GLAM/Newsletter/January 2024/Contents/UK report

This Month in GLAM – Volume XIV, Issue I, January 2024

UK report

Indonesian praise for an Ottoman photograph of Arabia

Khalili Foundation

Katie at Wikimedia UK and I adapted my summary report for 2023 into a blog post for the Wikimedia UK web site, which went live on 29 January.

The Empire of the Sultans article appeared in Did You Know for 24 hours on 18 January where it was seen by 4.8 million visitors, becoming the 25th DYK from this project. A photograph of the Kaaba by Muhammad Sadiq Bey was given a Featured Picture award by Indonesian Wikipedia, decided unanimously by nine reviewers. It ran as Featured Image of the Day on 28 January. This is the first time Indonesian Wikipedia has recognised the Khalili Collections in this way, and the first time this particular image has been given a Featured Picture award.

We are looking to run more edit-a-thons this year. I have been in touch with art historians who work outside the Western canon in four universities. Two have responded so far, both tentatively positive, and I will follow up with them later in the year.

With the recent additions of Moulay Ahmed Drissi, N. R. Sardesai, and D. C. Joglekar, all the non-Western artists listed by the Global visual arts taskforce (identified by the Ahmed and Poulter research) now have representations on Wikidata. These representations give some very basic facts about each artist and pointers to further information, and they can be used by multiple Wikipedia versions and apps, as well as by Google and other platforms to distinguish these artists from people with similar names. At the time of the research in 2021, 14 of the 283 artists had no Wikidata representation.

Work has continued on the article about the Heaven on Earth: art from Islamic lands exhibition and some small improvements to the Empire of the Sultans article. I have taken delivery of the Meiji no Takara volumes (catalogues of the Khalili Collection of Japanese Art) and the Linda York Leach "Paintings from India" book (a volume of the Khalili Collection of Islamic Art catalogue). The latter has already been used to extend the Gulshan-i 'Ishq article.

The open peer review for the Cultural diversity article is over. No problems were identified other than the article needs to be longer to cover its complex subject. Having overhauled what was a problematic article, I intend to leave the subject for now.

There were no new image uploads this month. There was one new article: the Sitara (textile) article that I wrote in English has been translated into Uzbek: the first new article in Uzbek language from this project! GLAMorgan reports 5,958,489 image views for January, from 92 different wikis.

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