User:Subodh (CIS-A2K)/Quarterly Reports for 2022-23

First Quarter (July-September 2022) report

Partnerships with Marathi literary institutions in Hyderabad

In collaboration with partner Pune Nagar Vachan Mandir, CIS-A2K approached Marathi literary institutions and century old libraries with rare collections in the city Hyderabad, Telangana state. Along with Pune Nagar Vachan Mandir's (PNVM) digitisation team of 5 persons, we explored the rare and valuable resources at Hyderabad based organisations - 100 year old Marathi Granth Sangrahalay (MGS) and 70 year old Marathi Sahitya Parishad (MSP). Both the organisations cooperated very positively during the visits and selection of books from 15-17th July 2022. After scrutiny of around 5000 books, we selected copyright free @1200 books (most of the books are published before 1930) which are not available at PNVM and not digitised yet. The meeting with managing body of MGS was also held to discuss the further process. They have given authorisation letter to go ahead. The PNVM team is planning to expand the present set-up to carryout this work with our support. The digitisation of first batch of 200 books has been started from September.
Marathi Sahitya Parishad is ready to relicense their 100+ publications and provide 50+ manuscripts (@10,000 pages) from Nizam era. The metadata of this repository is being prepared. The possibility of on site scanning of these old, fragile manuscripts is being explored.

O Bharat Digitisation project with partners in Goa

Bharatkar G. P. Hegde Desai's monument near Quepem, Goa

'Bharat'kar Govind Pundalik Hegde Desai, (7th Nov 1885 - 15th Aug 1949), a freedom fighter, a social reformer, a valiant journalist started 'Bharat' ('O Bharat' in Portuguese) a Marathi-Portuguese bilingual weekly, on 6th November 1912. For 36 years thereafter, Bharatkar courageously protested the Portuguese occupation, relentlessly advocated radical and progressive social reforms and doggedly championed the cause of an independent and sovereign Indian Goa.

Goa Central library

Digitisation of O Bharat newspaper

We have developed a partnership with Bharatkar Trust in Goa under the 'Goa liberation Struggle' project from Oct 21. We are facilitating the archival process of O Bharat volumes. After 6 months of follow-up finally Goa Central Public Library has given access to bound volumes of O Bharat and permission to scan them. The digitization project of O Bharat was completed through collaboration of different organizations. The trustees, Govind Hegde and Yatin Hegde of Bharatkar Hegde Desai Trust initiated the project with technical and financial support from the Centre for Internet and Society, partner organization of Wikimedia Foundation working to create free knowledge in all languages of India. Prof. Vinay Madgaonkar from Marathi department of Goa University facilitated the identification and training process of local students involved in scanning. The students, Shravani Parab and Shridhar Raut scanned 12000 pages in 8 days. The officials of Central Library cooperated in access to original volumes and in the process of digitisation. The trustees of Bharatkar Hegde Desai Trust relicensed the two volumes of selected editorials published in 2018 and the whole O Bharat issues into CC-BY-SA 4.0.
The year wise volumes of O Bharat are being uploaded on Wikimedia Commons in O Bharat category. This archive is freely accessible to anyone in the world at any time, any where. They can use this content freely for any purpose.
On 75th Independence day, Chief Minister of Goa inaugurated the digitized volumes of 100 year old O Bharat newspaper and collection of selected editorial from O Bharat on Wikimedia Commons. The different media houses covered the event in the newspapers. The news mentions support of CIS-A2K and Wikimedia Foundation, the stakeholders worked in the project.

