Wikipedia:GLAM/British Library/Current Projects

Current and Ongoing Projects

With the extension of the Residency into 2023, a number of longer-term projects are in the offing. Below are some summaries and blog entries detailing this work.

Lord Chamberlain's Plays

One of the Library’s largest collections is the Lord Chamberlain’s Plays. We are engaging with new ideas to work with this collection, with a key focus on marginalised voices and underrepresented heritage. There are currently two strands to this project, detailed below.

LCP 1: Indexes

The index cards are a vast source of information about the collections and we are looking to set up a Wikibase instance to utilise this data effectively.

LCP 2: Plays and Playwrights

We are working on a series of Wikithons, with a key focus on BAME playwrights, in collaboration with the Eccles Centre and the University of Leeds.

In terms of the material covered, the Library holds a number of hard copy, typed ‘Reader’s Reports’ from the 1940s and 1930s, which are fascinating from an anti-racist and diversity perspective, as censorship was a huge part of the Lord Chamberlain’s remit.

We are working on a proposed series of three Wikithons, roughly grouped around themes of Surveillance; Race (looking at the plays as evidence of Black artistic presence in the pre-war years) and Women.

Agents of Enslavement

Guardian article on Agents of Enslavement project, run by Dr Graham Jevon.

We are in the process of creating a Wikibase as part of the Agents of Enslavement project. Graham approached us with this idea and with support from Wikimedia UK, we are hoping to use this as a pilot for the Library as a whole to see the potential benefits of Wikibase, as well as the specific utility for the Agents project, in drawing together and illustrating networks of influence and enabling bespoke queries. Thanks to the kind support of the Wikimedia network, we are now well informed about the relationship between Wikibase, WBStack and Wikimedia Deutschland, as well as the potential for upcoming change in the organisations.

New Media Writing Prize

More information about the New Media Writing Prize project can be found on our Wikidata Project Page.

Blog entry: 'Which Came First: The Author or the Text? Wikdata and the New Media Writing Prize' (January 2021).

Wikimedia Wednesdays

The WiR curates a series of internal staff talks, designed to increase awareness of and engagement with Wiki-based platforms for Library staff. Previous speakers include:

Kim Martin and Susan Brown, University of Guelph, on 'Building Connections with LINCS'
Erin O'Neill and Heather Steinhagen on 'Indigenising Wikipedia'
Tom Derrick and Bodhisattwa Mandal on 'How We Ran a Wikisource Competition to Proofread Bengali Texts'
Richard Nevell on ‘Connected Heritage’
Liam Wyatt on ‘WikiCite: Past, Present and Future’
Georgina Burnett, Wikimedia Deutschland, and Lozana Rossenova on ‘Wikibase: free, flexible and collaborative linked data for libraries’
Dean Rehberger and Sheila Gonzalez, Michigan State University, on ‘Enslaved.org: A knowledge representation in WikiBase of people, events, and places in the historical slave trade’
Kate Topham and Julian Chambliss, Michigan State University, on ‘Making Sense of Graphic Literature: Comics as Data North America (CaDNA) and Building a Wikidata Culture’

Projects in 2021

Urban Tree Festival

In May 2021, we hosted the Urban Tree Festival Wikithon. As of 25th May, the statistics were very encouraging, with 12 editors contributing at least 29 articles, editing 119, adding over 18k words and a number of images to Commons.

Laying Down Roots With WikTreePedia, 7 May 2021.
Getting a head start for the online Urban Tree Wikithon, 13 May 2021.
Wikithon Dashboard

Thought Bubble Wikithon

Blog about the Wikithon, 22 October 2021.

We ran a Wikithon for Thought Bubble, a high-profile comics festival: attendees included Kenn Taylor, Lead Cultural Producer North, representatives from Leeds University and the Library’s cataloguing team, as well as Lucy Moore and Hope Miyoba. Leeds was a welcoming venue and host: Rhian Isaac worked closely with us to help run the event.

India Office Records

You can view the Wikidata Project Page here.

The India Office Records datasets include 54 volumes of Annual Administration Reports in Bengal (1870s-1936) and 124 volumes of India Office Lists (1860-1947). We agreed to try an initial pilot of digitising 5 reports.

Dominic Kane was a placement student who assisted with this project. By the end of June, we had uploaded three sets of IOR lists. Dominic presented his final project overview to the Digital Scholarship team on Wednesday 30th June. Dominic also blogged about the practical application of his skills on the Digital Scholarship blog, here and here.

The India Office uploads were largely completed: we have now uploaded over 200 individuals to Wikidata. These individuals were Postmasters listed in the Indian Civil and Military lists from the 1880s.

A further three documents were uploaded to Wikimedia Commons:

We are particularly proud of the work done to contextualise these works in a thoughtful context which actively works to reduce harm through the use of content warnings.

Bengali Books Transcription

Lead by Tom Derrick, from 15 March – 14 April 2021 the Two Centuries of Indian Print project ran a competition to proofread text from Bengali books digitised by the project, now hosted on Wikisource, in partnership with the West Bengal Wikimedians User Group.

Wikimania 2021

We presented at Wikimania 2021 on the India Office Records project and the Bengali Books Transcription. The presentation can be viewed here.

IFLA Wikidata and Wikibase Working Group

We engaged with IFLA’s Wikidata interest group on collaborative plans for an event in May, to coincide with # 1lib1ref. I drafted a new introductory zine for Wikimedia beginners (accessible via thumbnail on this page), and began the process of collating and updating internal resources at the British Library for supporting staff who wish to work with Wikimedia.

Blog about IFLA Train the Trainer event.

We were the hosts of the inaugural IFLA Wikidata Office Hour – we were happy to welcome the two placement students for an informal open house on Wikidata, at which pigsonthewing provided an excellent overview and beginner’s guide to Wikidata.