Wikipedians in Residence: Two Years of Open Culture

... “It was just under two years ago when Liam Wyatt proposed... that he serve as the ‘Wikipedian in Residence,’ a role that would allow him cultural institutions [to] share their knowledge with Wikipedia... the British Museum agreed. That basic premise has turned into a global movement known as GLAM-WIKI (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums). Today, the GLAM-WIKI community is made up of Wikimedians from around the world who work to establish models and best practices that help cultural institutions share their resources with Wikimedia... The concept of building a mutually beneficial cooperation is at the heart of the Wikipedian in Residence scheme. The main role of a resident is to serve as a liaison between the museum and Wikipedia... Following the British Museum, the Wikipedian in Residence trend began to spread [to]... The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis, ... Château de Versailles, Derby Museum and Art Gallery, and the Museu Picasso... the US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) and the Smithsonian Institution’s Archives of American Art. In July 2011, Daniel Mietchen became the Wikimedian in Residence on Open Science. Working with the Open Knowledge Foundation, this was the first residency to adapt the GLAM model to open science... Each residency has shown its own strength. At the Derby Museum, Roger Bamkin followed through on an idea to improve the multilingual capabilities of QR codes in exhibits. What resulted was QRpedia, a QR code-generating website that detects the language of the user’s phone and links to the Wikipedia article in that language. QRpedia has now been implemented in museums in the US and Europe and has been nominated for a Smart UK award. Dominic McDevitt-Parks, the Wikipedian in Residence at the NARA, has broken new ground in facilitating the digitization and transcription of primary source materials through Wikisource and Wikimedia Commons. NARA’s cooperation with Wikipedia has been strongly incorporated into their broad strategy of increasing digital accessibility to their holdings and has proven to be a point of pride for the Archivist of the United States, David Ferriero.”