Education/News/April 2023/Auckland Museum Alliance fund project update
Auckland Museum Alliance fund project update
Summary: An update on Auckland Museum's alliance-funded project Understanding our past: using Wikipedia as a tool to support local history in Tāmaki Makaurau
Work has continued over the past couple of months on Auckland Museum's project Understanding our Past: using Wikipedia as a tool to support local history in Tāmaki Makaurau, focusing on updating Auckland's local history and suburb pages so they can be used as resources for teaching the new Aotearoa NZ Histories Curriculum.
Wikipedia enhancement & creation:
From January to February this year we managed to get our West Auckland article improved to GA status, improved four suburb articles (Mount Roskill, Wesley, Waikowhai, and Lynfield), and improved/created fifteen articles on natural features such as Whangateau Harbour, and French Bay / Otitori Bay, major streets in Auckland (including Khyber Pass Road and Customs Street), and major local landmarks including Hoani Waititi Marae, and St Andrew's First Presbyterian Church.
In March we worked on six newly improved articles on central-west Auckland, including Mount Albert and St Lukes, and a new article for Te Atatū Peninsula. In addition to these, twelve locations within Auckland have new (or greatly expanded) pages, including many of the features of the South Auckland volcanic field, such as Pukekohe Hill and Pukekiwiriki, which are older less visible, compared to their more prominent counterparts in the Auckland volcanic field to the north.
Community engagement:
In March the Museum's Wikimedian in Residence attended the Wellington Wikicon, where he led a session on this project and also participated in discussions on GLAM Institutions and Wikipedia, and Wikidata.
We have also been hosting monthly Wikipedia meet-ups, both online and on-site at the museum, and preparations are underway for a jointly hosted Women in Architecture edit-a-thon, to be held at the Museum on 20 May.