The Record: Australian Music On Wikipedia

Putting Australian music on the record – new Wikipedia projects aims to increase discoverability of Australian artists

Wikipedia is one of the most popular websites in the world. Its content is often the first to appear in web searches, yet if you searched for Beat magazine, National Indigenous Music Award nominee Stuart Joel Nuggett, or composer Robin Fox, none of these had Wikipedia entries up until recently.

Wikimedia Australia and the Australia Council for the Arts have partnered on a new project The Record - Australian Music on Wikipedia which aims to increase the visibility of Australian content on Wikipedia and make it easier for global audiences to discover great Australian music.

Through four edit-a-thon events across Australia, The Record will grow the low number of Wikipedia articles about Australian musicians, organisations and publications. Volunteers will be invited to be trained to edit, expand, and create new articles related to a diverse range of Australian music and musicians.

New articles have also been commissioned for publication outside of Wikipedia. These are being written by local music journalists about Australian musicians who aren't represented on Wikipedia yet, or who need better references.

See below for some of the many articles we have created and improved so far.

Read the full media release.

Events

• The Record: Melbourne Music Week Edit-a-thon, Saturday 11 December 2021, 10am - 1pm, Collingwood Yards
• The Record: Australian Music Centre, Friday 18 February 2022, 10am - 1pm, Online
• The Country Record: Wikipedia Edit-a-thon, Thursday 17 March 2022, 2pm - 5pm, Online
• Geelong on the Record Wikipedia Edit-a-thon, Saturday 30 April 2022, 10:30am - 2pm, Geelong Library & Heritage Centre
• The Record: How culturally diverse communities are using Wikipedia, Thursday 9 February 2023, 7:30pm – 9pm, The Australian Jazz Museum
• Improving Australian Jazz on Wikipedia, Tuesday 14 February 2023, 10:30 am - 1:30pm
• Australian Music Centre - Wikipedia edit-a-thon, Thursday 4 May 2023, 3pm - 6pm, Online
• Wikipedia Workshop - Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander Music, Thursday 22 June 2023, 10am - 1pm, State Library of Queensland
• Wikipedia Correctathon, Monday 26 June 2023, 2SER FM Sydney

Partners

Founding Partner

Event partners

Australian Music Vault, Australian Music Centre, Country Music Association of Australia and APRA AMCOS.

Data partner

Jaxsta

50+ Articles Created

• Aarght Records
• Aaron Wyatt
• Amanda Villepastour
• Anne Cawrse
• Anti Fade Records
• The Australian Music Vault
• Beat Magazine
• Bree van Reyk
• Brenda Gifford
• Byron J Scullin
• Cable Ties
• Camille Trail
• Christopher Sainsbury
• Corduroy Records
• Cry Club
• Divide and Dissolve
• Dobe Newton
• Erik Griswold
• Gold Coast Music Awards
• Halyna Korin
• The John Curtin Hotel
• Juice Magazine
• Keyna Wilkins
• Lachlan Skipworth
• Liquid Architecture
• Mace Francis
• Mary Mihelakos
• Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio
• Melody Pool
• Music magazines published in Australia
• Music Street Press of Australia
• Music Victoria
• Mylee Grace
• Nadje Noordhuis
• Nat Bartsch
• Nun
• The Ovarian Sisters
• Parsnip
• Primo!
• Robin Fox
• Room40
• Roseina Boston
• Roza Terenzi
• Sounds Australia
• Speak Percussion
• Spinifex Gum
• Spirit Level
• Stuart Joel Nuggett
• Tijuana Cartel
• Tom Curtain
• Treetops

