Grants:PEG/WMPL/Ethnography of the Carpathians/Interim report

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Interim report accepted
This interim report for a Project and Event Grant has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.



Project status[edit]

Are you complying with the requirements specified by WMF in the grant agreement?
YES
Do you expect this project to be completed by the date specified in the approved grant submission?
YES
Did you use any of the grant funds?
YES

Activities[edit]

Preparations[edit]

Detail of traditional apron of Żywiec Beskids Gorals
  • The National Museum of Ethnography team was responsible for setting up the team schedule. All meetings and recording dates and times were pre-arranged by the National Museum of Ethnography staff. All these daily activities during the 2 excursions can be categorised into three main areas:
    • Meetings at local museums and open-air museums;
    • Meetings with local craftsmen;
    • Public (or half-public, eg. a local folk workshop for young people) events and social gatherings, festivals, etc.
  • Klara Sielicka, National Museum of Ethnography coordinator, posted a preliminary schedule detailing a list of meetings and locations, on the mailing list;
  • Team members communicated through the mailing list dedicated to the project, and through email and phone;
  • Klara Sielicka and Marta Malina Moraczewska work together as joint coordinators informing everyone of times, dates and organisational details;
  • We made a list of photo equipment necessary to take good pictures of items and clothing – a very modest mobile studio with 2 flash lamps and a folding background;
  • We purchased the equipment, tested all equipment in advance of trip #1 and took test images;
  • Marta (WMPL) and Klara (Museum) were also in charge of collecting invoices for fuel, meals and accommodation during the excursions.

Trip 1. Poland[edit]

Highlanders' Wedding - folk performance in Podhale costume
  • Date: August 14-19, 2016
  • Team: Klarqa, Wpedzich, Nowak.michal, Patryk Pawlaczyk, Marta Malina (+ Museum driver)
  • The first trip was carried out between August 14-19, as planned – details can be found in the quick report.
  • The team visited several locations in 2 regions: Żywiec Beskids and Podhale. In each location the team visited 2 to 3 places, events or people every day. A list of recording and photo locations can be found in the section below.
  • Working hours were on average 9AM to 6PM.

Trip 1 locations and museums[edit]

Employees of the Tatra Museum in Zakopane preparing a mannequin to photograph
  • Outdoor Mass of the Assumption of Mary (święto Matki Boskiej Zielnej) with Beskid folklore group; celebrations following the Mass with folklore group – photos, film;
  • The workshop and dressing room of Jadwiga Jurasz, tailor, maker of garments modeled on old Beskid Żywiecki designs – photos, interviews;
  • The workshop in Juszczyna creating gęśla instruments – film, interview, photos;
  • Artisan maker of kierpce shoes in Jaworzynka – photos, film, interview;
  • Outdoor museum in Milówka – photos, film;
  • The Municipal Museum in Żywiec – photos, book scans, workshop, interviews;
  • The Dom Ludowy cultural centre in Bukowina Tatrzańska – photos;
  • The Tatra Museum in Zakopane – photos, film, interviews, book scans;
  • The Zagroda Korkoszów open-air museum in Czarna Góra – photos, film;
  • Podhale jeweler – photos, film, interview.

Work done[edit]

  • The team took over 2000 images; over 600 were selected for upload; over 350 already uploaded to Wikimedia Commons;
  • Several hours of interviews and videos were recorded as planned, several of which have been uploaded to Wikimedia Commons;
  • The article list has been updated with new articles after visits to the region;
  • Additional bibliography was scanned at museums;
  • Additional images – originating from the archives of the National Museum of Ethnography – depicting elements of regional dress were released by the Museum on CC BY-SA licenses and uploaded to Wikimedia Commons. More relevant Museum uploads will be carried out during the next stages of the project.
  • Introducing the project on Wikimedia blog.


