Wikipedia Phenomenon

It is undeniable that heritage and technology are closer day by day. Apps, games and a long etc. but when what is wished is to get opened to a wider audience (scholars, researchers, visitors, onlookers...) there is a perfect way: Wikipedia.

Since not so far a lot of museums have incorporate the position of the resident Wikepedian, which means a person dedicated to spill on Wikipedia all the information about the institution and its collections. Some of the Catalan museums that have opened their doors to the Wikipedian are the Museu de la Música, the Museu d’Història de Catalunya, the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya and the Biblioteca Museu Víctor Balaguer in Vilanova i la Geltrú.

Inside view of the Biblioteca Museu Víctor Balaguer. Source: Wikipedia

In this last museum is from the will of showing the collections, open it as if it was the museum database, with accurate information and high quality images. An excellent way of proving to the digital audience and the outlooker: look what a collection we have, we offer it to you, is yours!

When a museum propose to itself a challenge like that must know what is the purpose of it and how must the project be developed. In our case, when we met for the first time, it seemed like an unapproachable thing: all the museum's collection, with preference on the displayed works, upload the images being careful of the copyright, author profiles, artwork profiles... but fortunately we all took Nike's slogan: Impossible is nothing.

We divided the task and created various work methodologies on the go, and almost without realising at the beginning/mid-term of January we had already uploaded to Wikipedia all the artwork (painting and sculpture) displayed in the Museum: images at Wikimedia Commons, at the proper profiles, posts about the authors and posts about the artwork. Once achieved this purpose, we continued working actualizing the already existing posts: add bibliography, complement with quality images... As well as uploading some images from the storage.

Also, every Wikipedian has taken an individual challenge: to do a quality article, one totally trustful, with quality sources, a good redaction and a list of parameters, which must be presented for its aproval.

The Nesi mummy has been the quality article shared between the 3 Wikipedian. Besides each one has done an individual one.

A part from all this it must be said how spectacular it is to keep watching the results. As a bit of a taste:

Defense of the Artillery Park of Monteleón Defense of the Artillery Park of Monteleón Image positions (museum images have been used in about 480 different articles and in various languages) and in approximately three months there has been an average of 175.000 monthly views of images of the collection artwork! Besides the succes of Joaquín Sorolla's painting Defense of the Artillery Park of Monteleón. Only in Desember it had a total of 78.000 views.

And this is the project in which I have been working almost five month: working for the collection of the Biblioteca Museu Víctor Balaguer of Vilanova i la Geltrú to be accessible from every corner of the world. And the best of it, as part of a team, as we are three resident Wikipedians in the museum: Marina Padilla, Elisenda Almirall and myself.

Among us and the other resident Wikipedians, as with other people related to the phenomenon, there is a collaborative link and a networking that is, perhaps, the future of working in culture.

Screenshot of the edition process at Wikipedia

Montse Medina

@montsemedina_

For more information:

Post in Catalan Wikipedia about the Wikiproject of the Biblioteca Museu Víctor Balaguer.

 Collections Online: motto and aim. Let's do it with 3 Wikipedians in Residence at a time. Article about the singularity of being three Wikipedian workers