Wikipedia:GLAM/SocAntScot/tweantyone Month Report

Overview
The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (SAS) was formed in 1780 and has been producing information ever since, including books, journals, excavation reports, lectures (which are now video recorded), and the Scottish Archaeological Research Framework. They have over 2,700 members worldwide. The history of the Society tells the story of many of Scotland’s Cultural Institutions.

The Wikimedian-in-Residence post is one day a week and is designed to:


 * 1) Supporting policy implementation across the SoAS and helping staff in delivering policy, edit-a-thons, and the Newsletter Header and Newsletter Meet a Fellow and Resource projects
 * 2) Exploring the viability of the Rhind Lecture +, Data the Society and Data Visualisation projects
 * 3) Developing a delivery, funding and open access plan for the Scots Musical Museum project (see below), including building on existing partnerships with the National Library of Scotland and St Cecilia’s Hall Concert Room and Music Museum

Progress narrative
This period has been much more productive than the last one when COVID restrictions severely impact my ability to tackle the new goals of the project - we have been able to source childcare!!!! Adapting to the changes we have identified some of the other suggestions from the report that can be implemented too, such as integrating QR codes to Wikipedia articles for the Princess Street Gardens Runestone (now moved to George square at the University of Edinburgh, but still called the Princess Street Gardens Runestone). Alison Sheridon, who will be delivering this year's Rhind Lecture(s - it is actually several lectures) has agreed to provided the additional resources needed to create the learning resource on wikiversity. A plan has been put together to run another edit-a-thon around women in archaeology. This time focusing on past Women Fellows of the society (well actually before they were allowed to be fellows and were just associates). This will be digital so the training on this should come in quite handy. I have also been able to get the Society and Archaeology Scotland to participate in Wiki Loves Monuments and upload some of their images of sites.

Unfortunately, we did not get one of the grants we went for to support a series of edithons. We are still waiting on feedback.

Other Projects and Developments
These are some developments that was not part of the original plan but that have arisen ad hoc. Though some of them are ideas that were put forth in the report:


 * 1) Integration of QR codes to Wikipedia articles for the Princess Street Gardens Runestone. This was one of the ideas put forth in the report and now looks to be going forward. For the plaque for the stone we are looking into having a QR code to the Wikipedia article. It would be great to have the QRpedia working for this but it looks like we might just link to the English Wikipedia article.
 * 2) Wiki Loves Monuments - I helped support this project throughout the month of September. Using past winners as examples I tweeted daily about the competition to encourage people to submit photos. These tweets gained 82.9K impressions. I also got the Society and Archaeology Scotland to upload images to the comp of over a dozen sites and close to 200 images.
 * 3) Data visualizations - another suggestion in the report was to work with data visualizations and Wikipedia. An opportunity to do so has arisen with Scottish Bricks and we will be pursing that in the next quarter.
 * 4) Scots language - one of the proposed ideas in the report was to use the Proceedings to create or improve articles of archaeological sites but in the local languages of the areas e.g. Scots or Gaelic. Given the issues that occurred with Scots Wikipedia we think there is a lot of potential with this idea and are looking to do an edithon with fellows that speak Scots/ are Scots academics.

Progress narrative
A new development in this area has been that a member of the society has been working on a List of 'Lady Associates' from 1780 to 1901. Lady Associates were a class of "member" for women when they couldn't actually become members. Some of the very first women archaeologists in Scotland were 'associates' and would have their papers read out by a trusted man in the meetings, while they waited outside - not the societies finest hours. The efforts to create this list has also provided us with a significant number of resources we can use to improve their Wikipedia pages. An excerpt of the info gathered:

''1870. The Lady Alicia Ann John Scott of Spottiswoode (1810-1900), Berwickshire. Collector and writer of Scots songs and verse. Conducted archaeological excavations on her estates. Collected Jacobite and archaeological objects. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alicia_Ann_Spottiswoode https://doi-org.ezproxy.lib.gla.ac.uk/10.1093/ref:odnb/61567 https://archive.org/details/songsverses00scot/page/n13

pp. xvi- xvii ‘From her father she inherited a great love of botany, geology, and especially archaeology. They worked at these things together, and under his guidance she acquired a fund of accurate knowledge, to which she was always adding… but it was so contrary to her nature to make any show or parade of knowledge, that only those who were much with her knew its depth and extent.’

pp. xlvii-xlviii Annual holiday to the Highlands. Explored and sketched prehistoric remains in Caithness.

pp. lii-liv Collected Jacobite relics and archaeological objects. Family had been Jacobites.

p. liv She enjoyed history books and ‘scientific books, particularly any dealing with her favourite subject, archaeology; also books on gypsies, folklore, superstitions, or any curious byways of knowledge.’

1871. Miss Christian Maclagan (1811-1901), Ravenscroft, Stirling. Prehistoric archaeology. Known for her rubbings of sculptured stones. Rubbings exhibited at 1888 Glasgow exhibition and later donated to BM. Disputed with SoAS regarding Fellowship status. Scotland’s first female archaeologist. Dr Mairi Davies has written about Maclagan in her PhD. https://doi-org.ezproxy.lib.gla.ac.uk/10.1093/ref:odnb/34771

Stevenson, J. H. ed. ‘The late Miss C. Maclagan’, The Scottish Antiquary, 16 (1902), p. 46, https://archive.org/details/scottishantiquar1617edin/page/n57 https://trowelblazers.com/christian-maclagan/ https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/arch-352-1/dissemination/pdf/vol_009//9_029_044.pdf https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/arch-352-1/dissemination/pdf/vol_009//9_178_179.pdf https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/arch-352-1/dissemination/pdf/vol_011//11_107_123.pdf https://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/catalogue/adsdata/arch-352-1/dissemination/pdf/vol_014//14_011_013.pdf''

With this information we are looking to run an online edithon in the next quarter to both train staff and fellows in how to edit and to improve the pages of these women.

For the October newsletter we are hoping to have some images we added to WikiCommons as part of Wiki Loves Monuments included with a brief highlight of WikiCommons and encourage fellows to explore that resource.

Progress narrative
Alison Sheridon, who will be delivering this year's Rhind Lecture(s)1 has agreed to help with this project. Because of COVID the lectures will all be recorded so we can use them as a learning resource. In addition, Alison will be providing a annotated bibliography of the resources she cites/discusses in the lecture. With these resources we envision creating a good set of lecture videos with notes on additional readings people can use to further their knowledge. The lectures were meant to have taken place in the spring but will now likely take place in October or November. We hope disseminate the learning resources with the publication of the lectures and piggyback off of the work the society will be doing to promote the lectures.

1 It is actually six different lectures, usually delivered over several days.

Progress narrative
This has been the least developed of the goals so far. Given COVID it has been harder to get in contact with the various organizations but this will be a focus in the next quarter.