Wikipedia:GLAM/British Library/One on one collaborations

This is a place to list, and begin collaboration on, one-on-one projects within the greater project of British Library-Wikipedia collaboration - individual Wikipedians working with individual curators on particular topics, using the expertise of both sides. A similar collaboration project at the British Museum was very successful, with several Featured Articles among its achivements.

Wikipedians seeking curators

 * Why seek curators? A specialist can help provide feedback on an article, review it for omissions or inaccuracies, and help identify and provide appropriate sources that may otherwise be difficult to access. Have an idea for a topic you'd like to work on, and which would benefit from some expert collaboration? List it here...

Curators seeking Wikipedians
Topics where a curator has offered to collaborate on developing an article (or articles) on a topic of interest to them. If you're interested in working with one of them, please contact Andrew Gray (talk) - the details of what's on offer are up to the people involved, but could involve things such as help finding sources, advice on scope and weighting, and criticism and feedback on drafts of the article; I'll work on clearing images where possible.

If you're interested in any of these, please leave a note below or contact me!

Hans Sloane
Sir Hans Sloane was an early-18th century physician and collector, who became president of the Royal Society and later bequeathed the collections which became a nucleus of the British Museum (and thus the Natural History Museum and British Library, as well) - his article is, unfortunately, not much more than a retouched copy of the 1911 Britannica! There's a good amount of recent work being done on Sloane - see the completed Sloane Printed Books project and the ongoing Sloane correspondence project - and hopefully we'll be able to get multiple experts to look at the article.

Royal Manuscripts
Building on past collaboration involving the Royal Collection, fifty of the "highlights" of the exhibition are in the process of being digitised for public access online (first 15 currently listed). Not all are appropriate for individual articles on the specific manuscripts, but some are (eg/ the Coronation Book of Charles V) and several more represent significant works that may deserve articles (eg/ the Estoire del Saint Graal) Sources, images, and expert feedback can be provided, if anyone is interested in working on sumptuously illustrated manuscripts...

Bookbinding
The curator responsible for bookbindings (both historic and modern bindings) is very keen on increasing the quality and quantity of bookbinding articles on Wikipedia; it's currently a topic covered very badly, with a hundred or so (mostly stub) articles for the entire field. We're able to provide sources, reviews, and hopefully a significant selection of images to help editors.

Music manuscripts
The curator responsible for musical manuscripts is keen to make contact with Wikipedians interested in working on these items. The BL has a very strong collection of manuscripts, with material from most of the major classical composers, including original MS of Bach, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert. There is also the major collection of Handel's manuscripts, and a significant amount of material representing 20th century British music. Please contact me if you're interested. Andrew Gray (talk) 10:35, 13 June 2012 (UTC)


 * ✅ Volunteer in touch with curator. Andrew Gray (talk) 09:50, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Lord Chamberlain's Plays
The Lord Chamberlain's Office was responsible for all theatrical censorship in the UK from 1737 to 1968, a period of just under 250 years. It kept a copy of all plays submitted to it in this period, many of which were later censored and so represent unique textual variants, or are among the sole surviving copies of more ephemeral plays; a recent project has done some work on cataloguing and indexing mid-19th century material.

The collection itself is notable, and the curators are interested in collaborating with volunteers who're interested in working on it. There's also no general article about theatrical censorship in the United Kingdom - at the moment, this is variously covered in Lord Chamberlain's Office, Theatres Act 1843, Licensing Act 1737, etc., but there's no general overview.