Media links

• News in Gomantak
• News in Navhind Times
• News in Goan Varta
• News in Navprabha

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  Relicensed volume of editorials from O bharat
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  Front page of O Bharat in Portuguese
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  Front page of O Bharat in Marathi

Partnerships with Konkani language literary institutions, publishers and authors in Goa

After successful relicensing movement in Maharashtra, CIS-A2K has started working on this concept in Goa state in partnership with authors, copyright holders, academic institutes and language organisations. Meetings in Goa University library, Konkani department and Library Science department were conducted to understand the literary history. With the same objective, discussions were held in Goa Central library and with author, publisher & editor director of Gomantak media house, Raju Nayak. The discussions with active trustees of Konkani Bhasha Mandal (KBM) connected us to prominent people working for the Konkani language. KBM has expressed their readiness to facilitate the digitisation of PD books in Konkani.
All this exploration lead us to visit ancestral house of first Jnanpith awardee author in Konkani, Ravindra kelekar and meet his son Girish Kelekar, an architect by profession. Girish has beautifully arranged all the works and information about Ravindra Kelekar like a museum. He has generously agreed to release all the works. First set of 20 books was relicensed at this place in Priyol. On 27 August, his death anniversary, first batch of 6 books were uploaded on Wikimedia Commons. The digitisation was done by LeK Ladki Abhiyan's centre at Satara.
Ravindra Kelekar was renowned Gandhian activist, writer, thinker and freedom fighter. He worked relentlessly for Goa liberation and Konkani language movement. Around 100 books in Konkani, Marathi, Hindi and English written by him will be released in coming months. The books are being uploaded in Category on Wikimedia Commons.

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  Konkani author Ravindra Kelekar's house, Priyol Goa
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  Display of artifacts, awards, photos at Konkani author Ravindra Kelekar's house, Priyol Goa
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  एका विचाराची जिवीत-कथा
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  पतझर में टूटी पत्तियाँ
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  ओथांबे

Relicensing of 10 books in Marathi

Nagnath Nayakawadi popularly known as Nagnathnanna, was an Indian Freedom fighter, social reformer, politician and educationist from Walwa in Sangli district of Maharashtra. The Nayakawadi trust approached CIS-A2K to develop an archive on Wikimedia projects to make all the content related to Nagnathanna. This content consists of books about his life, photographs, handwritings, videos and speeches.
The introductory session on Wikimedia projects was organised for trustees, management and family members at the office of Hutatma Cooperative Sugar Factory, Walwa. The trust has created a website to disseminate the information. After understanding the potential of Wikimedia projects, the trustees have decided to relicense all the content into free license. First set of four books were relicensed, digitised and uploaded on Wikimedia Commons in category - Nagnath Naikwadi.

Prof. Anil Gore, a reputed statistician in India has relicensed two books on statistics and one book on evolution. As a copyright holder he relicensed 3 books on health authored by his father. The books were digitised by Vigyan Ashram and uploaded in two categories - Books by Anil Gore & Books by P. S. Gore.

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Partnerships with organisations in Meghalaya

CIS-A2K & WBG (West Bengal Wikimedians User Group) have collaborated with RIWATCH organisation in Arunachal Pradesh to document tribal culture and diversity on Wikimedia projects. The project was launched in March 2022 and progressed well with active participation of RIWATCH and the local community. Taking inspiration from this project, the organisations in Meghalaya have approached us to implement similar programs in the state. The initial meetings and Wikimedia introduction sessions were conducted with Ramakrishna Mission Sohra, 100 year old organisation working among the tribal communities and local organisations - Jeebon Roy Memorial Trust Library and Seng Khasi (Socio - Religio Organisation of Indigenous faith of Khasis, Niam Khasi). All the stakeholders have mutually agreed to collaboratively work on:

1. digital documentation of the rich cultural heritage in Khasi, Jaintia and Garo hills of Meghalaya state along with museum collections, art collections, books, manuscripts, audio files etc. produced or collected in different regions of the state,
2. online storage and display of the digitally documented products in the free and open-access platform of Wikimedia, and,
3. gradually building a stable long term partnership between the Wikimedia world and Ramakrishna Mission along with other local organisations to improve the quality content about Meghalaya on different Wikimedia projects with verifiable and reliable resources.

The implementation plan consisting of digitisation and photo-video documentation has been prepared. The launching of this project is planned after the rainy season.

