GLAM/Newsletter/June 2017/Contents/Basque Country report

This Month in GLAM – Volume VII, Issue VI, June 2017

Basque Country report

Idazlezainak: librarians as writers' curators

Liburuzainak: taking care of writers

WikiLibraries-Idazlezainak 2017 project in Donostia, short version.

The Basque name for librarian is Liburuzaina, which literally means “book curator”. With a little word play we have created Idazlezainak, which literally means “writer’s curator”, the person who takes care of writers. The idea of this project is quite simple: to gather a group of librarians in order to create or improve articles in Wikipedia and other sister projects about basque creators. A group of 15 librarians are working in Donostia in this project and are gathering every Friday to edit about writers, books, illustrators, translators...Basque living heritage.

A Wikimedian in Residence for the writer's voices

Leire Cano started working as Wikimedian in Residence in March 2017 and she will be there until December. Her mission was to get free license for a number of book covers, images… and especially, get in contact with writers in order to interview them, record their voices, record them reading pieces of tales. Many Basque writers have already passed by the library which means an important milestone for the library itself.

The Catalan connection

Basque → Spanish → Catalan → Spanish → Basque

Basque and Catalan librarians are working together to showcase their writers. It is a double direction translation contest which uses Spanish as a bridge language. 25 for 25 authors whose work has been translated into Basque or Catalan, but whose Wikipedia articles do not exist in the other language. The process is quite easy: articles on Basque authors will be created and completed by Basque librarians, translated into Spanish, as their are bilingual. Catalan librarians will take those articles and will translate them into Catalan. Alternatively, Catalan librarians will create and draw up articles on Catalan writers, and translate them into Spanish in order to have Basque librarians translate them into Basque.

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