Our first two Wikidata virtual courses wrapped up last week!
Wikidata, the open linked data repository for Wikimedia projects, is growing in popularity with museums, cultural heritage institutions, and libraries. The professionals in our first two Wikidata courses have been bridging their library collections and Wikidata. The open data repository presents opportunities for library staff to better represent their collections on the internet and with digital assistants like Siri and Alexa (who pull from Wikidata to answer user questions). Librarians in our courses also took the chance to reflect on the production of linked data at their institution and thought about how they might improve their practices in the future.
Our six-week courses explore Wikidata policy, editing best practices, and offer participants an opportunity to connect with and join the Wikidata community. We are thrilled to have worked with this talented mix of participants representing several university libraries, museum libraries, Wikimedia, and beyond in these two courses. We are eager to see the impact they make with Wikidata at their institutions. Meet them below!
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Join the Open Data Movement (our beginner’s Wikidata course)
- Kelli Babcock is the Digital Initiatives Librarian at the University of Toronto. She is interested in ways to expose collections, make use of Wikidata for authority control, and surface authority files to a wider audience.
- May Chan is the Head of Metadata Services at the University of Toronto. May is looking forward to seeing the impact Wikidata will have on her staff. She is interested in creating and publishing item descriptions openly to support linked data services.
- Annamarie Klose Hrubes is the Metadata Initiatives Librarian at Ohio State. She hopes to use Wikidata to connect users to library, archive, and historical resources.
- Flor Méchain is Community Liaison at Wikimedia-CH. Flor is an archivist who is excited to be involved in more Wikidata projects. She regularly works with GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums) institutions who are showing more interest in Wikidata.
- Ken Irwin is a Reference Librarian at Wittenberg University. He has been a Wikipedian for a few years and is excited to learn about using Wikidata to manage authority file information and better serve his patrons.
- Chris Lutz, the Vice President at Nickerson Research, was excited to learn how linked data can help her with her research.
- Tammy Vo is the Research Manager at Nickerson Research. She believes linked data will play an important role in research in the future and is looking forward to learning more about it through an applied use case like Wikidata.
- Sophie Dong is the Principal Cataloger / Serials Catalog Librarian at Syracuse. She is interested in the potential linked data will have on cataloging and serials.
- Amandine Cabrio is a PhD Student at Université de Neuchâtel in History. She has been a Wikipedia contributor for the past few years and is looking forward to the impact Wikidata will have on the disciplines of art history and history.
- Deirdre Joyce is the Head of the Digital Library Program at Syracuse. Deirdre is interested in the possibilities that Wikidata provides in terms of creating controlled vocabularies and developing various ontologies created in this environment. She sees Wikidata as another aspect of digital library development that librarians must become fluent in to better share collections with the rest of the world.
You can see this course’s work here.
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Elevate Your Collections (our intermediate Wikidata course)
- Karly Wildenhaus is the Assistant Metadata Librarian for Digital Resources at the Frick Art Reference Library. She is looking forward to using Wikidata as a platform to increase access to resources in libraries and archives particularly in art context.
- Mary Seem is the Assistant Acquisitions and Cataloging Librarian at the Frick Art Reference Library. Mary is excited to learn how to contribute to the implementation of Wikidata as a source for authorities in cataloging library material.
- Laura Palumbo is the Chemistry & Physics Librarian/Science Data Specialist at Rutgers. In her role, Laura sees understanding Wikidata as another way to engage with her STEM students.
- Geoffrey Wood is the Metadata Librarian at Rutgers. He sees the model that Wikidata uses as the most compelling version of linked data currently.
- Francesca Giannetti is the Digital Humanities Librarian at Rutgers. Francesca is eager to learn how to use Wikidata to create authority files for digital humanities projects.
- Greta de Groat is the Metadata Librarian for Electronic and Visual Resources at Stanford. Greta wants to better understand how to linking library and Wikidata to enhance discovery in the library catalog environment, particularly in modeling film data.
- Arcadia Falcone is the Metadata Coordinator for Stanford Libraries. She is taking this course to help prepare for organizing a Wikidata working group at Stanford Libraries. She’s eager to learn more about community norms and project planning.
- Michael Bolam is the Metadata and Discovery Unit Head at the University of Pittsburgh. In taking this course Michael is hoping to de-silo a significant amount of data from Pitt’s digital collections. He is interested in linking that data to an international platform to improve access and consistency.
- Gesina Phillips is the Digital Scholarship Librarian at the University of Pittsburgh. Gesina is looking for practical applications of linked data and wants to learn more about Wikidata for inclusion in future library projects.
- David Bietila is the Web Program Director for the University of Chicago Library. He views Wikidata as central to the universe of linked open data resources. He looks forward to enriching the library’s search and discovery interfaces with linked data.
- Clare Spitzer is the Special Project Music Metadata Librarian at Stanford. Clare is interested in learning how Wikidata can fit into cataloging workflows.
- Christie Thomas is the Head of Data Management Services at the University of Chicago Library. Christie is interested in how Wikidata can support local descriptive activities when controlled linked open data vocabularies that meet institutional needs are not available. She’s also interested in leveraging Wikidata’s infrastructure for publishing local vocabularies as linked open data.
- Greg Leazer is a cataloger at UCLA. Greg is interested in developing course work and projects related to cultural heritage materials on Wikidata.
You can see this course’s work here.
For more information about our currently open courses and our in-person workshop options, visit data.wikiedu.org.
