Wikipedia:GLAM/National Library and National Archives of the Netherlands/WiR



The Koninklijke Bibliotheek (KB, national library of the Netherlands) and the Nationaal Archief (NA, national archives of the Netherlands) are aiming to put the largest and most diverse collection of textual heritage in the Netherlands at the service of Wikipedia and related Wiki-projects. To support this ambition, both institutions have attracted a joint Wikipedian-in-Residence.

After a selection and interview procedure in June the KB and NA have contracted the experienced Wikipedian Hay Kranen. He will act as the linking pin between the rich (paper and digital) collections of the KB and NA and the reuse of this content on Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and Wikisource. Hay is an initiator, coordinator and facilitator of projects and events that will expand and reinforce the collaboration between KB, NA and the GLAM-Wiki community. This will lay the foundations for a more durable relation between KB, NA and projects of Wikimedia. Hay started his work on 7th October and will finish in July 2014.

KB and NA are the first Dutch heritage institutions that have successfully managed to attract such a Wikipedian-in-Residence. They follow in the footsteps of renowned international institutions such as the British Museum, the Smithsonian Institution, the Palace of Versailles and the MoMa.

Background of the project
The KB offers everybody permanent access to Dutch publications, from and about the Netherlands. As the 'national memory' the NA manages the archives of not only the national government, but also the archives of civil organisations and individual persons who are of national importance. Together both institutions hold the largest and most diverse collection of paper and textual heritage in the Netherlands, with national and international importance and reputation.

Both institutions are very busy to digitize and bring online their paper holdings. They do this for as many people as possible to be able to discover and enjoy these rich treasures. The KB offers for example wonderful online exhibitions, Historic Newspapers, or background dossiers. The NA offers gahetna.nl (all pages in Dutch). To disseminate this cultural and scientific heritage as widely as possible, the KB and NA make sure the content can be found on national and international levels, for instance by offering it via The Memory of the Netherlands and the European heritage portal Europeana. Furthermore they try to offer as many of their digital resources as possible under open licenses, to enable free (re)use of this open data by everyone; of course within the limits permitted by copyright laws.

Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia that everyone can contribute to - has 500 million unique visitors per month. This makes it one of the most frequently used and relevant sites in the world. Run by volunteers, Wikipedia is for many Dutch one of the first starting points for finding factual information; some 93% of the population knows about Wikipedia. The sites of KB and NA are only know by 6% of the Dutch population, therefore Wikipedia is the ideal place to expose the content and expertise of the KB and the NA to a wide audience. This has already happened on small scales, for instance the article about Princess Beatrix (page in Dutch) has references to the Historic Newspaper site of the KB and in the article about the Persian Gulf (page in Dutch) there is a reference to the map collection of the NA.

In 2010 the NA donated over 1,000 photos of Dutch politicians and famous events to Wikimedia Commons. In June 2012 the NA released over 140,000 images from the photo archive of ANEFO as open data (cc-by-sa-3.0-nl). Volunteers subsequently uploaded some 5,3000 images from this archive to Wikimedia Commons.

However, until now, there was no formal collaboration of KB and NA with Wikipedia. But as far as the KB and NA are concerned, this is about to change as both institutions would like to put their paper and digital collections at the service of the Wikimedia community. This is done in close collaboration with Wikimedia Nederland (page in Dutch), the (Dutch branch of the) foundation supporting volunteers who work on the encyclopedia and related Wiki projects.

Q&As about the project
Questions and answers about this project are on a separate page: Questions and answers Wikipedian-in-residence KB and NA (page in Dutch).

Points of attention when starting up a Wikipedian-in-Residence project
During the (internal) preparations of our Wikipedian-in-residence project we have had great benefit from all the freely and openly available information shared by other GLAMs that (have) run WiR projects. Without this information we would never have been able to .... Read more on Points of learing and interest when starting up a WiR project (page in Dutch)

Recruitment and vacancy Wikipedian in Residence (closed)
The recruitment procedure for the first Wikipedian-in-Residence of the Netherlands has now been closed. It ran from 24th May until 15th June 2013. We have chosen Hay Kranen. The text of the vacancy can be found here (page in Dutch, vacancy closed)