikimedia projects work and how they can be used correctly. That is why Wikimedia Serbia thought that the conference should start with the success story of Wikimedia projects, with a special glance on Wikipedia, as the most successful project of Wikimedia Foundation.
All projects have been presented, with their purposes explained. Participants were able to see the projects' development and success statistics, and get acquainted with their uses in schools, education and communication.
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Ways of protecting intellectual property on the Internet and Creative Commons licenses
In her bilingual Serbian-English presentation "Digital rights, Creative Commons licenses and Knowledge Society", Nevenka Antic, lawyer from Belgrade, Wikimedian, Wikipedian and Creative Commons Serbia Legal Project Lead, briefly explained the legal context of the Open Wiki GLAM project with examples of best practices as well as the legal nature of the Creative Commons licenses and their role in Knowledge Society building and improving. This presentation started with an introduction to crucial terms of copyright. Than, it raised the issue explaining copyright function, protection and limitations, and how it deals with human rights and public interest through legislation and everyday practice. To raise it completed, it explained the legal position of Cultural Heritage Institutions and their role in realization of public interest. At the end, it explained the nature of the Creative Commons licenses comparing at the same time their advantages with traditional methods of transfer of copyright ownership and illustrated some examples of successful Open GLAM practices.
One of the special guests of the conference was Zoran Stefanovic, director of the Rastko digital library. The presentation began with the story of the Electronic library of Serbian culture, a project that has emerged in the mid 90s of last century. A pioneer in this field, as one of the few digital base in this part of Europe, it quickly became synonymous for an archive of digitized works of Yugoslav and Serbian literature. The social circumstances that have occurred in this region greatly influenced the development of cultural digitization. Zoran mentioned temporary stagnation of the project in the first years of the new millennium, and its rapid recovery efforts to continue with its mission. Also mentioned is the link between Wikimedia projects and project Rastko, and the possibilities for mutual cooperation with Wikimedia.
Wikisource has been presented. It highlighted Wikisource content should be free and accessible. In particular, it compared Wikisource's textual relation with photos of other digital content resources. The interface of Wikisource for the use or re-use has been elaborated. Finally, it presented links between Wikisource and other Wikimedia's projects.
The auditors have been especially interested in Wikisource's metadata issues.
Following preceding sessions, this-one addressed the direct implementation of wiki projects in GLAM institutions' practice using of QR codes. The history of evaluation of these codes with a related video of their function in everyday life has been presented. It also presented QR-pedia website as well as its functions.
Than it mentioned best practices such as museums and galleries located in Derby and Indianapolis. These examples made the session completed.
See successful QR codes practices in Derby and Indianapolis.
Adrienne Alix speak about the history of GLAM projects in France and made a focus on threee parnterships : the French National Library, that gave more than 1500 digitized books to the French Wikisource (about 50,000 pages). The idea of this partnership was to observe the methods of collaborative work on Wikisource. This was our first major partnership with a cultural institution and served also to test our own methods, with successes and difficulties.
The second project was the partnership with the City of Toulouse, a global partnership signed by the mayor, which allow us to contact all the cultural institutions to make projects as they - and we want. A very rich experience, that has started two years ago and continue to grow every day.
The third project is the "Wikimedia in residence" in the Palace of Versailles, our first experience of residence, during 6 months, in the most important palace in France. An occasion to explain the Wikimedia projects for all the staff of the Palace and facilitate photography and contribution in collaboration with the staff by the contributors.
Then she explained the principles of GLAM partnerships in France: openness, consideration of issues of museums, experimentation
Success story from Wikimedia Czech Republic: Aktron
Wikimedia Czech Republic is a small Wikimedia Chapter. Therefore it can't show success of the very same league like the WM FR or WM DE can. Aktron spoke about Czech GLAM and cooperation with small and large institutions. Members of the GLAM group successfully started to cooperate with several institutions, mostly smaller ones, but negotiations with those on national level are also proceeding. Aktron spoke about some basic ways how GLAM insitution can help us and what can they get by return. He especially pointed out the Probošt's mechanical Christmas crib in Třebechovice pod Orebem, an object currently in a museum which is deeply interested in cooperation with Wikimedia Czech Republic.
