GLAM Wiki Dashboard | Wikimedia Israel

Wikimedia Israel’s newly developed tool allows cultural institutes to follow statistical data about the usage of images and media files they upload to Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons

GLAM Wiki Dashboard is a project of Wikimedia Israel, with support and advice from Wikimedia Sverige, built upon open-source infrastructure originally developed by Wikimedia CH. It is an interface that visualizes statistical data about the usage of media files uploaded to Wikimedia projects by cultural institutes, which present valuable cultural treasures.
The purpose of this tool is to allow organizations of culture, content and information (such as galleries, libraries, archives and museums, a.k.a. GLAM institutes) to follow continuously and independently, in a direct and friendly way, the amount of exposure their media files receive, and the amount of usage made of these files once they are available and accessible to the general public on Wikipedia.

What is GLAM?

The acronym “GLAM” refers to galeries, libraries, archives and museums. Promoting public awareness of the importance of free knowledge and the expansion of the public domain is an essential part of the mission of the global Wikimedia movement and Wikimedia Israel. Within this framework, we work to establish significant cooperations with local GLAM institutes and encourage them to release contents to the public domain by uploading them to Wikimedia Commons, so they are accessible and available for use on Wikipedia and the other Wikimedia content sites.

Organizations that are in possession of cultural treasures, such as images, films, documents and sound recordings, and make them available on Wikimedia Commons, may create a special category for their organization that will include their uploaded files. Some of these files will eventually be incorporated in relevant Wikipedia articles.

What does GLAM Wiki Dashboard allow?

The dashboard offers several selected indices by which the usage of the uploaded media files can be followed. The collected data are presented in various types of diagrams and time frames. The accumulated data allow any of the GLAM institutes to derive insights, identify trends and preferred categories, and understand the general impact of their media files on the Wikimedia users in Israel and throughout the world.

The institutes that joined the initiative

Twenty-five cultural organizations from all around the world have joined this initiative. The Israeli organization among them are: the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit, Gnazim Archive, Bible Lands Museum, Ben Zvi Institute, and the National Library of Israel. Institutes from around the world are the National Academy of History of the Argentine Republic, International Arts Centre deSingel (Belgium), the National Museum of Sweden, the National Archives of Brazil, Cleveland Museum of Art (USA), and others.

We hope this dashboard will increase awareness of the importance of placing items of human heritage and culture on the global network, and encourage more GLAM institutes to open their gates of knowledge through the Internet, free of charge, for the benefit of the general public and in order to promote access to knowledge, education, and open-mindedness, and to foster learning about Israeli and world culture.