Wikimedia Foundation Culture and Heritage team
This page is kept for historical interest. Any policies mentioned may be obsolete. There is no longer a dedicated Culture & Heritage team but some of their work continues in the Content Enablement team. |
About us
editThe Culture and Heritage team at the Wikimedia Foundation works with the Wikimedia Movement to strengthen collaborations with libraries, museums, archives, publishers, and many other heritage organizations using and enriching Wikimedia Projects. We’re particularly interested in addressing visual knowledge gaps and diversifying information sources.
Services
edit- Request a new category for Commons Impact Metrics
- Suggest a new collection for The Wikipedia Library
- Get support to build a topical list for events, campaigns, and WikiProjects
Progress against annual plan 2024-25
editFor the 2023-24 annual plan, we focused on supporting the objective that we co-owned with Product & Technology: Communities are supported to effectively close knowledge gaps through tools and support systems that are easier to access, adapt, and improve, ensuring increased growth in trustworthy encyclopedic content.
- Previously, translation suggestions were based on a contributor’s past edits, or what is popular. Now, contributors can filter suggested edits using Wikipedia’s topic classification, or choose a list that was built for a campaign, WikiProject, or other collaboration. This feature surfaces communities’ own content goals within core product workflows. We also introduced a country-level filter alongside the regional one that was already available.
- Five languages received access to a full-fledged wiki with modern features including Content Translation, Section Translation, and Wikidata integration: Pannonian Rusyn, Tai Nüa, Iban, Obolo and Southern Ndebele. Evaluation of this language onboarding experiment recommended that follow-on hypotheses focus on interventions that will bring more editors into language communities.
- We piloted a list-building service. Wikimedia Ukraine used it to develop a list of missing and stub articles for the most underrepresented Asian countries on Ukrainian Wikipedia.
Commons Impact Metrics service
We onboarded volunteers, affiliates, and partners to the Commons Impact Metrics API that was developed for the GLAM-Wiki network last year. By developing a request process, we were able to serve 1 campaign, 5 heritage institutions, and 11 Wikimedia affiliates, including Wikimedia France, Wikimedia Argentina, and Wikimedia Sweden. In total, 195 new categories were added. Additionally, partners developed tools to better use the API. The Digital Public Library of America created a template that allows Commons users to request categories and visualize their metrics directly on Commons, and the Biodiversity Heritage Library created the Commons Impact Metrics Dashboard to better visualize their data.
Content partnerships
The Wikipedia Library added 12 new content collections from 10 partners. Five of those collections are in non-English languages. New partners include The Wall Street Journal, University Press of Mississippi, The Hindu, The Africa Report, Emerald Publishing, and East View Press. In March, we achieved a major milestone with more than a million links added to Wikimedia projects by Wikipedia Library users. See quarterly updates on Diff.
We also collaborated with Equity Fund grantees AfLIA and Archive Nepal and the Biodiversity Heritage Library Wikimedia working group.
- The Biodiversity Heritage Library (BHL) Wikimedia working group, described and categorized 11,000 images within the Files from the Biodiversity Heritage Library in Africa and Files from the Biodiversity Heritage Library in South America categories,
- We joined Wikimedia Deutschland in supporting AfLIA and the National Library of Nigeria to launch Africa’s first semantic authors database built on our infrastructure. Nearly 1,000 Nigerian authors—from literature to the sciences—have already been added to Wikidata. This effort is a powerful step toward breaking epistemic bias by making the contributions of Nigerian thinkers and creators more visible, structured, and accessible to the world.
- Archive Nepal uploaded 25 Newari manuscripts to Wikimedia Commons, following in-person and online training workshops. Archive Nepal was also connected with local Wikimedia volunteers who are helping to transcribe these digitized manuscripts, for example, Index:AN-PM-19.pdf - Wikisource
Wikimedia+Libraries International Convention 2025
We laid the groundwork for a successful Wikimedia+Libraries convention by fostering multi-institutional collaboration and ensuring post-conference sustainability. Partnering with Wikimedia Mexico (a Wikimedia Affiliate), El Colegio de México (an academic institution), and WLUG (the Wikimedia and Libraries User Group), we combined local expertise with global strategies to create a lasting impact. The co-designed theme, “Fighting Disinformation through Libraries,” drew government officials, international NGOs (including IFLA and UNESCO), local library associations, and press coverage, including a documentary in production featuring conference footage! As part of this strategic approach, the team at COLMEX and Wikimedia Mexico worked together to provide 20 scholarships for local librarians, ensuring they could benefit not only from the thematic discussions but also from hands-on training in Wikidata, Wikisource, and Wikipedia workshops for newcomers, further strengthening their ability to engage with Wikimedia projects. See the Wikimedia and Libraries User Group report in This Month in GLAM.
