Hi All,
I’m pleased to announce that based on some contacts that I made at the GLAM-WIKI conference back in August, and some onsite work that the Brisbane Wikimedia community has been doing at the Queensland Museum (QM), the Museum has commenced uploading digitized images from their “A E (Bert) Roberts” photograph collection to Commons. Bert Roberts was a coachbuilder from Ipswich in the early 1900s , but also enjoyed photography and took photographs of a wide variety of subjects, chiefly scenes of everyday life in Queensland from the time. While not famous for his photography during his lifetime, after his death his collection of images came to be recognised as providing a unique view into the society of the time. His photographs are the subject of a Queensland Museum exhibition, which chiefly resides at their Toowoomba campus (the Cobb & Co Museum), but which presently has travelled to Ipswich for a limited time.
So far, 21 images have been uploaded to Commons, but there are over a thousand glass plate negatives in total that the Museum has. You can see what’s been uploaded so far here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:A_E_%22Bert%22_Roberts_plate_glass_photo_collection
My request to all of you, basically, is to:
· Categorise, enhance, and basically edit the file pages as much as possible.
· Look for appropriate pages on Wikipedia and other places where this content can be used, and use it.
· Spread the word that GLAM institutions are seeing the benefits of making their collections available through Commons and other free media repositories!
· Watch out and make sure the pages aren’t vandalised, and any problems that crop up are dealt with quickly so that QM can concentrate on providing us with free content, and not learning arcane points of Wiki-law.
Many of the original plate glass negatives held by the museum have not been digitised yet, but if there is anyone who would be interested in volunteering some of their time to learn how to do, and then actually *do* the digitisation, there may be an opportunity to get in and do that. If you’re interested (and preferably have some “serious” photography experience), let me know and I’ll pass your details on.
It’s my hope that this will be but the first of many successful collaborations between WMAU people and GLAM institutions throughout the country. I already have a couple of other collaborations cooking away here in Queensland that will hopefully result in a win not only for the WM projects, but also open access to cultural and heritage material in general.
If anyone has any questions regarding these particular images, please feel free to ask me!
Cheers,
Craig Franklin