Wikimedia+Libraries/Program/Submission/A National, Consortial Approach to Libraries in the US
Title of your proposal[edit]
A National, Consortial Approach to Libraries in the US (slides)
Name(s) and/or username(s)[edit]
- Dominic Byrd-McDevitt , User:Dominic
- Email address: dominic@dp.la
- Data Fellow, Digital Public Library of America
- Program Manager, Wikimedia Program, IUPUI University Library
Topic[edit]
- Advocacy and Outreach in Local Contexts
- Information Literacy or Data Literacy and Wikimedia projects
Type of submission (Please choose one)[edit]
- Individual Presentations (15 minutes)
Keywords and hashtags[edit]
Please suggest 3-4 keywords and/or hashtags to help us understand your proposal.
- outreach, partnerships, networks, scaling
Abstract[edit]
This session will explore the Digital Public Library of America's 2+ year program to build a national effort in the United States around Wikimedia contributions from its 4,000 member institutions. DPLA, a nonprofit membership organization, is the largest aggregator of cultural heritage records in the United States. Starting in 2020, DPLA began to build a new Wikimedia program, which seeks to provide an entry point for US institutions seeking to work with the Wikimedia community. DPLA has developed technology that allows contributing institutions to upload their material to Wikimedia Commons, and has provided. training for many participating institutions, in a way that has allowed the US GLAM community to contribute to Wikimedia in a scale previously not possible—with over 2.5 million Wikimedia Commons uploads from 300 institutions in 2 years. This program is led by Dominic Byrd-McDevitt and undertaken with multiple sources of funding.
The session would examine issues related to working at the consortium-level, attempting to lead work from a central organization with meany members. This work has the potential to reach many institutions, do outreach to institutions through networks typical Wikimedia outreach may not reach, and to engage many institutions at once. However, there are many challenges related to institutional partnership building, data workflows, and funding models. While this short presentation cannot address all the successes and challenges from the DPLA project, it does seek to use the DPLA experience in the specific US context to discuss the value such consortial approaches in other countries and contexts, with reference to their unique problems and suggesting potential tactics for such projects.
For more information about DPLA's Wikimedia Program:
- commons:COM:DPLA and commons:COM:DPLA/Timeline for information about the project
- DPLA's landing page about the project for institutions
- DPLA's recap of 2020 project year
- DPLA's recap of 2021 project year
- DPLA's current project funding from SDAW
Expected outcomes[edit]
- Sharing experiences and learnings from one larger national context to international audience
- Inspiring or providing ideas for other national Wikimedia communities, aggregators, or cultural heritage associations for a path forward
- Building new connections between DPLA and other global peer institutions
Duration (without Q&A)[edit]
15 minutes