Wikimedia 2030/Transition/Reports/Advocacy and GLAM/December 2020/Group A Summary

The following report is part of the Advocacy and GLAM event report, and presents key points from the discussions in the first breakout room: Group A - Initiative 25: Regional and Thematic Hubs.

Group A video presentation by Anass - 12 December 2020

Discussed questions

• Main question:
  • What do we want to achieve in 18 months?
• Supporting question:
  • What are the immediate steps we need to take?

Discussion Details

• Initiative description: Enable the empowerment of local communities
• Facilitator: Anass Sedrati
• Notetaker: Kaarel Vaidla
• Participants: Anna Torres, Zita Zage, John Andersson, Faisal Ali, Camelia Boban, David Ramirez-Ordóñez, Liam Wyatt, Adel Nahaoua, Leo

Key Discussion Points

Summarized Points

• Interesting and rich discussion with many aspects regarding the hubs in general and specific aspect of GLAM
• Discussed including National Library Associations and libraries in the hubs, i.e. including “external” partners in hubs
• The distinction between regional and thematic hubs is essential to be made clear. This would help to consider the overlap between regional and thematic hubs.
• The function and definition of the concept of the hub is essential to define the roles and responsibilities.
• Discussion about how the work should proceed, i.e. do we need to list out all the models or would it be better to experiment first.
  • Regarding definition of the concept, e.g. what are the priority regions? What is the work?
  • There was an example of Wikimedia Sweden discussed. (see 9 action points below in the notes)
  • There was discussion also regarding the governance, staffing and relation to existing or created bodies, e.g. Global Council, Wikimedia Foundation, Board of Trustees. This would include definition of the connection to affiliates.
• The connection with the Global Council was discussed deeper and its possible role in coordinating the hubs.
• Inclusivity of the process with focusing on the underrepresented regions and supporting the creation of hubs in these regions.
• There was also the idea of a bottom-up approach where hubs can start as informal convenings of existing user groups.
• There was also the question of connecting the hubs to online communities. It was also discussed whether a hub needs to be physical or can also be an online space. The latter would probably better serve the online communities.

Detailed Notes

• Engage National Library Associations and National Libraries in the hub.
  • It is easier to go via library association to reach a more divers and bigger target group
  • There are local associations. There is also IFLA on the global level, but the national level seems to be more useful.
  • Basically heritage institutions.
  • Comment that library associations don’t usually have control over libraries.
  • At the same time there are at least librarians in these networks.
• In the recommendation there is a structure that differentiates regional and thematic hubs.
  • Thematic hub on GLAM would make sense, but GLAM means different things in different regions of the world.
  • How to provide support in this diverse context to GLAM work in different places.
    • E.g. in Argentina the collections are not digitized.
  • At the same time GLAM is a program that is run by many affiliates, so it would make sense to have a hub for this.
• The function of the hub needs to be defined.
  • Generally, hubs can identify the gaps and facilitate and coordinate the work.
  • In the coming 18 months we can define the needs of different stakeholders and what the hub would fill.
  • WMSE has thought about the technical aspect of the work. Maybe there need to be different hubs that can work on different aspects of the GLAM work.
• Regional hubs and thematic hubs would need resources
  • We need to define these resources.
  • Example of archives in Italy that lack space. They are sometimes burned, because there is a lack of space.
  • Probably it would make sense to have a Wikimedian in residence to document the work.
• Wikimedia Sweden is working on the GLAM hub and setting up the model.
  • Would it make sense to have other movement advisors around these specific hubs?
  • It is possible to have advice from different perspectives and establish a hub that functions for the whole movement.
  • Would it be possible to have the movement “intervene” in a more active way.
  • The idea has been on the table for some time now - maybe a committee or advisors from the movement could bring in the perspectives to ensure that it serves the whole movement.
• It is possible to discuss the hubs in general, but it makes sense to go into details of GLAM and Advocacy hubs.
• A general question regarding the hubs is how the hub structure is going to be designed overall.
  • Who will decide what hubs will we create? Is it the Interim Global Council, Global Council, Board of Trustees.
  • In 18 months there needs to be a clear list regarding the hubs that will be there, their function, thematics and location.
  • Identification of the hub needs to be defined beforehand
• It would be good to have a clear picture in 18 months, yet it would be good to have a pilot happening.
  • Hubs are established to serve the community.
  • There is no clear structure in mind. It can be different affiliates supporting each other etc.
  • Not every region might not need a regional hub. The structure can be really different depending on the context.
  • We need to start trying to see what works and what does not work. The recalculate.
• Will the hubs cover affiliates or not? It is important to create an understanding around that.
• Background of what Wikimedia Sweden is doing - how the organization can take a more international role.
  • The last 18 months the organization has been taking a “mental leap” on not working mainly nationally. Thought more about how to transform the things that the chapter is already doing.
  • As a result there have not been too many discussions outside, and things were delayed due to COVID-19.
  • Idea is to get to a concrete suggestion of what the hub could be and to get the practical work going to identify where the problems and costs are.
  • A risk is that if there is a clear list of things to do, semi-large affiliates would just pick the things from the list. If Wikimedia Sweden now focuses to be the GLAM hub, it might shift in the future based on needs and wants from other movement actors, e.g. the responsibilities might be shared between multiple actors. There needs to be a distribution of roles - there is plenty of work for everyone.
  • +1 from chat.
• Are regional and thematic hubs the same thing or different?
  • There might be a regional hub that has thematic hubs inside and it can be also the other way around.
  • This will depend on the scope of work, as it is not defined in the recommendations. It depends a lot on the context.
  • It is up to us to define how we go about them - it is possible to have programmatic coordination happening in a regional hub and it can be a thematic hub having regional advisory groups
  • We need to explore and experiment.
• In the future we imagine the Global Council doing the work of coordinating the hubs being established.
  • Setting up the Interim Global Council and Global Council will take some time. At the same time they are really important.
• Making the strategy process more inclusive regarding regional and thematic hubs is identifying the regions that need to be served better and what are the hubs to be established in these regions.
  • There needs to be regional conversations concerning the hubs as there have been regional strategy discussions.
  • At the end of it the facilitators would need to be able to put together the concept. If they feel they need the hub then they need to define how the hub will serve them
  • Then it would be possible to vote on the proposals.
  • Endorsement in the discussion - there needs to be a transparent discussion about the process and way forward.
• The top-down approach has been discussed. Initially it can be a regular meeting between regional user groups.
  • There are a lot of events going on and it would make sense to benefit from learning from each other and the best practices.
  • Suggestion would be to have bottom-up with forming loose associations - hub with whoever and at the later stage formalize them and have a process.
• The focus of the discussion has been in the offline part of the work. What is the connection to the online communities here? What would be the best approach here? Specific hub for online participants and dedicated part to online work?
  • This has its own complications as people do not want to disclose their identity.
  • It is important to understand whether the hubs would be a physical space or it could be anything.
  • For physical space data needs to be acquired, but for online space it is not necessary.
  • Online communities feel already disconnected from the recommendations, however many of the recommendations are well connected to the online communities, e.g. Universal Code of Conduct and also User Experience recommendations.
  • There is also a recommendation of the Technical Council that could potentially need hub support - it can be provided.
• When it comes to contextualization then offline hub or physical hub will work for the African community.
  • E.g. skill development is important in Africa. Many people have noted that they prefer the in-person training to online training in Africa.
  • +1 from the chat