Kladblok/WLA

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Introduction

Wikimedia Nederland (Niederlande) organized a month-long event in June called Wiki Loves Art / NL, together with local partners including Creative Commons. During this month photographers were able to make pictures of the collections of museums. The pictures were released under a free license (Creative Commons BY or BY-SA in this case) for use on Wikipedia and other projects. Wikimedia Commons will be used for hosting the pictures. While the event was aiming to generate photos for Wikipedia, the intention was also to interest new volunteers for the projects, make photographers aware of free licenses and build a productive relationship with the participating museums.

The project was a great success: over 5000 pictures were taken in the 45 participating museums. The event also got media coverage with news reports in the national news and other media.

Wiki Loves Art / NL was not the first photo-event in cooperation with local museums. In the United States, London and Australia similar events were organized in cooperation with museums to spread their cultural heritage. In the U.S. and London this was mainly done under the name Wikipedia Loves Art, where teams of photographers were making as much photos as possible. In Australia the focus was very different, since photo cameras were not even allowed; Wikimedians were instead invited for a special backstage tour at the Powerhouse Museum. This tour had the purpose to inform Wikimedians about the behind-the-scenes workings of a museum and vice versa.

Setup

Wikimedia Nederland took the lessons from the previous events and set up a concept, together with Creative Commons NL, in which both the contest idea and the backstage feeling were embedded. The contest was aimed towards quality instead of quantity, awarding prizes for the ten best photos. Photographers were allowed to make their photos during the month of June based on a list of objects provided by the museums in advance. These photos could then be uploaded to the photo sharing website Flickr under the CC-BY-SA or CC-BY license to participate in the contest. After all necessary other steps have been completed, these photos will be uploaded together to Wikimedia Commons.

Flickr was chosen as the upload website over Wikimedia Commons mostly because of usability concerns for non-Wikimedians. For projects in the future the goal is to be using Wikimedia Commons, after all enhancements from the different usability improvement projects have been activated.

Kennisland, one of the participating organizations in Creative Commons NL, was very enthusiastic about the concept, and helped tremendously with professionalizing Wiki Loves Art by having one of their employees actively participate in the organizing, contacting of potential partners and museums and taking care of press coverage. With the help of the Nederlandse Museumvereniging (Dutch Museum Association), n8 (the youngster platform of the Amsterdam museums), XS4ALL (internet provider) and Digitaal Erfgoed Nederland (Digital Heritage Netherlands) it was possible to involve 45 museums into Wiki Loves Art, all over the Netherlands.

Besides the general contest, several side-events were organized to let the museums, photographers and Wikimedians get to know each other. This started with a kickoff event in the Jewish Historical Museum in Amsterdam at June 1. Another party was organized at the Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam (including a few backstage tours) at June 21. A few other "wiki welcome" events were organized in museums all over the country, including a workshop given by a professional photographer.

Some of the museums chose a more specialized approach towards the participants. The Van Gogh Museum allowed participants to make photos during two two-hour sessions in the early morning, without any public. The photographers had all opportunity to make photos of the works without having to take the general public into account. For the museum, this was a way to keep a better eye on the participants, and also to make sure that photographing was still prohibited for non-participants (usually, photographing is strictly prohibited in the Van Gogh Museum). Another special tour was given at the ING Art Gallery, which is normally closed for the general public, being located in one of the ING offices with restricted access.

Results

In total, over 5400 photos have been uploaded in the span of one month to the Flickr "Wiki loves art /NL"-group with almost 300 members. It is interesting to note that the museums that organized special activities have relatively many photos submitted to the Flickr Group, such as the Van Gogh museum (>750 photos), ING Art Gallery (>550 photos) and Boijmans van Beuningen (>450 photos). It seems that a special treatment attracts more participants, and boosts the results. Especially the photography workshops and special access were well appreciated.

Besides all that, Wiki Loves Art was a reason for the participating Tropenmuseum to seek further cooperation with Wikimedia (Around 2100 images around an exhibition on Maroon culture from Suriname will be released throug Wikimedia Commons), hopefully resulting in many more images from their collection becoming freely available.

The photos collected at the Flickr group will be uploaded to Wikimedia Commons in the coming months and added to the relevant articles. Prizes will be awarded to the best ten photos by a jury composed of a representative of Wikimedia Nederland, Creative Commons, a museum (ING Art Management), the event sponsor XS4ALL and a professional photographer. The prizes range from a subscription for a year to Dutch museums to a voucher for photography material with a value of € 500.

With Wiki Loves Art, Wikimedia Nederland was able to bring museums, photographers and Wikimedians together in a positive atmosphere to improve the quality of Wikipedia, to give photographers the opportunity to make photos in places normally not allowed and learn more about free licensing and to help the museums to spread their heritage to the general public.

Illustrations for the article

For more illustrations see this list

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