  • Kierpce, a type of opanak shoes, XIXth century, the Tatra Museum in Zakopane
    Kierpce, a type of opanak shoes, XIXth century, the Tatra Museum in Zakopane
  • XIXth century corset, Podhale
    XIXth century corset, Podhale
  • Podhale folklore group in Podhale Gorals costume
    Podhale folklore group in Podhale Gorals costume
  • Contemporary costume of Beskid Gorals
    Contemporary costume of Beskid Gorals

Trip 2. Romania[edit]

Date: September 11-19, 2016
Team: Mariusz Raniszewski, Justyna Otwinowska, Aleksander Robotycki, Wiktoria Kraska
  • While preparing for the trip, we received enormous help from the Romanian Cultural Institute in Poland .
    A Dacian pottery workshop
  • Structure of work days: We were working till the late night hours; the team often split into two groups to record more interviews or take more photos.
  • 10 interviews were filmed: 4 at museums, the remaining interviews – with craftsmen: Dacian ceramics; museum experts (Professor and co-founder of the museum in Syghet), woodcarving (gates and other wooden forms), wood sculpture (crosses for the cemetery in Sapanta), embroidery and manufacture of shirts, modern wooden folklore-inspired products (caskets toys, sculptures in bottles); woodworking and modern reinventions.

Trip 2 visited locations and museums[edit]

  • Maramures Ethnographic Museum, Baia Mare – film, interview, photos;
  • Maramures Museum, Sighetu Marmatiei – film, interview, photos;
  • Sighetu Marmatiei open-air museum – film, interview, photos;
  • Dacian pottery workshop at Baia Sprie – film, interview, photos;
  • Shoemaking workshop, Bârsana – film, interview;
  • Woodworking workshop, Bârsana – film, interview, photos;
  • Wood carving workshop, Vadu Izei – film, interview, photos;
  • Wood carving workshop, Săpânța – film, interview, photos;
  • Merry Cemetery, Săpânța – photos, video;
  • Tailor's studio, Surdesti – film, interview, photos.

Work done[edit]

  • We were able to gather a lot of interesting material that will help popularise regional art and traditions of the Maramures region;
  • 10 video interviews recorded with local museum experts, ethnographers and artists.
  • The recordings will enable the team to prepare at least a dozen short video clips.
  • The team selected around 300 images for uploading to Wikimedia Commons, out of which around 100 have already been uploaded.
  • Baia Mare and open-air museum in Sighet (part of Museum of Maramaros region).


  • Dacian pottery workshop, Maramures
    Dacian pottery workshop, Maramures
  • Dacian pottery
    Dacian pottery
  • Merry Cemetery tombstone, Sapanta
    Merry Cemetery tombstone, Sapanta
  • Wooden gate, Maramures
    Wooden gate, Maramures

Project page[edit]

Article lists and tables[edit]

  • On the project page an overall article list has been created. The list is sortable by language and features all 6 project languages. This allows project participants to track translations, new articles and versions of each article in the 6 languages.
  • The article lists are updated weekly; some articles have yet to be matched to their counterparts in other languages - interwiki links are being checked in the process.
  • New articles are added to the list under "new articles in progress".

Wikipedia articles[edit]

  • The team and all collaborators are gradually writing and expanding articles from the list, and illustrating them with the new images from the project category. Over 50 articles have been written or extended (23 new, 27 expanded) in 3 languages – Polish, English and Romanian.
  • Overall number of new or extended articles: 50

Selected new and extended articles by region[edit]

A full list of articles under development can be found on the project page in the Articles section.

Poland:Podhale

Poland:Beskids

Romania:Maramures





  • Corset, Podhale
    Corset, Podhale
  • Burghers' shoes, Żywiec
    Burghers' shoes, Żywiec
  • Highlander coat 'Czucha', 1935
    Highlander coat 'Czucha', 1935
  • Kierpce, contemporary make
    Kierpce, contemporary make

Wikimedia Commons[edit]

Photographs

New images taken by the project team include photographs of original local outfits, shoes, jewelry worn in Podhale, Beskids, Maramures. The oldest pieces of regional clothing photographed date from the XVIIIth century. The team also took images depicting contemporary reworkings of traditional craftsmanship and outfits made in accordance with old traditions, and photographed individual objects created by local craftsmen such as masks, jewelry and other items.

  • Photos taken by the team are grouped in the general category Carpathian Ethnography Project;
  • Videos are grouped in the Carpathian Ethnography Project video files category;
  • Overall number of already uploaded media: 430;
  • Images uploaded by museums participating in long-term GLAM collaborations with Wikimedia, who contributed images especially for this project, are placed in a special additional category as ïmages contributed by museums. This is also where we placed archival photographs released on CC BY-SA licenses and added to Commons by the National Museum of Ethnography, Warsaw.
  • Media usage initial statistics

Video clips

Video clips demonstrate the process of making traditional kierpce and opanak shoes, a Dacian pottery workshop, a Podhale jewelry workshop, short interviews and presentations of Beskid clothing, Maramures aprons and other crafts characteristic for Carpathian Highlands culture.

