While GLAMCamp NYC finished on Sunday (Signpost coverage), the work initiated there will continue throughout the GLAM community.  Representatives from cultural institutions and Wikimedia chapters, as well as individuals, are working on several projects.  The projects concerning web badges for free culture allies, a metadata standard for use in the mass uploader/data ingestion tool, and the web analytics proposal are in particular seeking contributors and project managers; please comment at the coordination page to signal your interest.

Also available: the collaborative notes from Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and specifically for discussion of the Ambassadors program, the Point Of Entry project, the data ingestion tool, and the metrics/analytics proposal.

Thanks to the organizers and participants for a productive and illuminating weekend.

-Sumana Harihareswara
Volunteer Development Coordinator, Wikimedia Foundation

Today, several Wikimedians and representatives from galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM institutions) met in New York City to kick off GLAMCampNYC.  New York City’s public Science, Industry, and Business Library is hosting the event.

Liam Wyatt, the Wikimedia Foundation’s Cultural Partnerships Fellow (aka GLAM fellow), introduced two keynoters: Meg Bellinger, discussing open access at Yale, and Maarten Zeinstra, presenting the Europeana public domain calculator.  The conference continues through Sunday.  Participants are discussing and building the GLAM outreach wiki, writing documentation, sharing best practices, and building tools.

Developers at GLAMCamp are developing a data-munging tool, based on pywikipediabot, to aid in mass uploads (more details).  According to Wyatt, the most common requests from GLAM institutions are (1) mass upload of audiovisual media and (2) metrics, “easily exportable statistics based on analytics on a GLAM’s relationship with Wikimedia.”  The data-munging or data ingestion tool will aid in the import of metadata from large sets of files, thus speeding the difficult part of mass uploads.  Attendees will be hacking on it in sprints this weekend, starting 3pm-4:30pm UTC time tomorrow, Saturday the 21st. Join them in person (11am local time), or in #glamwiki on Freenode.

See notes from today’s general talks and discussion and from the discussion of the GLAM Ambassadors program, or follow #glamwiki and #glamcamp on Twitter and Identi.ca.

-Sumana Harihareswara
Volunteer Development Coordinator, Wikimedia Foundation

Last Thursday October 7th, more than one hundred Wikipedia editors, donors, and readers gathered in New York City for Inside the Globe, a celebration of the dynamic community that has helped build the world’s largest free-knowledge resource.

Wikipedia editor and Wikimedia Foundation fellowship recipient Steven Walling presented a talk regarding the identity and culture of the most involved editors, highlighting the motivations and methods behind their amazing accomplishments within the project. Founder Jimmy Wales also spoke about the enormous impact of Wikipedia and the importance of continued support.

Wikipedia is a truly collaborative project, with individuals each doing their part to provide everyone with free access to the sum of all knowledge. It was wonderful to be able to bring some of them together, and inspiring to know that there are many more out there all around the world. Thank you all for being a part of this community.

Many thanks to Ruth Ann and Bill Harnisch of The Harnisch Foundation for generously sponsoring this event.

Steven Ma, Community Department

Hi all,

I wanted to give our New York City Wikimedians a heads up for the following event, Wikis Take Manhattan, a scavenger hunt and free content photography contest aimed at illustrating Wikipedia and StreetsWiki articles covering sites and street features in Manhattan and across the five boroughs of New York City. The event is based on last year’s hugely successful Wikipedia Takes Manhattan, and the event organizers have evolved it to include StreetsWiki this year.

Participants begin the hunt from one of two locations: Columbia University (at the sundial on college walk) and one at The Open Planning Project’s West Village office:

349 W. 12th St. #3
Between Greenwich & Washington Streets
By the 14th St./8th Ave. ACE/L stop

Cary Bass,
Volunteer Coordinator

Update!: Interested parties can join the Wikimedia NYC email list at Wikimedia NYC.