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Brazil report

Structuring Wiki Loves Monuments through a Wikidata portal

By Sandra Soster & Juliana Cunha

Wiki Loves Monuments (WLM) is an annual photo competition organized by members of the Wikimedia community around the world. Wiki Movimento Brasil organize the national phase of Wiki Loves Monuments contest since 2019 (above you may see the winner of each year).

During this period, we invite anyone who has photographs of their own, current or from other years, which depict monuments and historic buildings, to upload these images to Wikimedia Commons. With this simple act, each photographer contributes to increasing the visibility of the built heritage of Brazil's cities, reinforcing their historical and cultural importance and, most importantly, preserving local memory and recording the passage of time. By uploading the images under a free license, there is also the potential for them to illustrate Wikipedia, academic papers, teaching materials and other resources worldwide.

Recently, we've created a wikidata portal gathering information on how we organize the wikicontest in Brazil: Wiki Loves Monuments Brasil.

This page aims to document the accurate modeling of Brazilian monuments in Wikidata, with dynamic quality control. It is a resource for the community to monitor the status of the data underlying the Brazilian stage of the Wiki Loves Monuments competition, with special attention to the quality and completeness of the data added to the Wikidata items of each participating monument.

The page also coordinates information on the institutions that carry out heritage listings or inventory data and links to heritage lists, inventories of properties of historical interest, etc. that serve as sources of data on listed properties and properties of historical interest throughout Brazil. The eight tabs are:

  • Home: general information on the Wiki Loves Monuments Brasil contest and this portal;
  • Structured data: overview tables of properties that are commonly used in Wikidata items related to listed properties or properties of historical interest;
  • Common errors: examples of common errors and ontological violations when adding items or properties to items of monuments on Wikidata;
  • Typologies: typologies of monuments (listed assets and items of historical interest) and preservation agencies;
  • Data sources: overview of the data sources from which we have been importing information on Brazilian monuments;
  • Use cases: example of apps and pages that use the metadata on Monuments we have been uploading to Wikidata;
  • Resources and references: links to videos, presentations and papers where you can find more information about the Brazilian stage of the Wiki Loves Monuments competition;
  • Statistics: quality and completeness of the data added to the Wikidata items of each participating monument.

The best case of use of these metadata is the map for our Wiki Loves Monuments contest.

Its interface is an interactive map divided into Brazilian states, where the suggested assets are georeferenced (red pins for assets that don't have photographs, green pins for the ones that have at least one photo). The app runs on the browser, so it is easier to use, as you only need to log in and upload images stored on your cell phone or computer. Images can also be uploaded on the spot, for example while on a photowalk.


New partnership with Criola and its first batch

On July 10, 2024, the Wiki Movimento Brasil User Group entered into a GLAM-Wiki partnership with the NGO Criola. This civil society organization, located in the state of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, has been working for 30 years to combat racism and fight for women's rights.

The WikiCriola Project aims to amplify and expand the voices of Black cis and trans women in the fields of new technologies and racial equity. Through a series of videos and transcriptions produced by nano influencers from all over Brazil, the stories of several notable women will be shared, promoting open access and the democratization of knowledge.

The project was funded by the Wikimedia Foundation and supported by Wiki Movimento Brasil User Group for its availability on Wikimedia Commons. This has resulted in the upload of 13 videos and 59 transcriptions to date, as the one where Gabriela Feitosa Menezes interviewed "ABAYOMI Juristas Negras" (ABAYOMI Black Jurists), presented below:

We will also support the holding of an edit-a-thon on August 16th and 23rd to create Wikipedia articles about the notable women researched in the context of the project.

See the Criola's GLAM page and the uploaded media.


New huge upload from INMA

Especially for people who love plants and for Biologists!

The Instituto Nacional da Mata Atlântica (INMA) made available its collection from the system Reflora and we uploaded 7,152 images that are part of the Museu de Biologia Mello Leitão (MBML) Herbarium collection. Now a total of 26,155 images of plants from the State of Espírito Santo (mainly from Atlantic Forest) are available on Wikimedia Commons.

