Dr Lucy Hinnie, Digital Skills Wikimedian, discusses the ‘Connected Heritage’ project run by Wikimedia UK and funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund. The project aimed to raise digital skills and confidence across the heritage sector through Wiki training.
What is Connected Heritage?
Connected Heritage was a project run by Wikimedia UK, funded by The National Lottery Heritage Fund. From 2021 to 2023 we worked with partner organisations across the four nations to deliver digital skills training for volunteers, staff and local communities. The project aimed to raise digital skills and confidence across the heritage sector through Wiki training. Wikimedia UK is the national chapter of the global Wikimedia movement, which aims to promote open knowledge across the world. Their most famous project is, of course, Wikipedia.
How do we operate?
Sharing collections and promoting open knowledge are at the heart of the work we did on the project. We reached out to organisations across the UK to encourage them to engage with Wiki platforms, such as Wikipedia or Wikimedia Commons, and supported them by upskilling their staff and volunteers. We did this by running Wikithons, where attendees could learn how to edit Wikipedia and how to upload images to Wikimedia Commons.
One of the most transformative ways in which we worked with partner organisations was through mini Wikimedian residencies. From 2022 to 2023 we worked with both the Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM), and The Mixed Museum enriching collections data on Wiki platforms. In this work we highlighted the ways in which a step-by-step approach to this kind of change can open up knowledge to the wider community, and bring audiences back to the source institution.
Challenges
Many institutions are understandably nervous about Wiki work, the thought of sharing collection items freely and openly is intimidating, particularly in a post-lockdown environment. We found time and time again that encouraging organisations to embed Wiki in their activities has led to positive results, improved viewing statistics and a fresh engagement with collection materials.
Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM) case study
Since early 2023 we worked with the RAMM and GLAM-E Lab in Exeter.
The RAMM was founded in 1868 and holds over one million items. It was Museum of the Year in 2012. The GLAM-E Lab is part of The Centre for Science, Culture and the Law (SCuLE) at the University of Exeter, which works with smaller and less well-resourced UK and US cultural institutions and to build open access capacity and expertise.
Our aim at the outset was for the Residency to scale up current open knowledge practice at RAMM. We did this in three simple ways.
Supporting image uploads
We supported the upload of a selection of high quality images from Christopher Saxton‘s 16th century atlas of England and Wales from the University of Exeter Special Collections. If you enjoy cartography and/or having a peek at old names for places, these will definitely be of interest to you. You can see the full selection here. In some cases, by integrating these images more widely across Wiki platforms, we have been able to drive more traffic towards Special Collections, and increase viewer numbers.
Upskilling volunteers
From April 2023, we worked with a group of digital volunteers at the museum, providing a three-week introductory course to Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. Over the course of three weeks, we covered the basics of editing, common questions about Wiki and cultural heritage, and how to plan and formulate impactful edits. As a result, they are now more confident navigating and sharing information online.
Devon in Red
Devon in Red was a public facing Wikithon in which authors of Devon Women in Public and Professional Life, 1900–1950: Votes, Voices and Vocations spoke to local volunteers and interested members of the public about their experience of researching this book, with an aim of adding even more information about these exceptional women to Wiki.
The Mixed Museum Case Study
The residency at The Mixed Museum ran from September 2022 to March 2023. The Mixed Museum is a digital museum dedicated to sharing and preserving the history of racial mixing in Britain. We worked with the museum to develop a sustainable digital volunteer programme.
Pathways to training
We created a pathway for volunteers to utilise three existing resources for online training specifically the Training Library, The Wikipedia Adventure and the Introduction to Wikipedia for a sustainable framework. Wikimedia UK will launch a new Wiki training toolkit for the GLAM sector in early 2024.
Microinterns
Two sets of student interns joined The Mixed Museum between 2022 and 2023. The internship engaged students with Wikipedia and allowed them to explore editing. Topics of focus included South Asian People in Ireland and the history of African American soldiers based in the UK in the 20th century. This opened up conversations around who feels ownership over different parts of history and how our work editing Wikipedia can have an impact on what is generally accepted as ‘important’.
Improving visitor numbers
The museum’s Google analytics give detailed information about visitors clicking through from Wikipedia links to The Mixed Museum. These referral links make up a small but significant portion of the museum’s audience. Prior to the residency, Wiki was listed seventh of the referral channels, with 25 visitors coming directly from Wiki links. Since March 2022, the Wiki channel link has seen a percentage increase of 1584!
Those who reach the museum via Wiki sources now spend an average of 3.44 minutes on the site, compared to an average of 1.27 minutes. Through more sustained and targeted editing, we have not only attracted more Wiki users to The Mixed Museum, but increased the engagement of these visitors with the exhibitions. We can see all the pages which reference The Mixed Museum by using the MassViews Analysis tool.
So what?
Heritage Dot 2.0 roundtable
In March 2023, Dr Chamion Caballero, director of The Mixed Museum, Dr Jane Secker and Dr Victoria Araj participated in a roundtable discussion moderated by the Connected Heritage team, as part of the Heritage Dot 2.0 conference hosted by the University of Lincoln. You can view the video here.
The discussion touched on how engagement with Wiki-based projects enabled cultural heritage organisations to improve the accessibility of their collections, while simultaneously empowering volunteers and members through embedded digital upskilling. The Mixed Museum’s Wikipedia edits were discussed as an example of ways that open knowledge can place overlooked cultural histories into the dominant narrative.
Get involved!
While the Connected Heritage project concluded on 30 November 2023, Wikimedia UK is still working with the heritage sector. If you are involved with a heritage or cultural organisation in the United Kingdom and you think working with Wiki might be good for your organisation, please talk to us about it, by contacting programmes@wikimedia.org.uk.
Dr Lucy Hinnie – Digital Skills Wikimedian