The collaboration between Museo Galileo and Wikipedia began in 2009 through the sharing of some biographies from “A Thousand Years of Science in Italy” website and continued with the creation of entries related to the museum and library collections. In the following years, two projects have been successively launched.
Wikipedian in Residence
In 2016 the Museo Galileo was selected—together with the Museo Nazionale della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci in Milan, the MUSE-Museo delle Scienze in Trento and the Fondazione Mansutti in Milano—by Wikimedia Italia as home to a Wikipedian in Residence for a two-month period. The Wikipedian in Residence is someone especially skilled in Wiki Projects who works in-house at an organization with the aim of bringing its collections out in the Wikipedia world. This project notably implemented the topics related to the history of science in the most visited online encyclopedia. Over 450 Italian and English contents from the Museo Galileo website, which are pertinent to entries not yet included in Wikipedia or can be helpful to improve current articles, about 130 pictures and some videos have been shared with the Wikipedia community. Moreover, training workshops enabled the museum staff to work by themselves in the Wikipedia world after the Residency is finished. The Museo Galileo continues to work on this GLAM project thanks to the contributions of its staff and the researchers who collaborate with the Institution.
Leonardo Project
On June 1, 2018 Museo Galileo and Wikimedia Italia signed a two-year agreement to carry out a GLAM project completely devoted to Leonardo, that is aimed at fostering a wider knowledge sharing on Da Vinci to celebrate the fifth centenary of his death (May 2, 2019). The Museo Galileo will check and implement current Wikipedia articles and create new entries, thanks to the cooperation of researchers and Leonardo scholars. Moreover, relevant texts, videos and pictures will be shared with the Wikipedia community. The Museo Galileo’s contribution will be focused on Leonardo’s scientific and technological interests, with special attention to his biography, his manuscripts, the places related to his life and work, the people he met or who played an important role in the posthumous destiny of his works.
Wikidata
Starting from June 2021 Museo Galileo’s Name Archive and the biographies contained in the Virtual Museum have been entering Wikidata, so giving an important contribution as far as personalities, information and data of historical scientific interest. Wikidata is an authority archives that makes possible to connect the various Wikipedia articles related to the same personality, even if their name is given in different variants, languages or alphabets.
-
Related links
- Wikipedian in Residence (WiR) Project
- Wir Press release (Italian only)
- Leonardo Project (Italian only)
- Wikidata
- Name Archive
- Virtual Museum