Meeting with Rashtrabhasha Prachar Samiti on Hindi Books Digitisation Program

Rashtrabhasha Prachar Samiti is pioneering organisation established by Mahatma Gandhi in 1936 for the promotion of Hindi language in India. It has it's head office in Wardha and Maharashtra state office in Pune. The Pune office members visited the digitisation project at Pune Nagar Vachan Mandir and have invited CIS-A2K to initiate such collaborative project for the digitisation of Hindi books. They have large repository of rare and reference value public domain books. The process of selection of books, scanning set-up requirements and logistics was discussed in the meeting with President and management members. The MoU development is in process.

Meeting with Ecological Society & Prof Madhav Gadgil

The Ecological Society is an organisation working on ecology research, environmental education and sustainable development. It has knowledge repository in the form of journals, reports, images and books. CIS-A2K partnered with Ecological Society to conduct thematic workshops for creating knowledge on river and biodiversity. Prof. Madhav Gadgil, scientist and pioneering expert in ecological sciences in India is also supporting the Wikimedia movement and CIS-A2K's work in various ways. As both of them expressed interest to contribute to Wikimedia projects regarding the environmental knowledge, a joint meeting was held on 1 September 2022 to develop the process and structure.
The Wikimedian in Residence (WiR) model was discussed in detail. The Ecological Society is ready to host a part-time fellow in the form of WiR. Prof. Gadgil will act as mentor and subject expert in the process. The gap finding exercise on sample basis was also done to know the existing status of articles in Marathi & English Wikipedias. The comprehensive plan of action is being prepared to define the scope of work and identification of the fellow. The project is proposed to start in the month of November 2022.

Research report

The report of the research study - Exploring Knowledge repositories on Water resources in India - was completed and published on meta. This study explores Knowledge Repositories on water resources in India, how has the digital transition impacted the process of creation & access to these resources and possible collaborations to build open digital repositories around water.

Second Quarter (October - December 2022) report

Meeting with Wikimedia France on Lingua Libre collaboration

During the pandemic times, CIS-A2K collaborated with Marathi volunteers on Lingua Libre project to develop language resource on Wikimedia Commons. About 25 volunteers worked collectively to upload 15224 recordings on Wikimedia Commons. Thus the potential of this project to document and preserve the languages was realised. Many organisations working in tribal areas with communities speaking local languages have approached us to participate in this project.
CIS-A2K representative discussed the possibilities for collaboration with Wikimedia France members in the recent Wikimedia Summit. Taking the process further, a meeting was organised on 11 October 2022 with Lingua Libre coordinator and Head of Diversity and Francophony Project, Adelaide Calais. The discussion points included - preservation of endangered languages in India, Integration of recordings with Wikidata, connecting languages and language learning module development. We decided to develop pilot project proposals for two languages in this program year.

Meetings with Wikimedia Deutschland on Wikibase & Wikidata collaboration

CIS-A2K is partnering with various libraries and museums for the last two years to enrich content on Wikimedia projects. The need for developing structured data and integration with other Wiki projects is identified by the organisations. Our most active partners like Pune Nagar Vachan Mandir, RIWATCH, Vigyan Ashram, Gokhale Institute etc. are eager to work with us on these projects. Three months back, on August 10, a preliminary meeting was held with Alan Ang, Partner Manager to discuss Wikibase collaborations in India.
CIS-A2K representative discussed the possibilities for collaboration with Wikimedia Deutschland members in the recent Wikimedia Summit. Taking the process further, a meeting was organised on 12 October 2022 with Alan to crystalise some Wikibase pilot projects with selected two partners. A representative from West Bengal User Group, Bodhisattwa also participated in the meeting. It was decided to formulate pilot project proposals in the next two months.