Aktron spoke about ways how GLAM institutions can and do cooperate with Wikimedia. They can provide us with free media (and museums have lots of them), or they can help us to improve Wikipedia articles, or help us to improve our project by giving us a piece of code or offer us partnership in their own project (Polytématický strukturovaný heslář). Some insitutions can offer us their own publications that can be used by devoted wikipedians when writing articles about important topics. And when it comes to photographies - already mentioned - Wikimedia Czech Republic and Czech GLAM succeeded to gain a certain number of unique illustrations: ranging from Probošt's mechanical Christmas crib in Třebechovice pod Orebem to Malostranský archiv Jaroslava Fragnera (Czech architect) or an archive of Czech composer, Bohuslav Martinů.
The second day of the GLAM conference, Wikimedia Serbia organized an internal meeting. The event took place at EUnet bringing together members of Wikimedia Serbia and their guests from India, Macedonia, Italy, France, Hungary and Czech Republic to discuss the GLAM issues.
Wikimedia Serbia prepared questionnaires to be filled in by guests in order to elaborate the conference in details and evaluate its results. The results were positive, mostly and participants continued exchanging opinions and experiences regarding the relationship with the Institutions.
The current practice has been presented and the future cooperation has been discussed. All the participants pointed out the interest of the Institutions is crucial for achieving desired effects. The method of the first successful GLAM action has been especially discussed.
The meeting ended with the conclusions of representatives from Hungary and Macedonia, whom this was one of the first steps in introducing with GLAM Wiki programs.
Many media houses attended the conference. Apart from Serbian media, there were mentions of the conference on some Croatian, Bosnian and Macedonian websites.
Hadzi Ljubisa Gvoic, Belgrade's journalist and user of free wiki content, sent a letter to the conference audience to highlight today's importance of free content for educational and media purposes. Also, he suggested to form a special place - Wikiland to bring together Wikimedians from Serbia and host wiki events in the future, and noted that wiki projects always offer new interesting content that can not be found for free within searching other available e-resources.
Adrienne Alix (Serein) attended the GLAM-Wiki conference organized by Wikimedia Serbia in Belgrade on the 24 and 25 February. Her report is as follows.
On Friday, February 24 was held in Belgrade, Serbia, the first GLAM conference organized by Wikimedia Serbia. Wikimedians interested in GLAM projects from all over the world came to support Wikimedia Serbia and share their experiences in the event. Jan from Czech Republic, Orsolya from Wikimedia Hungary, Cristina from Lettera27 (the Italian foundation that supports WikiAfrica), Noopur from Wikimedia India, Kiril from Wikimedia Macedonia and me from Wikimédia France.
The conference was aimed at Serbian cultural institutions, to encourage them to work with Wikimedia Serbia to open their content and participate in the Wikimedia projects. There was obviously some heads of Serbian institutions in the hall, but also students. The conference was mainly in Serbian, but the presentations of the Wikimedian guests were predominantly in English.
The whole GLAM theme was covered: Mile Kiš, Serbian Wikimedian and organizer of the conference, began by explaining the organization of the Wikimedia movement, the actions of GLAM projects and why it is important for the diffusion of culture.
Nevenka Antić, representative of Creative Commons in Serbia, then explained the functioning of the Creative Commons licenses and their importance in the dissemination of knowledge.
The conference continued with the presentation of the Gutenberg project and the Ratsko Project by its director, Zoran Stefanovic. Both projects, pioneers of book digitization (Project Gutenberg was founded in 1971, the project Ratsko in 1997), show the importance of digitization for preservation and promotion of our historic and cultural heritage. Nikola Smolenski, long time Wikimedian, then presented the functioning of Wikisource and Mile Kiš demonstrated the QRPpedia project and how it was used, for example at Derby Museum (UK) to improve the visits.
