Submissions/The Battle of Waterloo: commemoration and collaboration

After careful consideration, the Programme Committee has decided not to accept the below submission at this time. Thank you to the author(s) for participating in the Wikimania 2014 programme submission, we hope to still see you at Wikimania this August.

Submission no. 2037

Title of the submission: The Battle of Waterloo: commemoration and collaboration

Type of submission (discussion, hot seat, panel, presentation, tutorial, workshop): Presentation

Author of the submission: Major General Sir Evelyn Webb-Carter, KCVO OBE DL & Anra Kennedy

E-mail address: anraculture24.org.uk

Username

Country of origin: UK

Affiliation, if any (organisation, company etc.)

Waterloo 200 & Culture24

Personal homepage or blog: www.waterloo200.org

Abstract (at least 300 words to describe your proposal)

Our session explores the potential for partnership between the GLAM and Wikimedia communities around a major historical anniversary and commemoration project. We believe there is huge potential for audience reach, quality content creation and the advancement of public knowledge and understanding around such a project. We have such an opportunity in 2015 so need to ensure we have the right partnerships in place to make the most of it. This session will outline the significance of the anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo and the wealth of collections content we will be working with, before exploring ways in which a partnership between the Waterloo 200 volunteers, GLAMS and the Wikimedia community might best work.

June 2015 sees the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. ‘Waterloo 200’ is a charitable umbrella organisation approved and supported by Government to oversee the celebration of the 200th anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo. The group is made up of volunteer historians and subject enthusiasts, united in their aim to celebrate the enduring European legacy of the Battle of Waterloo, building through education an enduring and widespread awareness of its historical and cultural importance to European history up to 2015, and its lessons for the future.

Waterloo 200 is working in partnership with The National Army Museum and Culture24 (national cultural digital publishers and data aggregators) on a Heritage Lottery-funded project to create a digital resource which will enable schoolchildren, university students and the general public to gain a better understanding of the importance and significance of the Battle of Waterloo. We’re producing a new website that will focus on the interpretation of 200 original objects from the period, drawn from public and private collections across the UK. The artefacts will be digitised and contextualised through a range of related sources and supported by a rich layer of learning resources, allowing users to curate their own story of the war and its impact. All digitised collections content will be openly licensed and made available for reuse.

So – we have an opportunity in this project to bring together, online, a fascinating collection of objects that has never been seen together before. Waterloo 200 has a wealth of expert knowledge amongst our volunteers: expertise in the historical period, its interpretation and its legacy and expertise in teaching and learning. The National Army Museum and Culture24 bring expertise in curation, digitisation, collections management, data management, digital publishing and, again, interpretation and education. The Wikimedia community brings a wealth of skills, expertise, resource, enthusiasm, existing content and of course a route to a global audience. Projects such as the Wikipedia featured article initiative ‘Majestic Titans’ have much to teach us about ways in which we might work together to maximise the potential of this significant historical anniversary. As well as outlining our plans and approach in this session we hope very much to begin conversations with conference delegates about ways in which we might work together to make the most of this opportunity for collaboration. The session will be delivered by Major General Sir Evelyn Webb-Carter, KCVO OBE DL, chairman of Waterloo 200, with support from his project team.

Track

GLAM Outreach

Length of session (if other than 30 minutes, specify how long): 30 minutes

Will you attend Wikimania if your submission is not accepted?: Yes, our project team will be represented.

Slides or further information (optional): We would use slides

Special requests

Interested attendees

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I'm a coordinator of the military history project on enwiki; I'd be really interested to hear about this and to talk about improving related content on Wikipedia. HJ Mitchell | Penny for your thoughts? 15:29, 31 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not attending Wikimania (sadly work commitments rule it out), but would also like to endorse this proposal as one of the coordinators of enwiki's military history project. This sounds like a facinating presentation, and I'm sure that it will be of wide interest. Nick-D (talk) 10:50, 2 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
AdamBMorgan (talk) 12:55, 7 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
the wub "?!" 23:58, 13 April 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Chase me ladies, I'm the Cavalry (talk) 15:27, 27 May 2014 (UTC)[reply]
Your name here!