Wikidata Tour Down Under (2018)/Wikidata and GLAM SLQ

The 2018 Wikidata Tour Down Under started on Tuesday 11 September 2018 at State Library of Queensland.

Auditorium 2, level 2 South Brisbane, QLD 4101

Introduction to Wikidata

Wikidata is a linked, open, and structured knowledge database that is usable and friendly for both people and computers. Wikidata provides a common source of data in many languages that can be used by anyone, under a public domain license. It contains various data types, for example text, images, quantities, coordinates and dates.

This presentation at State Library Queensland brought together leading Wikidata expert Andy Mabbett, and an audience of GLAM professionals, for an accessible and engaging introduction to Wikidata and its relationship to the GLAMscape. Andy's presentation covered:

  • What is Wikidata?
  • Why does the GLAM sector need to know about this?
  • Who verifies the quality of Wikidata?
  • How can my organisation contribute and how will this data be used?


Andy Mabbett, presenter

Andy Mabbett hails from Birmingham, England, and has been a Wikipedia editor (as User:Pigsonthewing) since 2003 and involved with Wikidata since its inception in 2012. His experience includes Wikimedian in Residence roles with GLAMs such as:

  • ORCID (ongoing)
  • TED
  • The Royal Society of Chemistry
  • The Physiological Society
  • The History of Modern Biomedicine Research Group
  • Thinktank Birmingham Science Museum
  • Queen Street Mill
  • The New Art Gallery Walsall
  • Ikon Gallery
  • Staffordshire Archives and Heritage Service
  • Wildscreen/ARKive

Find Andy on Twitter @pigsonthewing or via his blog Pigsonthewing.

This presentation was followed by a hands on workshop facilitated by Andy where participants learned how to edit and worked on improving Queensland datasets.

Wikimedia Australia thanks State Library of Queensland for their generous support of this event.

Image: JacintaJS

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