GLAM/Newsletter/March 2013/Contents/Spain report
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GLAM Activities in Spain
Expanding Paralympic GLAM efforts to Spain
From February 19th-28th, LauraHale and I attended the 2013 IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships celebrated at La Molina, Spain, thanks to media accreditation provided by the International Paralympic Committee after encouragement by the Comité Paralímpico Español (Spanish Paralympic Committee, CPE). These efforts were partially funded thanks to the Participation Support program. The main objective was to explore the possibility of developing the Australian Paralympic GLAM history project, which involved a partnership with one of Australia's most important sport library and an important cultural institution, on a global level by creating a case study for expanding this important GLAM work in Spain.
What we did
The daily schedule for the event was generally with the first run starting around 9:30 AM for events with two runs and 11:00am for events with one run. Preparing for each day, prior to the start of competition, we went to the press room located about a 15 minute walk from the hotel and a 10 minute walk from the event venue. While there, we collected the start list for the event, and discussed what news perspective we wanted to take and the skiers we needed pictures of. We also discussed what was happening with the press coordinator for the event. Then we attended the actual skiing, where we took pictures of skiers, talked to people around us, recorded some audio, took notes on what was happening, participated in activities in the press area at the end of the course, live tweeted what was happening and/or interviewed people. If there was a break in races, we headed back to the press room and got the results list for the first race. Following the race, we headed back to the press area where we uploaded pictures. On two separate days, one of us attended the awards ceremony. If there was a large volume of pictures taken, one of us went to the press room early to start processing pictures. We were generally in the press room area for two to four hours following each day of competition where we worked on Wikinews articles, improving relevant Wikipedia content or uploading pictures. On the 28th, we hosted a meetup in Barcelona (since weather in La Molina and access was terrible), and livetweeted it for remote interested people.
Weather was a factor: the cold heavily impacts the ability to do live Wikinews reporting and take pictures for Commons. You cannot take out a laptop and have wifi access where you can remotely update articles for Wikinews. You need to pay more attention to lens usage with a camera. Socializing and conducting on the spot interviews in the cold is more difficult. Additional specialized clothing needs to be acquired, packed in luggage and worn in the cold temperatures. The clothing then needs to be addressed when going inside to report. It is also important to be very aware of the schedule for the event so you do not miss opportunities to share media on Commons for use on Wikipedia and Wikinews, and so the opportunity to cover a topic from a different and original news perspective is not missed on Wikinews. We must thank the communities of both English and Spanish Wikinews for their support reviewing and publishing articles: without this, news might have gone stale at the rapid pace we were producing them.
While in La Molina, there were several important conversations held for a period of five or more minutes specifically discussing the Winter Paralympic sport efforts on Wikimedia projects. They include a conversation with a New Zealand Paralympic Committee coach where we talked about the interview with Adam Hall in Colorado and how the coach had read some of the Australian reporting from London Paralympics. Thanks to a chance encounter we took advantage of, we also had a conversation with IPC President Sir Philip Craven (none other!) where we briefly mentioned Australian project, a desire to expand these GLAM efforts to Spain, and how Wikipedia articles in this topic area are reliable because of the rigorous sourcing taking place. Other notable conversations held were with CPE Chef-de-mission where we talked about work done in Australia and desire to replicate it in Spain, a conversation with a USA Paralympic skier where we talked about interviewing people in Colorado and how Wikimedians interviewing people is great experience for everyone to gain more relevant experience in area of expertise, a conversation with es:Irene Villa following the interview where we discussed Wikipedia, the value of using Wikipedia and Wikinews to promote disability and women's sport, a conversation with a French photographer about the work done in London, copyright issues on Commons, and the value of Wikipedia classification articles in understanding Paralympic sport, and continuous interaction with CPE officials.
Impact
Thanks to being able to participate in this event, we were able to increase the quality of content as follows:
- 20 English Wikinews articles published about the 2013 IPC Alpine Skiing World Championships.
- 3 Spanish Wikinews articles published.[1][2][3]
- Articles created or updated on English and Spanish Wikipedia about every notable Spanish competitor at the 2013 IPC Alpine World Championships.
- 16 English Wikipedia articles created about Spanish Paralympic sport and Spanish disability skiers.[4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]
- 10 Spanish Wikipedia articles created about the Paralympic movement in general, para-alpine skiing and Spanish disability skiers.
- 10 English Wikipedia DYKs between 16 and 28 February.[20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29]
- Several articles about Para-alpine skiing classification on English Wikipedia elevated to Good Articles.
- On Spanish Wikipedia, created a number of articles focusing on general Paralympic sport, para-alpine skiing and Spanish disability skiers. Articles created include es:Esquí alpino paralímpico, es:Clasificaciones paralímpicas de esquí alpino, es:B2 (clasificación), es:LW1, es:Ludwig Guttmann, es:Jon Santacana, es:Gabriel Gorce, es:Miguel Galindo Garcés, es:Úrsula Pueyo, and es:Nathalie Carpanedo. Every notable Spanish competitor at the event now has a Spanish language Wikipedia article. es:Clasificaciones paralímpicas de esquí alpino is being prepped for future nomination as a Good Article.
