GLAM/Newsletter/June 2018/Contents/Macedonia report

This Month in GLAM – Volume VIII, Issue VI, June 2018

Macedonia report

Wiki Tour in the City Library, WWI editing days & WikiGap Skopje

Wiki Tour in the City Library

On 4th of June 2018 we held Wiki Tour in the City Library "Braka Miladinovci" in Skopje. This is due to good collaboration between GLAM Macedonia and the City Library. The Wiki Tour was organized by Wikipedian in Residence in the Library. Wiki Club members from the secondary school in Dracevo were participants on the Wiki Tour. They were introduced to the library's facilities, to the ways on how to use the professional literature, as well as to the reading rooms and attractive programs organized by the Library. The Wikipedians were allowed to see the bookbinder room, where many of the used books are replenished. А special interest aroused the meeting with the employees in the periodical department.

The Wikipedians were introduced to the rich collection of daily, weekly and monthly newspapers and magazines. They were introduced with the first issues of the newspapers published on the territory of Macedonia. Motivated by detailed explanations from their host on the meeting, Valentina Malic-Andonovska, the Wikipedians offered a new type of cooperation: searching for texts in the magazines and newspapers, and to create articles on Macedonian Wikipedia out of the texts. The library also showed interest in such future cooperation.

WWI editing days

By Violetova

In memorial of the Great War, WWI, Wikipedian in Residence at the City Library "Braka Miladinovci" in Skopje organized editing days for members of GLAM Macedonia, on 10–13 June 2018. Twelve Wikipedians created 21 new articles, and 25 existing articles were improved. On the same subject, Wikipedian in Residence at the City Library "Braka Miladinovci" in Skopje organized edit-a-thon in April. Twelve Wikipedians and 8 members of the Wiki Club Staro Nagorichane participated. During the weekend, 15 new articles were created, and six existing articles were improved.

Altogether with other activities of GLAM Macedonia members, in the first half of the year 2018, 51 new articles were created on the subject of World War I, 32 existing articles were improved and more than 300 new references were added to the articles on the Macedonian Wikipedia. As there are still missing articles about the World War I on Macedonian Wikipedia, GLAM Macedonia members will continue to fulfill the subject gap in the next months.

WikiGap Skopje

By Македонец

After a notification in March and several meetings for preparations with the Swedish Embassy and the office of the United Nations for gender equality and straightening the woman's rights and position UN Women held in May and June, on 20^th of June was held WikiGap Skopje edit-a-thon. Besides the main organizers the Embassy if Sweden in Skopje, UN Woman and Shared Knowledge as a Wikimedia chapter in Macedonia this event was also organized in partnership with dozen NGO's, civil associations, initiatives and institutes dedicated to woman's and human rights, gender studies, gender equality issues. The preparations went good with a constant e-mail communication for sharing ideas for articles and literature, which was provided by our employees from the Library of Macedonian Academy of Sciences and Arts (MANU), with which we have established successful GLAM partnership with memorandum of cooperation and Wikimedian-in-Residence since 2015, and printed from electronic materials in our possession, while some of the participants in the days prior the event have gathered information and prepared text of biographical content for female personalities from Macedonia who had impact in the social, cultural and public life. The main title of the event was "Prominent women from Macedonia" and the main focus was creating bibliographical articles about woman which are not visible on the internet space but nevertheless other articles on female and gender topics were also tackled and covered within the scope of this edit-a-thon. WikiGap edit-a-thon as a part of the a global Swedish initiative with the idea of bridging closer the differences and gender inequalities that persist in the online world held in Skopje had 54 participants who in a period of 4 hours (1 hour opening and instructional presentation and 3 hours of editing articles) have created 103 new articles on Wikipedia on Macedonian as well as they have contributed with uploading several images to Wikimedia Commons which was added to the articles and improving exiting articles on women topics.