  • 10 short video clips have been added to Wikimedia Commons; we are predicting to extend the assumed minimum number of files in the video clips category.
  • The 10 clips have so far 13 uses in Wikipedia and a total average of 91,040 views.
  • Video file usage initial statistics

Categorising files

Parzenica embellishment, Podhale

All files are being given appropriate categories in Commons. For new museums without an earlier presence on Wikimedia Commons, or in cases where the employees actively engaged in the documentation process and expressed an interest in further collaboration we created new Commons categories, see Media contributed by the Tatra Museum in Zakopane and The Korkosz Croft in Czarna Góra for examples. This will be continued going forward.

File reuse[edit]

  • Participants are illustrating new (and existing) articles with images taken during the project. At this early stage, the images have been used 150 times across 8 Wikimedia projects and have an average of 369,541 file views in 2016-12.

Community[edit]

  • During the CZ-PL-SK Meeting in Ostrava, we discussed the involvement of active Wikimedians from Czech Republic and Slovakia in the 2017 part of the project;
  • We introduced two local people acting as coordinators from Czech Republic (Jaro Zastoupil) and Slovakia (Patrik Kunec) into the project and made them aware of the expectations for participants. Polimerek added them to project discussion list in order to keep further contact.
  • We received help from Patrik (WMSK) in sorting the proposed article subjects ("articles by location");
  • Members of Czech and Slovakian community will participate in a February project group meeting at the Museum of Ethnography;
  • Plans were made for collaborating with the Czech WikiProjekt Masarykova univerzita within the project.

Further plans[edit]

  • Extending file descriptions and further organisation of images in Wikimedia Commons – in January and February the team is going to tackle extending file descriptions for all uploaded files. All existing descriptions are already identifying photographed objects accurately, but Photograph and Artwork templates will be added with more information, geocoding and more structured data.
  • Developing a separate page devoted to the project content – on the project page we will create a structured page with information and links about Carpathian culture linking to all new resources on regional clothing, crafts, and general articles in English and other 5 languages.
  • Translation and editing of English-language articles – members of the team have so far written more articles in the languages of visited countries than in English; this was done to kick-start the article writing. The English-version articles are in progress, and this will be an important part of our work in January-March leading up to the 2017 CEE Spring Competition, into which we would like to introduce the category of ethnography.
  • Upload and subtitling of video files – providing English subtitles for all video files (to be further translated into other languages by the Wikimedian community).
  • Carrying out CEE involvement and an illustrating competition in spring/summer 2017 as planned, with preparations scheduled for February/March 2017.

Lessons learned[edit]

Maramures Regional Museum. Ecaterina Janeta Ciocan speaks about traditional outfits in Maramures. Romania, Maramureș County, Baia Mare
What lessons were learned that may help others succeed in similar projects, or that may change the way you are doing this project?
What went well, or is going well?
  • Many article ideas beyond the ones listed in the grant became apparent during the course of the trip. The ethnographers in the field could pinpoint many missing or barely existing articles, in different languages.
  • Contacts were established in largest local museums, which may well result in more content (director of the Tatra Museum turned out to be a beginner Wikipedian; local photographers are interested in CC licenses). The presence of specialists from another Museum together with Wikipedians made it easier to convince museum staff locally to help the project effort. Visits and direct contact also help in terms of gathering good sources - Museums allow the team to scan parts of books from their library; local bookshops and libraries are the place to find rare subject literature. We found taking a scanner along was very useful. Employees of 3 museums are sending email to project participants after the visits, helping with sources and articles, and searching for images to be uploaded additionally.
  • Museum staff allowed the team into archives and allowed us to photograph catalogue cards to help with Commons descriptions; for small museums, several hours of photography results in mini-digitisation (museums can then reuse the project images on their own websites and materials).
What did not go well, or is not going well?
  • We sometimes experience delays due to the fact that different team members have time for project work at different times, while working together remotely. We noticed that all activities benefit from the team getting together in a physical space, evaluating progress and coordinating all activities. Therefore, in 2017 we have scheduled 2 to 3 meetings (including one meeting with volunteers from Czech Republic) of the project team in the physical space of the Ethnographic Museum in Warsaw - one in February, one in April and another in July 2017.
From your answers above, do you plan to change anything you are doing as your project continues?
  • See above.

