The number of small heritage institutions contributing to Wikimedia projects is relatively limited. This is often caused by a lack of knowledge on open data and a shortage of employees or volunteers to work on these projects. As a result, the material that is located in regional collections is not shared on Wikimedia platforms. Therefore, the gap between large national heritage institutions and the regional small heritage institutions is expanding. This poses a challenge to the inclusive policy of the Wikimedia movement.

To find a workable solution for this issue, Wikimedia Netherlands launched a collaboration with Erfgoed Gelderland, a provincial umbrella organisation for local cultural heritage institutions. This collaboration aims to provide 7 small heritage institutions with tools and knowledge to participate in different Wikimedia projects. Guidelines and manuals for small heritage institutions to work on the Wikimedia projects independently will be the main result. The lecture is an analysis of the project, indicating successes, weaknesses and learning points of working with small GLAMs. It proposes workable solutions for some of the issues that the project identified in working with small GLAMS. It also aims to indicate the differences in working with national, large heritage institutions and small heritage institutions and the advantages and disadvantages this brings.

Slides: https://wikimania2017.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lecture_small_GLAMs_without_notes_Wikimania_2017.pdf

This presentation aims at proposing a new evaluation criteria for GLAMs and GLAM-Wiki cooperation focussed specifically on knowledge.

On one hand, Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects are extremely visible and generative: the knowledge they provide can be considered a mainstream knowledge easily reachable (on Wikipedia and elsewhere thanks to the open license). If we explore Wikipedia knowledge gaps we can identify what is missing and what is not mainstream and easily reachable.

On the other hand, GLAMs preserve, produce and valorize knowledge. Their main role is not necessarily to reach the widest public, but to fulfill their mission which can be to preserve and exhibit the archive and production of a specific painter (for example for a museum or a foundation focussed on an artist), or to preserve the documents of a country (for national archives), or to educate and disseminate knowledge about nature and specific a territory (for example for natural science museums).

This presentation proposes to start GLAM-Wiki cooperation by exploring what is the mission of a GLAM in terms of knowledge. Which content does it own? is its focus general or does it have specialized collections? Once the knowledge focus of the GLAM is identified, it is possible to explore how this knowledge is already available on Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects: are the topics related to the GLAM already accessible? how is the quality of content available? are images provided? are sources reliable and complete? The GLAM-Wiki cooperation will be then based on the capacity of the GLAM of filling the knowledge gap and in making that before-after contribution visible.

Even if the new metric described in this presentation is simple, in reality it is an innovative approach which is not currently used either by GLAM-Wiki cooperation nor by GLAMs. Paradoxically GLAMs are often trapped into describing their work in terms of public and visibility (but – if these were the main objectives of GLAMs – preserving and valorizing culture is defiantly not the quickest way to increase public and visibility: offering free beer or organizing large scale events would definitely be a much more efficient approach). The Wikimedia projects and their extensive database provide not only the opportunity for GLAMs to contribute to the most visited encyclopedia and to free knowledge, but it create also a new way of evaluating their impact and work.

• For Wikimedias cooperating with GLAMs. The presentation aims at suggesting a new criteria to evaluate GLAM-Wiki cooperation based on the capacity of GLAMs to fill knowledge gaps. The proposal can provide a new metric which is more deeply related to the core objective of the Wikimedia projects and their goal to produce open knowledge. Furthermore the presentation provides information on a tool under development with the support of Wikimedia CH.
• For GLAMs. The presentation provides a new evaluation and impact system for the work of GLAMs which is made possible by the GLAM-Wiki cooperation and which can be included more largely in the evaluation process and report systems of GLAMs.