INMA is our partner since 2022, when we held the Wiki Loves Espírito Santo. And now we are harvesting the fruits (leaves, flowers, roots and all other plant parts) of this partnership.

See the INMA's GLAM page and the uploaded media.


New batch from NeuroMat

RIDC NeuroMat (Research, Innovation and Dissemination Center for Neuromathematics) is a long time GLAM partner of Wiki Movimento Brasil and it keeps supporting several other Wiki partnerships, GLAM projects, events, edit-a-thons, and technical training. And, of course, registering these events and uploading images and videos to Wikimedia Commons. Now you may find 356 new media files from this partnership that only exists because of Professor Galves, a person really committed to open science and the free dissemination of scientific knowledge.

Tribute to Antonio Galves

Jefferson Antonio Galves (18 June 1947 – 5 September 2023) was a Brazilian mathematician, professor of the Institute of Mathematics and Statistics of the University of São Paulo (USP) and member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences. His field of studies was related to statistical models, in particular models that have stochasticity and variable range of memory. Galves was also the leader of NeuroMat, a research center established in 2013 at USP that is dedicated to integrating mathematical modeling and theoretical neuroscience.

The history of CEPID NeuroMat is solidly linked not only to the recent history of open science in Brazil, but also to the history of the WMB itself. Many of the people who work professionally at the WMB today came from CEPID NeuroMat, which, in a rigorous and visionary way, led to various actions in favor of open science using Wikimedia projects. In this context, NeuroMat promoted edit-a-thons, incubated Wikidata Labs and promoted some of the first GLAM partnerships in Brazil, especially with cultural institutions at the University of São Paulo.

On June 26, 2024, Institute of Mathematics and Statistics of the University of São Paulo (USP) renamed the room where CEPID NeuroMat was located in honor of Professor Antonio Galves. Several wikimedians took part in the unveiling of the plaque in his honor at USP.

See the CEPID NeuroMat's GLAM page and the uploaded media.


Outstanding Professional Advancing Open Access to Cultural Heritage

We are happy to share with you that Solange Ferraz de Lima as the , our GLAM-Wiki partner from the Museu Paulista in São Paulo, was awarded the “Outstanding Professional Advancing Open Access to Cultural Heritage” Award; and she attended the Wikimania.

“ This award has the goal to recognize outstanding cultural heritage professionals and activists that are tightly working with the Wikimedia communities to make more cultural heritage available online as open access. [...] The award serves as a way to honor Wikimedia’s movement friend Effie Kapsalis. Effie’s legacy to the world includes spearheading the Smithsonian Open Access initiative [...]. ”

Solange Ferraz de Lima is a Brazilian historian and professor in the Department of History at the University of São Paulo. She researches visual culture and urban representations. She was director of the Museu Paulista from 2016 to 2020, at a time when the museum were closed to visitors. In this period, one of her main lines of action was the transfer of the collection to other spaces, so the institution could continue its educational activities. The GLAM-Wiki partnership with WMB was the solution for giving the wide public access to the collections, and Museu Paulista keep being one of our greater partners: 33,538 mídia with a monthly average of 1,415,623 views.

Read the announcement in DIFF

See the Museu Paulista's GLAM page and the uploaded media.


A note on WMB & Libraries by Laurie Bridges

On July 29, 2024, Laurie Bridges published the article "An Open Knowledge Partnership: Wiki Movimento Brasil and Libraries: A model for open knowledge" presenting fresh information on WMB strategy for widening its work with libraries in Brazil.

“ What makes WMB unique is the more recent focus on libraries, which is based on their successful, ongoing partnerships with museums. In 2023, WMB began the first stage of a three-year initiative to partner with libraries in Brazil to expand the reach of open knowledge. ”

Some of the initial results are:

Laurie Bridges is an instruction and digital initiatives librarian at Oregon State University. She is a founding member of the Wikimedia #EveryBookItsReader campaign, co-editor of the 2021 open access book "Wikipedia and Academic Libraries: A Global Project", and uses Wikipedia in information literacy instruction.


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