transforming museums with technology - transforming a city from inside a museum
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The TEDx talk on 8th September at Bristol M Shed. Daringly we spoke about the M Shed's on-line presense. They have spent millions transforming the museum from its former name of the Bristol Industrial Museum. Sadly on Wikipedia their former reincarnation looks like a better museum that they are now. How can you transform a museum? Why would you want to? Is it possible to change the on-line profile of your museum. We talk here about the work that Wikimedia UK have done with Derby Museum. As a result they have 1200 articles on their museum and are probable seen as one the UKs top museums on many wikipedias.TRANSCRIPT
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Transforming Museums
with Technology(Transforming any city from inside its museum)
Steve Virgin & Roger BamkinBoard DirectorsWikimedia UK
This presentation is CC-BY-SA except for logos and screen prints which are Fair Use or used with permission
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Bristol M Shed, UKSeptember 8th, 2011
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Wikimedia’s Objective
Founder Jimmy Wales said it ... Wikimedia UK is doing it too
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Top Ten Global Websites – Our Impact
1. Google No. 1. Is this where Bristol companies want to be?
2. Facebook
3. YouTube
4. Yahoo
5. Baidu.com
6. Blogger.com
7. Wikipedia This is us. We have 400 million users/ month
8. Windows Live
9. Twitter
10.QQ,com
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Foundation• Keep sites running
• Employ central staff
• Run global fundraising
• Liaise with Volunteer community
• Manage new initiatives
• Encourage outreach by chapters
Wikimedia UK• Promotes values of the Foundation
• One of 40 national chapters
• Support freely licensed material
• Member-based & volunteer-run
• Donor-sourced budget
• Non-profit seeking charitable status
• In 3rd year as an organisation
• Encourage outreach
Who are we?
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In Wikipedia’s birthday year Wikimedia UK has organised outreach in Bristol...
Jimmy Wales & Wikipedia 10th birthday
Wikimedia in Residence @ Arkive (Summer)
Wikimedia Outreach Ambassador University of Bristol (Summer)
BBC Bristol – 2nd Wikimedia Academy (July)
Bristol Girl Geek Dinners + Wikimedia UK Dinner (August)
Forthcoming ARKIVE Editathon at Watershed on Sept 15
That’s what we are doing...
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In 2011 Bristol hosted Wikipedia’s 10th birthday
HP Labs, Bristol City Council, Festival of Ideas, Watershed, BBC Bristol...ALL got involved.....
Can we help put Bristol on the global map?
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That’s what we did...
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How the world sees the M Shed
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M Shed on Wikipedia
And there are few words, no
pictures in only one language.
WikipediaGoogle Images
M Shed
If you don’t shape your online
image other people will.
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Why would you want to transform a museum?
M Shed has had an expensive makeover
Bristol Industrial Museum
• Better Wikipedia page• More pictures• Describes objects• Stronger online presence
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Wikipedia fills gaps
• Wikipedia is free
• The world needs information
• Where there is no information Wikipedia is happy to fill that gap.
• BBC Wildlife Finder
• M Shed
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GLAM
• We have partnered major UK cultural institutions
• We inspire volunteers to work with a museum
• This year we partnered Derby Museum
• We chose a small museum and sought to get them a lot of attention
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How the world saw Derby Museum
Derby Museum
The wiki article was bigger than the M Shed before we started.... But ...
Derby Museum is a small regional museum
On WikipediaIn Reality
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Wikipedians & Derby Museum curators met
Derby Museum article now mentioned ~ 40 objects.It was bigger. And better
After one meeting
As a result of the meetings
We wrote 10-20 articles
The Derby Museum article spread quickly to a dozen languages
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We did write some articles
But we wanted to do more ...
We wanted to write the labelsHow
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Museum curators just love writing labels for every item in their collection
Sometimes they manage it in more than one language
We were told that a museum would never allow Wikipedians to write museum labels
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We actually wanted to do something better
QR Code
Devised in 1994 it is used in UK as a gimmick, but is
being adopted by business
We wanted to use QR codes in addition to labels
We installed QR codes in Derby museum on sample objects
So, visitors were reading facts not written by curators
Both Wikipedians and curators could edit the Wikipedia page
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How QRpedia Code
•First used at Derby Museums in April.
•Allows mobile access to the Wikipedia page in your language
QRpedia supplies Wikipedia pages in any language
By April all QR codes replaced
We created a web site to receive the QRpedia requests
The website recognises the language of the users phone
It redirects to the correct article in the language defined by the phone
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How does QRpedia work?
We will ...... And you can do it NOW!
But where will we find all the extra text in French, German , Polish etc?
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So we set up the ‘Wright Challenge’
Prizes of some books and a £50 book voucher
Competition advertised on 141 Wikipedias (not everyone speaks English)
Launched on May 1st
In the first week we had 100 articles in new languages
The response was brilliant
Wright Challenge Launched in May
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“Collateral damage”
The Wikipedia article about “Derby” is now in 60 languages. Most objects now have a QRpedia code
However:
•Nearby bridges got articles, churches, the library next door, castles, archaeological sites and in different languages
•Paintings that people thought were in Derby (but are not) got articles
•Paintings that were in storage got articles
•People who worked for the museum in the 19th century got articles
Benefit
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We made the front pages of the main Wikipedias
This will result in more hits to Derby Museum’s webpage
Fulfils mission to educate and share knowledge
Raises interest in & status of any city across the world
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14,000 English people read about this painting
The article was written in French
... was translated into English
... and then into Russian
... onto the Russian main page
Where 53,000 read about it
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1,200 articles on Derby Museum exhibits
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Who wrote them all?
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3rd Sept - Joseph Wright Day
We were on four main pages
So .... ?
The Mayor gave out prizes to people in
Indonesia, Russia ...
Derby was mentioned 3 times on the
French Wikipedia front page
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Improving a city’s Google position on the web
Optimisation is done using links. Derby Museum=1200
Google uses the number of links to decide how important a page is. M Shed has few
On non-English Wikipedias the best UK museum will not be the M Shed
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Who put Bristol on the map?
Can you see the M Shed on the French Google map?
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Conclusions
1. QR Codes add value to museums (at no cost)
2. Wikipedia pages mean updating is easy
3. Linking to smart phones creates accessibility
4. Language support is possible using QRpedia
5. Opens up your multi-ethnic city (e.g. Bristol has 32,000 Somalis)
6. Curators create global impact for their museum and their city
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Bristol Museum & Banksy
120,000 people queued in month 1More people viewed this
Technology transforms museums..
Museums can change a city
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Thank You
For your time
For listening
For your questions
For your patience
This presentation is CC-BY-SA except for logos and screen prints which are Fair Use or used with permission