Filmi datathon workshop

CIS-A2K conducted a Filmi datathon workshop on 16 October 2022 for Marathi volunteers who are interested in Marathi filmi songs and wish to contribute in Wikidata on the occasion of tenth birthday of Wikidata. As the data about Marathi songs is negligible in Wikidata, the volunteers have started compiling the data first on excel sheet from two resourceful websites. Total 8 volunteers attended the workshop to learn basics of Wikidata and Open Refine tool. The Wikidata expert and organiser of Filmi Datathon, Bodhisattwa guided in the session. Three volunteers with some technical background are learning Open Refine for exporting the data into Wikidata. A detailed session on Open Refine for technical people is also proposed.
After the workshop, in next 10 days, total 7 volunteers have collectively created metadata of 710 Marathi songs by exploring various websites on internet. The songs' items were created on Wikidata with the help of User:Bodhisattwa by running Open Refine tool.

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  Before the datathon, most film songs were of Bengali language
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  After the datathon, songs of Hindi and Marathi languages increased significantly in numbers on Wikidata

Wikimedia session on building archive at ACPR, Belagavi

The Academy of Comparative Philosophy & Religion (ACPR) was founded in 1952 as a Public Trust in the Educational & Research category at Belagavi in Karnataka state. The academy was conceived by philosopher, scholar and saint R. D. alias Gurudev Ranade way back in 1924 in Pune and started it's work. It was formally registered in 1952.
As the works of Gurudev Ranade are in public domain as per Indian Copyright law, the academy has planned to digitise the books published by them and others. The academy has approached CIS-A2K to facilitate the archive project on Gurudev Ranade, which will include works by Gurudev, works on Gurudev & his philosophy, images and audio-visuals. The session to introduce Wikimedia projects and archive process to ACPR trustees and members was conducted at Lokmanya Granthalaya hall, Belagavi on 24 October between 11am to 1pm. In this session, elaborate demonstration of all Wikimedia projects was done. The discussion on copyright issues, relicensing procedure and organisational compliances was held. The basics of editing and uploading were also explained. Total 8 members participated in this session.

Wikibase orientation session in Pune Nagar Vachan Mandir library

CIS-A2K had detailed meeting with Pune Nagar Vachan Mandir library trustees about the proposed Wikibase pilot project on 4 November 2022. The key persons engaged in this two hour orientation session understood the Wikidata, Wikibase concepts and discussed about the potential, tentative process and the future impact. The format for preparing the structured data of authors and their works for Marathi language was finalised. The library has initiated the metadata activity. We have been partnering with this library for the last two years to enrich the content about the books on Wikimedia projects. The digitisation project has added 650 books to the free library, Wikisource and media on Wikimedia Commons. The database of all these books with keywords, tags etc. will be prepared. The data of public domain books will facilitate the process of digitisation by ensuring the priority of rare and old valuable reference books.
The process of developing the database of all the PD books and authors for Wikibase is vast and time consuming. Hence, it was decided to collaborate with other reputed libraries in the state. The first visit to one such library, Pune Marathi Granthalay was done on 4 November. The management members have extended cooperation for the project.

Launching of GLAM projects in Aurangabad

CIS-A2K has launched two new GLAM projects institutional partners in Aurangabad. Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad Research and Training Organisation is involved in building archive on Sayajirao Gaekwad's life achievements and the valuable reference publications facilitated by him during 1870 to 1939. On 16 December, the Wikimedia session of key persons was conducted to understand the structure of various projects, copyrights, relicensing process and digitisation. As the content is vast, the phase-wise planning was done. The trustees decided to relicense and upload the books published by the organisation in the first phase. After creating the metadata and category structure, the first batch of 60 books in this archive was relicensed and uploaded here - Books published by Maharaja Sayajirao Gaekwad Sanshodhan and Prashikshan Sanstha.

Swami Ramanand Teerth Marathwada Institute Of Socio-Economic Research & National Integration established in 1972, holds an archive on Hyderabad Freedom Struggle. It contains old documents, newspapers, books and manuscripts. The Wikimedia session was conducted for the trustees of the institute. The discussion on digitisation and relicensing was also done extensively. The action plan will be developed soon.

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