Outcomes and impact[edit]

Outcomes[edit]

Provide the original project goal here.
The goal of the project is to collect bibliography, other reference material, photo and audiovisual recordings regarding local, traditional folk culture of the region, release it on open licenses on Wikimedia Commons – and use it for better coverage of related articles in English Wikipedia and Wikipedias of all the relevant local languages. Specifically, we will focus on documenting regional costume, and folk arts and crafts.
Do you expect to reach your project's goal? Why or why not?

Yes; we should be able not only to carry out the initial goals as stated in the measures of success, but also to present the results in a way which is a structured collection of articles on Carpathian folklore as seen through clothing, most characteristic arts and crafts for each region, within the context of biographical articles and articles on local places and traditions. We aim to create a structured page grouping all the articles into these categories, presenting articles on the wider cultural context and the specific subjects for each region, with links to further Wikipedia content.

We have also involved active community members from all remaining countries and plan to take advantage of the CEE contest to speed up article translations and file reuse. We are confident that in the remaining 10 months the team will carry out our project goals.

Progress towards targets and goals[edit]

Measures of success[edit]

Please use the below table to:

  1. List each of your original measures of success (your targets) from your project plan.
  2. List the actual outcome that was achieved.
  3. Explain how your outcome compares with the original target. Did you reach your targets? Why or why not?
Planned measure of success
(include numeric target, if applicable) 		Actual result Explanation
A minimum of 1300 photographs (with proper descriptions) of folk dress and folk art on Wikimedia Commons.
  • 450 images uploaded (from 2 out of 5 trips)
  • Photos taken by team are complemented by museum images.
 In progress. We have reached our assumed target for trip #1 and trip #2, but have more images still to upload and file descriptions to extend.
A minimum of 20 short video clips on Wikimedia Commons.
  • 10 short videos uploaded
  • The videos are already reused in a number of articles, see statistics.
 50% completed.
10 professionally edited 5-10min. films on Wikimedia Commons (2 per region) In progress (editing work) In progress: longer films will be edited in the spring and summer after recorded material from Czech Republic and Slovakia is ready.
A minimum of 50 new (or substantially expanded) articles relating to the subject matter on English Wikipedia. In progress: 10 articles (5 new, 5 expanded) Ongoing. The Polish-language articles were written first to enable the English-speaking part of the team to collaborate on translations in 2017.
A minimum of 40 new (or substantially expanded) articles on Polish Wikipedia In progress: 15 new, 15 expanded In progress, 75% completed.
A minimum of 20 new or expanded articles on other Wikimedia projects In progress: 5 expanded In progress.
A minimum rate of media reuse on Wikimedia projects of 30% by November 2017 as measured by the glamorous statistics tool Ongoing: At the moment with 430 files the reuse rate is at 23.94% Ongoing. With more files, we will run the illustrating competition and CEE project as planned.
The project will have also an outreach effect due to establishing live contacts with local ethnography museums and local rural communities. 2 full-length workshops and 3 basic ones will be organized locally. We hope to raise awareness / participation in glam-wiki in all visited regional museums. Ongoing 1 workshop at the Żywiec Municipal Museum and 1 wiki-session at the Tatra Museum in Zakopane resulted in further communication with these museums; we receive help with sources; further GLAM collaboration is being currently discussed.
An English-language project page will be created, linking all content and images and serving as a knowledge base on the topics covered. Ongoing In progress, see project page.


Provide an overall assessment of how your project is going according to these measures.
  • Our project has been in development for 6 out of a total of the planned 16 months (July 2016 to October 2017);
  • 2 out of the 5 planned wikiexcursions have been carried out according to plan;
  • We have uploaded to Wikimedia Commons close to 500 out of the assumed minimum 1330 media files, 10 out of 20 minimum short video clips, and wrote (or expanded) 50 out of the minimum 110 Wikipedia articles.
  • With 10 months to go, and more than 3 months before excursion #3 (Czech Republic) the team has time to catch up on extending file descriptions in Wikimedia Commons, extending new articles and writing English-language ones before the start of CEE competition.
  • We have also ensured volunteers and support in the 3 remaining countries and have a plan for a wider community campaign in February. Thanks to the long project timeline (until Oct 2017) we believe we will carry out the project plan both in terms of quantity and quality.
While doing this project, have you decided to track any other measures of success not listed in your grant submission? If so, please list them here.
  • We will shortly begin collecting data based on global metrics – such as the number of bytes added to each article and number of users (and other individuals) involved throughout the project.

