User:David Ludwig/Collections

The aim of this project is to document the holdings of university museums and collections in Wikimedia Commons. University collections often do not have the financial means to build complex websites/databases and countless important scientific objects remain locked away in storage rooms without any documentation whatsoever. Wikimedia Commons can serve as a great and efficient platform to make scientific objects accessible not only to historians of science but also to the broader public.

The project will be mutually beneficial for Wikimedians and university collections. Wikimedians will benefit from the addition of images of fascinating and rare scientific objects. University collections receive a no-cost strategy of documenting their holdings online and making them accessible to the public.

Although we have already uploaded 1394 images from 8 university collections, the project is still in an early planning stage and any input is highly appreciated.

Information for University Collections

What you can do

All you have to do is to provide us images of objects in your collection that you are (a) able and willing to release under a free license and that are (b) labeled in a somewhat meaningful way (for example, not fhz59.jpg but frog-heart-ziegler-1859.jpg). Labels do not have to be in English and do not have to follow the structure of the example.

What we will do

• We will upload your images to Wikimedia Commons
• We organize the images in categories, including a collection-specific category
• We will write a short Wikipedia article on your collection, if it meets Wikipedia’s notability guideline.
• We will illustrate Wikipedia articles with your images, if there are appropriate uses.

Information for Wikimedians

To-Do list

General

• Create a consistent category system for university museums/collections and scientific objects. So far, we have a Category:University museums with a bunch of subcategories and Category:Scientific equipment with a bunch of subcategories.
• Come up with some rules for the names of categories & images. (a) Categories: should it be Category:Modellsammlung der AG Kristallographie des Instituts für Physik (official name in original language), Category:Model Collection of the Working Group Crystallography of the Department of Physics (official name in literal translation) or Category:Crystallographic Model Collection Berlin (convenient name) (b) Images: Is it sufficient if images are uploaded with existing file names (given that they are somewhat meaningful) or is it necessary to rename all files?
• Organize the existing mess. So far, the existing subcategories are far from well-organizes. I would love to get some help from Wikimedians who have more experience with Commons and/or have bots.

Specific tasks

• Merge Category:Botanical models & Category:Botanical_Model
• Add a category for Krantz models, see Category:Crystallographic_Model_Collection_Berlin

Results

• 
  Botanical Museum Greifswald
• 
  Zoological Collection Rostock ‎
• 
  Model Collection Göttingen ‎
• 
  Collection of mathematical models and instruments Göttingen
• 
  Blechschmidt Collection Göttingen
• 
  Theatre Studies Collection Cologne
• 
  Mathematical Model Collection Marburg
• 
  Crystallographic Model Collection Berlin