At WikiConference North America 2024 in Indianapolis, my team from the Smithsonian Institution presented the GLAM CSI (Contributor Study Initiative) — a project to systematically study and document user stories from cultural institution partners working with Wikimedia.
The Problem We’re Solving
For years, GLAM-Wiki partnerships have operated on a simple premise: museums, libraries, and archives contribute their collections to Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata, and the world benefits from increased access to cultural heritage.
The premise is correct. But the experience of doing this work is often poorly understood.
Cultural institution staff face real challenges:
- Technical barriers: learning Wikidata’s data model, writing SPARQL queries, using upload tools
- Institutional resistance: convincing leadership that open access is worth the investment
- Sustainability concerns: maintaining updated records when museum catalogues change
- Tool gaps: workflows that work for 100 items break at 100,000
These are the stories we set out to capture.
The Approach
Our workshop at WikiConference NA was participatory by design. Rather than presenting findings, we asked attendees — a mix of Wikimedians, museum professionals, and librarians — to share their experiences:
- What worked?
- What broke?
- What would you tell a colleague considering their first GLAM partnership?
- What keeps you up at night?
The responses were illuminating. They ranged from “Wikidata has transformed how our collection is discovered” to “We spent six months trying to map our taxonomy to Wikidata and gave up.”
Why Stories Matter
Traditional metrics capture outputs: number of images uploaded, Wikidata items created, page views generated. These matter. But they don’t capture the human experience of doing open knowledge work inside institutions.
User stories fill the gap. They reveal:
- Where tools need improvement
- What training materials are missing
- How institutional policies help or hinder open access
- Why some partnerships thrive and others stall
What’s Next
The CSI initiative is feeding into the Smithsonian’s broader open access strategy. We’re using the insights to:
- Prioritize tool development (especially around bulk upload and synchronization)
- Design better training and documentation
- Make the case internally for continued investment in open access
- Share best practices with the broader GLAM community
The most important finding? Relationships matter more than tools. The most successful partnerships aren’t the ones with the best technology — they’re the ones where a committed individual inside the institution champions the work.
That’s a story worth documenting.