- 477 pieces of media were uploaded to Commons related to the IPC Alpine World Championships. This includes at least five audio files and ten video files. It includes pictures or video of 101 different para-alpine skiers from at least 15 different countries. It is highly probable that many of the skiers photographed will be competing at the 2014 Sochi Paralympics. This creates a ready to use selection of freely licenced media that will not be easily available at the Games themselves.[30][31]
- Pictures of 24 skiers taken at La Molina were used on 11 different language Wikipedias including English, Spanish, Basque, Catalan, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish and Swedish. The skiers represented come from several different countries including Austria, Canada, Spain, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Switzerland, Slovakia and the United States. The average skier photographed at the event has 5.8 pictures of them on Commons.
- Two interviews conducted for English Wikinews, including one with a high profile Spanish personality (Irene Villa) who participates in the sport.
- IPC Alpine engaging reporters on Twitter.
- Experience gained on English and Spanish Wikinews for doing bilingual interviews by a member of the Spanish speaking community.
- Multiple conversations held with various people about Wikimedia volunteer efforts to improve Winter Paralympic content. This included people inside the IPC, the CPE, media, skiers and locals in La Molina.
- Produced more Wikinews and Wikipedia content, and shared more pictures than traditional media, which excludes Olympic specific news sites and NPCs.
- Wikinews coverage of some skiers was the only media coverage they received during and for their participation in the competition. Examples include Ralph Green and Christopher Devlin-Young of the United States, Mitchell Gourley of Australia, Corey Peters of New Zealand, and Laura Valeanu of Romania.
- Videos of several skiers were included on relevant classification article on English Wikipedia in order to better illustrate what these classifications mean in practice. These can be found on en:LW2 (classification), en:LW6/8, en:LW9, en:LW11, en:LW12, en:B2 (classification), and en:B3 (classification).
All in all, it was a stressful, wonderful, worth-every-minute-of-it experience, and we hope it leads to more collaborative opportunities with the Spanish Paralympic Committee and other GLAMs in Spain including sport specific museums!
2 new Wikipedians in Residence in Catalonia
During March, 2 new Wikipedians in Residence where announced in Catalonia. The first one, a boy at the History Museum in Catalonia and the second one at the Jaume Morera Art Museum in Lleida.
History Museum of Catalonia
Galazan, a historian and member of Amical Viquipèdia, is the brand new Wikipedian in Residence at the History Museum of Catalonia, the reference to know our closer Catalan history. Galazan, 29, has a degree in History from the University of Barcelona and is currently studying a Master in Cultural and Natural Heritage management. He frequently edits on Catalan Wikipedia since September 2005, centered in various subjects of social sciences, particularly on his professional insurance. As a Wikipedian in Residence his goal is to "train" museum staff to edit the famous online encyclopedia. In this way the museum professionals will be able to improve content providing them with high quality references.
The task of the resident will be establishing a relationship between the History Museum of Catalonia and the Catalan Wikipedia community through a range of activities, both internal and open to the public. One of the most important will be to expand and improve the quality of the encyclopedia articles related to our War of Succession and 1714. He plans to do some workshops with museum staff to teach them how to edit Wikipedia and solve typical newbie issues. In addition, the museum hosts and manages a network of Catalan Monuments. Other contents of the museum as highlights of its collection and its photographic collections are also some of the goals of the project. We will keep you informed!
Museu d'Art Jaume Morera
ESM, an Art historian and member of Amical Viquipèdia, is now be the Wikipedian in Residence at the Jaume Morera Art Museum in Lleida, a little museum of XIXth century Catalan paintings. ESM frequently edits on Catalan Wikipedia since September 2011, and she is specialized in art topics. She has co-led the Viquimodernisme project, with user Kippelboy, where a research group on contemporary design and art history — Universitat de Barcelona’s GRACMON — and around 100 art history students at the same university have made a combined effort to improve Catalan Wikipedia's content related to their area of expertise, Catalan modernism.
She will be centered to improve the presence of list of Lleida local artists, building a mid-term a relationship between the museum and the local community of editors. She will work also with other institutions like the Lleida University and with the public library, in order to boost the network of local GLAMs and promoting that they start to work closer together, with Wikipedia and its sister projects as the working area.
Edit-a-thon at the Maritime Museum in Barcelona
On March 16 we did an edit-a-thon at the Barcelona Royal Shipyards. Since a recent research, new discoveries have been done on this huge civil building of the gothic period. 20 people attended, with a big percentage of newbies, in order to update the information on several Wikipedias (Catalan, English, French, Italian and Spanish). We also celebrated Catalan Wikipedia's 12th anniversary.
Wikipedia workshop at Valladolid Science Museum
After the first contact in order to make Valladolid Science Museum a QRpedia museum, we continued our collaboration with a Wikipedia workshop in the auditorium of the Museum.
Forty people attended to the event, where they were introduced about Wikipedia's community, different roles of Wikipedians and, the most important, how to edit and start an article in the encyclopedia.
Wikipedia workshop at Puigcerdà local library
Following our collaboration with the Public libraries network of Catalonia on march 18 we did a Wikipedia workshop on the little mountain town of Puigcerdà, which is placed 10 km away from the French border. 20 people attended.
