Wikipedia:GLAM/BEIC

The Coolest Projects of Wikimedia Chapters - Be Inspired. 13th August 2017, Wikimania 2017 Montreal. The Paolo Monti BEIC project is presented from 13.20 min.

Presentation The Paolo Monti Archive on OpenStreetMap (March 2017)

Paolo Monti, Posters, Venice, 1971

Campanile di San Marco, Venice. Photo by Paolo Monti, 1949

We are sharing with Wikipedia & the Wikimedia projects contents from the BEIC digital library, like the entire digital photo archive of a primary Italian photographer, Paolo Monti, with nearly 17,000 images. This is the largest release of a photographer's collection ever (see details), and also the first to be geotagged.

Media from BEIC are seen more than 10 million times a month on 200+ Wikimedia projects, in 180+ languages.

About us

«BEIC (Biblioteca Europea di Informazione e Cultura, European Library of Information and Culture) digital library aims to make available a large selection of the most important works of the European and world culture, from antiquity to the present day, in every main field of knowledge (from literatures to mathematics, from law to medicine, from economics to religion etc.). University specialists and library experts have selected and edited the records of each collection».

The GLAM-BEIC project, started in 2014, is hold in collaboration with Wikimedia Italia with the aid of a Wikipedian in residence: Federico Leva in 2014–2015 and Marco Chemello in 2016-2017.

Goals

• We uploaded in 2016 an archive of 16,900 photos by Paolo Monti, one of the most important post-war Italian photographers (see Commons:BEIC). This is the largest release of a photographer's collection ever, and also the biggest GLAM sharing from an Italian institution (see details on Wikimedia Commons).
• Since 2014, we uploaded 1,600+ frontispieces and illustrations of ancient books, running from 12th to 18th century (for example from the Acta Eruditorum). We are also uploading entire digitized books and working on it on Wikisource.
• Media from BEIC are seen more than 10 million times a month on 200+ Wikimedia projects, in 180+ languages.
• This is the longest running GLAM-wiki project from Italy.
• We are creating and translating many bio articles on authors from our digital libray. Many of them are less known, however they are relevant authors in their specific fields, for example on the economic history of bookkeeping in Italy in the 16th century.

BEIC authors

Ariosto, Orlando furioso, 1551

Please see the project page on Wikidata: d:Wikidata:BEIC.

See recent contributions of the team in en.wiki

• Wikipedia:GLAM/BEIC/Authors

Updates

• September 2014 - Introduction
• November 2014 - A Wikipedian in Residence at BEIC: first results
• December 2014 - focus shifted to text for a month
• January 2015 - 1600 usages for BEIC images in 165 wikis
• February 2015 - uploads: more automation; almost 2 million requests
• March 2015 - BEIC tool for Wikidata imports, official publishers data
• April 2015 - BEIC improves feedback, uploads new hi-res images
• May 2015 - 3400 usages of images
• June 2015 - 5.500 usages of 800 images from BEIC collection, 160 articles created
• January 2016 - A new Wikipedian in residence
• March 2016 - Paolo Monti archive now on Commons - 17.000 photos! Biggest donation of photos from an Italian institution
• June 2016 - Contemporary art and printer marks images from BEIC
• March 2017 - The first geo-tagged free photo archive in Italy
• April 2017 - The Paolo Monti Archive on Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap (georeferencing the archive)
• June 2017 - Acta Eruditorum
• More updates in the GLAM newsletter
• (Live) List of BEIC media in use

References

• http://www.beic.it/
• BEIC digital library brochure
• (in Italian) Main project page: it:Progetto:GLAM/BEIC
• (in Italian) BEIC press release (September 2014)