Diagram of a sandwich, with two slices of bread and filling labelled with arrows from top to bottom: Strategic alignment, Professional development, Practical skills.

Wikipedia’s editing community and organisations like Te Papa have been talking for decades about how much we can do for each other. But with only so many hours in the day, adding a global encyclopedia to our workload is a hard sell. Digital Channels Outreach Manager Lucy Schrader fills you in on how we’re growing our own Wiki community, making this partnership much less intimidating.Read more

By:
On:
In: Behind the scenes
Three large tractors in the snow at Antarctica.

As Wikipedian in Residence at Te Papa, Siobhan Leachman researched the research expeditions the museum has undertaken since the Colonial Museum was founded in 1865. Siobhan and Digital Channels Outreach Manager Lucy Schrader show how sharing this information through the open linked data platform Wikidata has made it easier to learn about the expeditions and what they discovered.Read more

By:
On:
In: Behind the scenes
A screenshot of several thumbnails of plant specimens.

Where can you find harakeke outside Aotearoa? What species of forget-me-not live on Banks Peninsula?* Answering these questions is now a lot easier because our herbarium’s botanical specimen data – 250,000 records about plants, with information about what they are, where they’re from and lots more – have been released on the world’s biggest database of living things, GBIF. Kaitūhono Hora Raraunga | Digital Channels Outreach Manager Lucy Schrader tells you about making it happen.Read more

By:
On:
In: Behind the scenes, Science

Once a year around 2000 Wikipedians – the dedicated writers, researchers, photographers, data scientists, developers, and more who improve Wikipedia and its related sites day by day – get together for Wikimania, the annual conference covering anything and everything Wikipedia. Over several days they get deep into what’s new, share exciting projects, and work out how to turn normal people into new Wikipedia editors. From the kiwi contingent, Te Papa’s Heidi Meudt, Lucy Schrader, and Victoria Leachman report back on Wikimania 2023.Read more

By:
On:
In: Behind the scenes
Photo of a forget me not, Myosotis brevis, being pointed at because it’s very small, on Wikimedia Commons

We generate a lot of data at Te Papa. Specimens. Photographs. Facts and figures. We’re always thinking of ways to get that data out there and into your hands – and recently we’ve been diving headfirst into Wikipedia. Here, Digital Channels Outreach Manager Lucy Schrader talks about the work that went into getting hundreds of images of forget-me-nots onto the site, allowing them to spread across the web.Read more

By:
On:
In: Science

Members of Te Papa’s whānau recently established an informal Takatāpui Rainbow Sharing group. The group is open to all Te Papa kaimahi and acts as a hub to share information on collections and upcoming events (internal and external) relating to our various communities. To mark this year’s Wellington Pride Festival Tū Whakahīhī e Te Whanganui-ā-Tara (3–17 September) some of our members have written about what Pride means to them.Read more

By:
On:
In: History