Submissions:2014/A Year in Residence at the Chemical Heritage Foundation

Title of the submission

Themes (Proposal Themes - Community, Outreach, GLAM, Wikimedia Commons contributions)

Type of submission (Presentation Types - Curated Talk)

Author of the submission

Mary Mark Ockerbloom

E-mail address

celebration.women@gmail.com

Username

Mary Mark Ockerbloom

US state or country of origin

Canada (Citizenship) U.S.A. (resident)

Affiliation, if any (organization, company etc.)

Wikipedian in Residence at the Chemical Heritage Foundation

Personal homepage or blog

A Celebration of Women Writers

Abstract (at least 300 words to describe your proposal)

I've spent most of a year now, working as a Wikipedian in Residence at the Chemical Heritage Foundation, a museum, library and archive in Philadelphia. My work has focused on three areas: 1) release of images from CHF on Wikimedia Commons, 2) editing of mission-related articles, particularly biographies related to women scientists and the history of chemistry and science and 3) outreach to organizations in the Philadelphia area. I would be happy to give an overview of my work at CHF and with area organizations.

On Commons, we have contributed about 350 images so far. These come from every department in the organization, and include public domain images from rare books on medieval alchemy, photographs of Nobel Prize winning scientists from public events, photographs of women scientists from document archives and oral histories, fine art, scientific instruments, and science-related artifacts. About 60% of the images we have contributed currently appear on Wikipedia pages. The five most frequently used images represent five different departments within the organization: Robert Curl (from an event at CHF) Robert Boyle portrait (from the fine art collection) Stephanie Kwolek (from document and image archives) Sceptical Chymist title page (from rare books) Bakelite Buttons (from instruments/artifacts collections)

Image release and editing have, in many cases, gone hand-in-hand, as images were chosen in cooperation with archivists and other CHF staff to illustrate Wikipedia articles which lacked visual images, or create new articles. I have created articles to help support both local and remote edit-a-thons and special events, including Ada Lovelace Day (Sibyl M. Rock), Women in Science for Women's History month (Kathryn Hach-Darrow, Bettye Washington Green), Black History Month (Josephine Silone Yates, Jennie Patrick) and the Art and Feminism edit-a-thon (Andrea Polli, Eve Mosher). The Did You Know process has been important in demonstrating potential impact of contributions and convincing people at CHF of the value of contributing to both Wikimedia Commons and Wikipedia.

There is considerable interest in GLAM and Wikipedia among local universities and cultural organizations. Outreach activities include a monthly GLAM Cafe at the Chemical Heritage Foundation, edit-a-thons at the Chemical Heritage Foundation, the University of the Arts, Bryn Mawr College, the University of Delaware, and the Small Museums Convention in Ocean City, MD; and consultations with staff from Drexel University.

Length of presentation/talk (see Presentation Types for lengths of different presentation types)

I assume the curated talks are all 15 minutes; I could participate in a group session discussing the work of Wikipedians in Residence if that was desired.

Will you attend WikiConference USA if your submission is not accepted?

Yes

Slides or further information (optional)

not yet available

Special request as to time of presentations

might not be able to present on Friday

Interested attendees

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1. Dgorsline (talk) 19:33, 19 April 2014 (EDT)
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