Beyond the event itself, our facilitation enabled COLMEX and Wikimedia Mexico to launch Mexico’s first BAM (Libraries, Archives and Museums) training seminars, equipping participants with tools to sustain initiatives nationally.
Progress against annual plan 2023-24
editFor the 2023-24 annual plan, we focused on Commons and Wikisource and built our strategic alliances with museums and archives to fill visual knowledge gaps and diversify information sources in local and indigenous languages. In particular, we:
Fostered adoption of OpenRefine’s Commons extension by supporting a train-the-trainer program, documentation, and a WikiLearn course. By the end of the year, there was a cohort of certified trainers sustainably based within affiliates and cultural institutions and a WikiLearn course in 4 languages. 189 people uploaded 242,330 files and 58 people had completed at least one module of the WikiLearn course. See the related Diff post, Learn how to edit and upload to Wikimedia Commons with OpenRefine.
Collaborated with the Flickr Foundation to create Flickypedia and the Backfillr Bot to reduce deletion requests and improve the description of Flickr images on Wikimedia Commons. By the end of the year, around 5 million Flickr images on Commons had structured data and the Biodiversity Heritage Library’s Wikimedia working group are planning to use Flickypedia to contribute images with quality structured data to Wikimedia Commons to better structure biodiversity knowledge. See the related Diff post, Introducing Flickypedia, a better way to get Flickr images on Wikimedia Commons
Worked with the Foundation’s Data Platform team to develop Commons Impact Metrics, a new data product offering monthly data dumps and a new Wikimedia Analytics API for Wikimedia Commons categories of images relating to cultural heritage. See the related Diff post, Commons Impact Metrics now available via data dumps and API
Convened a peer learning network with movement representatives from 7 regions and 15 languages to share the capacities developed through the Wikisource Loves Manuscripts initiative, including comprehensive digitization guidelines in 5 languages. Participants took part in 5 trainings, supported by 3 partners (PPIM, Transkribus, and the British Library) and were introduced to a range of funding opportunities. At the conclusion of the 6-month program, participants representing 11 language communities shared plans for follow-on initiatives. See the related Diff post, Celebrating The Conclusion of Wikisource Loves Manuscript Pilot in Indonesia
Supported the GLAM Wiki Conference in Montevideo (Diff post) and a Wikimedia engagement with museums at ICOM Valencia (Diff post).
We also supported planning for the Wikimedia+Libraries International Convention 2025 and released two datasets about movement engagement with libraries: Libraries in Diff posts (2009–August 2023) and This Month in GLAM Newsletter: full text (2011-2023), views, and regions.
Meet the team
editLeave a message on our talk page, email cultureandheritage@wikimedia.org, or contact the most relevant member of our team using the Book a meeting link in the table below:
Community Programs
United Kingdom
UTC+0/+1
English, Italian (B1)
FRomeo (WMF)
Book a meeting
Talk to me about:
images and media, metrics, Commons, partnerships with cultural institutions
Culture and Heritage
Punjab, India
UTC+5:30 (IST)
English, Punjabi, Hindi, Urdu, Farsi-2, Español- 2
SGill (WMF)
Book a meeting
Talk to me about:
language diversity, Wikisource, manuscripts, oral culture
Culture and Heritage
Brazil
UTC-3 (BRT)
English, Portuguese, Spanish, French (reading only)
GFontenelle (WMF)
Book a meeting
Talk to me about:
visual knowledge and image descriptions, museums, structured data, accessibility, gender, decolonization
Libraries
Mexico
UTC-6
Spanish, English, German (C1), French (B1), Italian (A2)
SEgt-WMF
Talk to me about:
1Lib1Ref, library-led Wiki campaigns or projects, disinformation, artificial intelligence
India
UTC+5:30 (IST)
English, Malayalam, Hindi, Tamil (spoken only)
VSj (WMF)
Book a meeting
Talk to me about:
The Wikipedia Library, academic publishing, content partnerships
Regular updates
editWe publish occasional articles to Diff and regular updates to the This Month in GLAM Newsletter.