Presentation by Geert-Jan Janse (Teylers) & Sandra Fauconnier (Wikimedia NL) for the GLAM-Wiki conference, April 2013, British Library, UK. https://uk.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM-WIKI_2013 The Dutch chapter of Wikimedia and Teyler Museum organised a writing challenge from January till June 2012 to expand the coverage on various topics related to Teylers Museum and its rich collections. Curators and Wikipedians have successfully worked together, resulting in over 300 new articles in more then 13 languages, including Esperanto,Catalan and Volapük. Why did this project take place, how was it organised, what were our experiences, what are the lessons learned and how do we hope to continue our fruitful collaboration?

1. THE TEYLERS CHALLENGE
Geert-Jan Janse, Project Manager
Digitisation, Teylers Museum
Sandra Fauconnier, Volunteer,
Wikimedia Nederland

3. Mission
In perpetuation of the ideals of the Enlightenment, Teylers
Museum wishes to serve society by stimulating people to
discover the world for themselves and to find pleasure in
art and science. -Teylers Museum-
Imagine a world in which every single human being can
freely share in the sum of all knowledge.That's our
commitment. -Wikimedia-
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Vision

4. Oval Room Teylers Museum
(1784) = Wikipedia 18th
century

5. Why a competition?
• Inspiring example: Wright Challenge: http://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Derby/
Multilingual_Challenge
• Long tradition of Essay Competitions Teyler
Societies
http://www.teylersmuseum.eu/
teylersuniversum/index.php?
m=narratio&id=39&nvlng=en
• Competition could attract new volunteers for
Wikimedia

6. The Challenge

7. Project Timeline
21 Jan 2012: New Year’s
reception WMNL at Teylers;
Kickoff with guided tour +
Speed dates curators
28 April: edit-a-thon
16 June: award ceremony
Photo: CC-BY-SA Ziko van Dijk

8. Kickoff

9. Prizes 

10. Photo Requests

11. Inspiring Examples
• Contributions from all over the world
• Active Catalan community around 17 year
old student DavidPar
• Online Discoveries: letter of John Adams
on medal in Teylers collection:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Johann_Georg_Holtzhey
• Original Articles of scientific value
• Better use of online museum resources

12. New Contributors

13. Some Statistics
At the end of the Challenge: ca. 600 articles on Teylers
related subjects in 13 different language wikipedias =
100% increase in article coverage (300 > 600)

14. Translations

15. Lessons learned
• Competition does work!
• Discussion within Wikimedia NL
community: Conflict of Interest ?
• Difficult to attract and retain new
volunteers/editors
• Specialized topics > few contributors
• Significant media coverage

16. Museum Experience
• Kickoff: new visitors;
great atmosphere
• Challenge eases
decision on CC-0 use
images for
WikiCommons
• Difficult to get curators Editathon, Wikipedians
to actually work as and curators working
together
Wikipedia editors!

17. What’s next?
• Wikipedian in Residence?
• Follow-up in correspondance with
Rembrandt exhibition > Wiki loves
Rembrandt??
• No COI but a new mode of collaboration
between GLAM institutions & Wikimedia

18. First Prize for Lodewijk Gelauff;
second prize for DavidPar - Sent
by mail to Barcelona!

19. Questions? Remarks?
Geert-Jan Janse
GJ.Janse@teylersmuseum.nl
Sandra Fauconnier sandra@wikimedia.nl