For a full list see: List of Wikipedia articles created for The Record

40+ Articles Improved

• 19th Helpmann Awards
• 2016 in classical music
• 2021 Music Victoria Awards
• AIR Awards of 2021
• ARIA Hall of Fame
• ANU School of Music
• Arts Centre Melbourne
• Australian classical music
• Australian Music Centre
• Byron Bay Bluesfest
• Chrissy Amphlett
• Claire Edwardes
• Dan Robinson
• Ensemble Offspring
• Fanny Lumsden
• Felix Riebl
• Festival of Dangerous Ideas
• Gene Bradley Fisk
• Gina Williams
• Gondwana Choirs
• Hamed Sadeghi
• Helen Gifford
• Helpmann Award for Best New Australian Work
• I Am Australian
• Inpress
• James Johnston (Australian musician)
• Judy Bailey
• List of Splendour in the Grass line-ups
• Luke O'Shea
• Magic Dirt
• Matthew Flinders Girls Secondary College
• Matthew Hindson
• Mod Con
• National Indigenous Music Awards 2019
• Poison City Records
• Port Fairy Folk Festival
• R.I.P Society Records
• Rising
• Resident Advisor
• Ross Hannaford
• Sally Greenaway
• Sweethearts
• Vanessa Tomlinson

For a full list see: List of Wikipedia articles created for The Record

Commissions

• Silent Jay by Will Brewster - Published by Australian Music Vault.
• Lady Lash by Rhianna Patrick - Published by Australian Music Vault.
• Red Dust & Salt Water - Nola Lauch talks about her Jalgany project by Sosefina Fuamoli - Published in Rhythms magazine, Issue 312 July/Aug 2022, p48
• The pioneering women of Australian music media by Liz Giuffre - Published in The Music (Scheduled for September 2023)

Blog posts

• Writing The Record: the Australian Music Wikipedia project launches, This Month in GLAM report
• New Wikimedian in Residence explores Australian music content, about Australian Music Vault residency

• Adding Jaxsta - the Australian database of international songwriting credits - to Wikidata
• Making Australian Music Visible, a guide to uploading images onto Wikimedia Commons
• Adding Australian Music To Wikipedia, an update on The Record project and increasing discoverability of Australian artists
• Wikimedian In Residence Wrap Up, an update on the Australian Music Vault residency
• How culturally diverse communities are using Wikipedia, about our online event featuring speakers from Australia, New Zealend, and Nigeria
• My Experience as First Nations Wikipedian in Residence, an update on the State Library of Queensland residency

Contact

Project Coordinator, James Gaunt: contact@wikimedia.org.au

The project Dashboard is available here.

Credits

Illustration: Rubii Red is a proud Lama Lama woman from Cape York, QLD, but has grown up and live in Narm (Melbourne, VIC) majority of her life. She’s an artist, Twitch streamer, aspiring videographer and an activist, who uses her art to speak about important issues to her and her community.

Further reading / Press

• Wikipedia 'edit-a-thons' set to amplify Australian music scene's Wikipedia presence - ABC, Dec 2021
• James Gaunt talks to Jacinta Parsons about why The Record matters (2:24:00) - ABC Melbourne, Dec 2021
• Wikipedia Is A Depressing Wasteland When It Comes To Aussie Music But That’s About To Change - Pedestrian, Dec 2021
• Wikimedia launches initiative to boost Wikipedia coverage of Aussie acts - The Music Network, Dec 2021
• Want More Aussie Music Names In Wikipedia? - Mixdown, Dec 2021
• Expanding Australian music’s presence on Wikipedia - Limelight, Feb 2022
• Push for More Australian Music on Wikipedia - The Violin Channel, Feb 2022
• The Record: Wikipedia Edit-a-thon - Australian Music Centre, Feb 2022
• Geelong On The Record - OCR FM, Apr 2022
• Geelong On The Record – Wikipedia Editathon - Forte, Apr 2022
• The Record interview with James Gaunt - Foley Magazine, Aug 2022
• The Record interview with James Gaunt, Belinda Spry, and Dr Liz Giuffre (UTS Sydney) - 2SER FM Breakfast Show (2:34:40), Jun 2023
• The Record interview with James Gaunt and Belinda Spry - 2SER FM The Daily, Jun 2023