A Wikipedian-in-Residence at the British Museum

A Wikipedian-in-Residence at the British Museum
Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums & Wikimedia
Finding the common ground
#GLAM-WIKI

Matthew CockHead of Web, British Museum
mcock@britishmuseum.org
@matthewcock
#GLAM-WIKI

Why?
Belief that despite some mistrust and prejudice (on both sides) we share some common goals.
Because we need each other.
From the Museum’s p.o.v. because we can’t ignore WP
In October 2009, the Rosetta Stone article in britishmuseum.org was viewed 18,358 times. In the same period, the Rosetta Stone article on Wikipedia was viewed over five times more frequently (92,565 times) in the English language version alone.

Because I was curious…

and I was offered a guide…

in his human form…

Wikipedia and the British Museum
Similarities
‘Wikipedia is a community that shares a goal - to build a resource that is made available to all the people of the world for free.’
The British Museum has been free to the public since 1753
Wikipedia is a multi-lingual project and one that has roots in communities across the world.
The British Museum is a ‘museum of the world, for the world.’

The Museum in the World
Training and capacity building
Fieldwork, research projects
International exhibitions
Africa, China, Middle East

The Museum in London
Talking Objects
The world in our city
Supplementary and community schools

OK, so working with the community of WP editors is just an extension of our community programme…. And together we improve the encyclopaedia for the benefit of the world….
But what are the risks? What could go wrong…?

WP:FIVEPILLARS #2
Wikipedia has a neutral point of view. We strive for articles that advocate no single point of view. Sometimes this requires representing multiple points of view, presenting each point of view accurately and in context, and not presenting any point of view as "the truth" or "the best view".
All articles must strive for verifiable accuracy: unreferenced material may be removed, so please provide references. Editors' personal experiences, interpretations, or opinions do not belong here. That means citing verifiable, authoritative sources…

The difference between:
the consensus view (WP)
and
individual scholarship (BM)

What emerged over time on en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel
was:

‘a collection of statements that everyone could agree represented as neutral a depiction of Israel as was likely to emerge’
(Cory Doctorow, Content: Selected Essays on Technology, Creativity, Copyright and the Future of the Future)

Controversial subjects show up how Wikipedia works more clearly –
It emergesover time (always a work in progress)
It is a consensus
It is a compromise

Vive la difference
The Museum wants scholarship to inform and influence accepted established knowledge (consensus)
If both GLAMs and WP learn about the processes of their respective , we can speed that process and get to balanced, accurate information online, based on and citing up-to-date and thorough scholarship.

June 2010
Wikipedian-in-Residence
‘Backstage Pass’ day
Feature Article Prize
Presentations to departments (Asia, GR, P&D, P&E, PAS)
One-to-one collaborations
Wikipedians seeking curators
Curators seeking Wikipedians
The ‘Hoxne Challenge’

One-to-one collaborations
1 Wikipedians seeking curators
1.2 Cyrus Cylinder
1.3 Cycladic art
1.4 Rosetta Stone
1.5 Daniel Solander
1.6 Harpy Tomb
1.7 Royal Gold Cup
1.8 Gebelein predynastic mummies
1.9 Papyrus of Ani
1.10 Lindow Man
1.11 Ormside bowl
1.12 Feathered Helmet
2 Curators seeking Wikipedians
2.1 Holy Thorn Reliquary
2.2 Admonitions Scroll
2.3 Isabella Brant (drawing)

‘Hoxne Challenge’
Challenge: take the Wikipedia article on the Hoxne Hoard to ‘Feature article’ quality in one day.
Sackler Studio, Friday 25 June 2010
Preceded by public gallery talk and showing of items / coins not on display
WiFi, projector, whiteboard, tea/coffee
BM experts - curators (from Prehistory Dept, and Coins Dept, Treasure Dept), archaeologists, conservation experts, scientists etc.
Wikipedians
Why Hoxne Hoard?
most of the scholarly resources about it were produced by museum staff.
A lot of staff could contribute
Important objects, with good popular awareness, recent published sources and readily available experts at the BM
Very low quality article on Wikipedia , despite being one of the highest individual referral articles to the BM website
Featured in both Our Top Ten Treasures and #AHOW

How did we do in the challenge?
Article itself
Learning
key differences between communities
Choose object wisely
Give it time and space

What has happened since June?

Review of aims
Engage with the Wikipedia community
Improve mutual understanding BM:WP
Reach new audiences / increase engagement with the BM collection
Avoid bad press (get good press)
Get some referrals to our site

Review of aims - press
Press and comment positive

Blogs
“What is depicted is a model for institutions on how to deal with the internet revolution. It’s clever, it costs them nothing, it gains the institution respect and traction on the internet… there is, in truth, no downside.”
Roger Pearse
http://www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/?p=4451

Review of aims: referrals

Survey of other cultural orgs
I asked other museums and cultural orgs
16 UK 10 North American (all Eng-language primarily)
One month (September) across 2008, 2009 and 2010.
Total visits, total referrals from Wikipedia (all languages)
Promised anonymity

And what were the results?

Survey: results
Range: 7,000 – 3.3m visits
Average:580,000 visits
26 respondents
Month of September 2010

Survey: results
Referrals from WP (all langs)
as %age of total visits:
Range: 0.07% - 3.33%
Aggregate: 0.82% *
*skewed by some of the orgs with the largest visit numbers having the lowest number of referrals.

First Place, with 3.33%

Survey: results
So, what about everyone else?
British Museum were #6 at 1.64%
No correlation between size and referrals
8 out of the top ten were UK-based
GLAM: WIKI UK

Year-on-Year
So, are referrals on the increase?
On aggregate:- down from 0.96% to 0.82%
17 showed increase
8 showed a decrease

The referrals aren’t really important
Because, in the end, we really were doing it to reach audiences where they hang out.
And we know lots of people get their knowledge from Wikipedia.
Getting them to our site isn’t the primary aim.

Ongoing

Questions?
www.britishmuseum.org
mcock@britishmuseum.org
@matthewcock
#GLAM-WIKI

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A Wikipedian-in-Residence at the British Museum

by Matthew Cock

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