Remember that you will need to report on Global Metrics in your final report.

Impact[edit]

Remember that you will need to report on your project's impact on WMF's mission and strategic goals in your final report.

Reporting and documentation of expenditures[edit]

This section describes the grant's use of funds

Documentation[edit]

Remember that you will need to send receipts or documentation of all project expenses to WMF at the time your final report is submitted.

  • The documentation has been sent along with the submission of this report.

Expenses[edit]

Please list all project expenses in a table here, with descriptions and dates. Review the instructions here.
These expenses should be listed in the same format as the budget table in your approved submission so that anyone reading this report may be able to easily compare budgeted vs. actual expenses. Note that variances in the project budget over 10% per expense category must be approved in advance by Project and Event Grants program staff. For all other variances, please provide an explanation in the table below.

Note 1: The team travelled by car (provided by the Museum), this was the cheapest option and best for project needs. Entire team travelled in a large single vehicle (except 1 volunteer joining the #1 team and arriving in his own car).

Note 2: Exchange rate USD/PLN according to the real rate as used by the bank where Wikimedia Polska has an account: 4,0468 PLN for 1 USD (as of 31.05.2016 16:00 CEST - "Tabela bezgotówkowa - sell" = cashless operation table - sell USD) [1]

Note 3: Exchange rate EUR-PLN: 1 EUR = 4,2567000 PLN

Number Category Item description Unit Number of units Cost per unit (as stated in grant) Total cost (spent) Currency Total cost in EUR Notes
1 Travel costs Fuel cost - Poland Trip 1 km 1190 0,79 961,68 PLN 225.92
2 Travel costs Fuel cost - Romania, Maramures km 2200 0,79 912,29 PLN 214.31
6 Travel: accommodation costs Accommodation - Poland #1 person 25 150 2497.81 PLN 586.79
7 Travel: accommodation costs Accommodation - Romania person 40 150 4384.38 PLN 1030
11 Travel: alimentation Alimentation: Poland #1 person/day 30 80 1770.09 PLN 415.84
12 Travel: alimentation Alimentation: Romania person/day 40 80 3059.38 PLN 718.72
16 Travel insurance Travel insurance for team and equipment 1 insured trip n/a 259 259 PLN 60.85
18 Local volunteers' costs Travel costs for 2 volunteers accompanying the team locally person n/a n/a 578.9 PLN 136
19 Local volunteers' costs Alimentation for 2 volunteers accompanying the team locally person 2 130 255.63 PLN 60.05
20 Equipment Photo table/Photo tent item cost 1 1200 1198.08 PLN 281.46
Other Currency conversion costs Currency conversion costs between PLN and RON n/a n/a 39.13 PLN 9.19
Other Monument entry ticket Monument entry ticket for group n/a n/a 26.80 PLN 6.30
22 Museum staff time Museum staff working days spent on the project working day/person 60 pln 186 11160 PLN 2622.18 Cost covered by National Ethnographic Museum
This is the Museum's contribution of their employee time (within the monthly salary) during which they work exclusively on this project.
23 Rental and insurance of audiovisual equipment Rental and insurance of audiovisual set: 2 professional film cameras (Panasonic AVC HD AG HMC151E), audio recording equipment (Sencheiser microphones); 2 sets of lights; one photo camera. Day of audiovisual set utilisation 400pln 14 5600 PLN 1315.78 Cost covered by the National Ethnographic Museum
TOTAL SPENT FROM GRANT 15943.17 PLN 3745.43
TOTAL SPENT 28418.95 PLN
Total WMF grant funds for 2016
31823.09 PLN
(7476.00 EUR)
Total amount spent on this project so far (with currency)
28418.95 PLN
(15943.17 grant + 12475.78 Museum = 28418.95 PLN)
(6676.28 EUR)
Total amount of WMF grant funds spent on this project so far (with currency)
15943.17 PLN
(3745.43 EUR)
Grant funds left
15879.92 PLN
Based on your spending, will you need to request any changes to your budget? If you do, please see the guidelines for requesting changes to your budget.
NO
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