“Student Wikipedian Community in Waseda Uni Tokyo” and “Toumon Wikipedian Club Japan” , the almuni association held an online meeting discussing how to use digital archives for Wikipedia. This article reports the detail of that meeting.
Various digital archives
First of all, Eugene Ormandy introduced some digital archives such as Europeana, DPLA, Internet Archive and Wikimedia Commons refering to an article about digital archive (時実象一「世界のデジタルアーカイブの動向」).
Then, other members explained how they use digital archives to edit Wikipedia.
How to use digital archives (User:Takenari Higuchi)
Firstly, Takenari Higuchi explained how they uses digital archives.
They picked up a Japanese animation’s Wikipedia article [[少女☆歌劇 レヴュースタァライト (アニメ)]] which they had wrote and said that they had archived the web pages used as references in the article by Wayback Machine. They pointed out that web pages are useful reference to write articles especially about animation or manga, so you have to archive it to prevent link rot.
They also picked up a Japanese Wikipedia article [[本山原人]] which they had wrote and said that they had used some newspaper digital archives, such as “Asahi Shimbun Cross-Search“, “MAISAKU” and “NIKKEI TELECOM” to write the article. They access those archives through the database of their university.
How to use digital archives (User:Uraniwa)
Then, Uraniwa explained how they uses digital archives.
Uraniwa said that they had took a picture of a shrine and uploaded it to Wikimedia Commons as [[File:Murahi shrine.jpg]]. And they had used the picture for Japanese Wikipedia’s article [[村檜神社]].
After Uraniwa’s edit, another Wikipedia user had added the pictures from other point of view. A participant pointed out that such an improvemet is an advantage of “wiki” system.
How to use digital archives (User:Eugene Ormandy)
Then, Eugene Ormandy explained how they uses digital archives.
Eugene Ormandy explained that they had downloaded a picture (CC BY) from Europeana and uploaded it to Wikimedia Commons as [[File:William Steinberg.jpg]] and use it for Japanese Wikipedia’s article [[ウィリアム・スタインバーグ]].
Eugene Ormandy added that the picture used in English Wikipedia’s article [[William Steinberg]] is in the licence of “fair use” , so you cannot upload it to Wikimedia Commons and use it in Japanese Wikipedia.
Eugene Ormandy also explained that they had referred to books uploaded to Internet Archive to write a Japanese Wikipedia’s article [[カール・バーグマン]]. They said that Internet Archive is a very useful tool to write about classical music conductors especially active in 19th or 20th century because that archive contains many old music magazines.
Eugene Ormandy also presented an unfortunate example. They pointed out that many pictures in DPLA are not in Creative Commons license, so they can only add URL to “External links” section of Wikipedia articles.
Q&A
After the presentations, participants asked questions, such as “Are there any useful digital archive of Japanese painting?” or “Are there any other Web-Archive system?”. In response to this, Eugene Ormandy and Uraniwa introduced some digital archives, such as colbase, archive today and WARP.
Conclusion
Through this meeting, we confirmed that Wikipedia editors can use and make digital archives. And we also confirmed that some digital archives are very useful to make Wikimedia projects better.
We will continue to hold meetings to interact and exchange Wikipedian’s experiences.
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