History

GLAM_WIKI panel.

Wikimedia Australia formed in 2008, was recognised as a Wikimedia chapter by the Wikimedia Foundation on 4 March 2008, and incorporated on 6 August 2008.

Our first event occurred in August 2009: GLAM-WIKI, supported by the Australian War Memorial, Wikimedia Foundation, CustomWare, and ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation. This event brought together people from more then 50 galleries, libraries, archives, and museums from across Australia and New Zealand to share ideas on the free exchange of knowledge.

Boer War soldier from Queensland, an image from the State Library of Queensland Collection.

Our next major project was in conjunction with the State Library of Queensland with the uploading of approximately 23,000 images from their collection. Combined with this was a number of editing workshops in libraries across Queensland. This was then followed with a similar program with the State Library of New South Wales, who in 2013 hosted Australia's first Wikimedian in residence.

Wikimedia Australia and Paralympics Australia (formerly, Australian Paralympic Committee (APC)) have been working together on a number of projects to improve the available information on paralympic sports. The APC arranged media accreditation for Wikimedians to cover the 2012 Paralympics in London. This was followed up with accreditation for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Socchi, Australian Wikimedians work on documenting many other sports as well including wheelchair basketball and wheelchair rugby.

See media and publications from Wikimedia Australia here

Freopedia QR code

In 2012 Wikimedia Australia combined with the Fremantle Society to take Wikipedia away from our screens and out into the streets, with Australia's first WikiTown in Fremantle (known as Freopedia). This project placed QR code plaques on buildings, monuments and other places linked with Fremantle history. With topics such as Australian Prime Minister John Curtin, US President Hubert Hoover and bushranger Moondyne Joe, and Western Australia's oldest building, Freopedia provides access to and publicity of Wikipedia articles about the history of Fremantle and Western Australia — and does it in many different languages, a boon for a tourist city like Fremantle.

In 2014 a second WikiTown was establish in Toodyay, also in Western Australia. The Shire of Toodyay took the lead on this project with Wikimedia Australia and Western Australian editors providing the support and backup they needed to be successful.

In 2015 Wikimedia Australia joined with Indigenous Studies faculties at UWA and Curtin universities to support the first Indigenous community-led project, working on wiki content in Noongar, the language of the south-west of Western Australia. Noongarpedia, as this project was called, also resulted in the start of incubators for both the Noongar Wikitionary and Noongar Wikipedia.

In 2022 Wikimedia Australia welcomed two full-time staff for the first time and hosted ESEAP Conference 2022 in Sydney. As we expand our reach we remain committed to our mission led by our Strategic Plan 2022 - 2025.