The last part of the conference focused on feedback from abroad. Noopur form India explained how works the coordination between wikimedians of a country so vast as India, and that events and local projects were the key to the success of the first projects of the indian chapter. Cristina from Lettera27 presented the WikiAfrica project, wich aims to release cultural content by cultural institutions focusing on Africa, and to encourage the creation of encyclopedic content about Africa. Jan Loužek from Czech Republic explained the situation of the GLAM projects in his country, and Adrienne recalled the history of GLAM projects in France and made a focus on three partnerships: the French National Library, the Palace of Versailles and the city of Toulouse, and explain how we operate.
The conference was well organized with a very friendly atmosphere. The small number of Wikimedians was welcomed with great hospitality by the Serbs and relationships were forged that will be surely successful between us.
On Saturday, we spent time together for a debriefing conference about the day before, to make a point on things that had worked and worked less. Then we talked about the ways to initiate and monitor GLAM projects, sharing our experiences. (And after that go to the stop-ACTA protest in the main place of Belgrade!)
These two days, punctuated by parties and good understanding between all of us, will be obviously successful and Mile has quickly announced that he was contacted by institutions to discuss common projects!
A special thank to Mile for the perfect organization, for Milos (the best guide for a visit in Belgrade), and to all the wonderful Serbian Wikimedians!
Czech Republic report: Serbian Conference
Participants of the discussion on the GLAM cooperation at the Serbian conference
Aktron took part in the Serbian GLAM conference, held in Belgrade between 24 and 25 February 2012. He presented here information about the Czech GLAM in the Serbian language (see the online presentation in English) and also took part in most of the conference events. He met not only Serbians Wikimedians and cultural institution employees, but also Wikimedians from France and India, thanks to which he could bring back a lot of valuable knowledge and important experience and present it to Czech GLAM members. We thank him for his report.
Noopur Raval from India: Open GLAM Serbia conference report
Dear all,
This is a slightly belated update of my experience at the Open GLAM conference in Serbia on 24-25th February. Held in Belgrade, the conference was one of the best events I've attended in terms of hospitality. I had a great time and thank the organizers WM-Serbia for taking special care of all of us.
Highlights:
Regarding the conference, although it was more concentrated on local language programs, we had a few sessions in English where all of us presented on perspectives and on going GLAM projects in our respective countries. One of the key questions of the Serbian community was how to kick start their first project. During the internal meeting on the second day we discussed these questions in detail. I presented on the role of outreach as crucial to GLAM developments and how a systematic approach is needed while working with or contacting GLAMs in bureaucratic setups. We've learnt that many institutions are already approaching them for talks.
It was great to hear Adrienne and Cristina talk about their projects which concentrated on a variety of things including minor language communities, institutional collaborations in WikiAfrica, training for GLAM volunteers. We had wonderful conversations with Mile, Milos and Philip about their own community, how things are working, the need for more volunteers.
You can find my presentation at the conference Wiki on Outreach and I have pledged full support and help in terms of documentation, sharing best practices and community building tips. Just to make a link to the Amsterdam GLAMcamp, we realized that only reaching out to cultural institutions and getting them to understand how GLAM works maybe a one time challenge, but it is essential to maintain community support and interest if we want to deliver results. There were presentations by Orsoya, Jan and talks with Kirill, hopefully summaries and translations of which exist on the wiki.
A big thanks to Asaf for facilitating things, Mile and Ivan for impeccable hospitality and warmth, and all my fellow participants for the stories shared over Rakija. :)
Positive journalist reviews are a clear indicator of good acceptance of possible cooperation. Even during the conference, we got contacted by institutions which saw the possibility for cooperation. This trend continued in the days after the conference. Wikimedia Serbia is pleased with the accomplished results. However, the conference was only the first step towards informing and we need additional efforts in work with institutions.
» 24th February 2012 Main conference
» 25th February 2012. Internal meeting
