Forecast: A million pairs of eyes edit
Because of their donation to Wikimedia Commons, Harrogate Museums and Arts' images will be seen on more than a million screens over the next year.
In early February Harrogate Museums donated 71 images of Ancient Egyptian objects to Wikimedia Commons and over the next few days 15 images were added to 10 relevant Wikipedia articles (click through to the articles by hovering over the images).
This might not sound like a great success - 15 images from 71 images, and only 10 articles that see them used. However, by analysing the Wikipedia page views of these 10 articles over the last 3 months we can anticipate that these object photographs will be seen a huge number of times in the coming months. In total, these articles were viewed 344258 times between 26 December 2014 and 26 March 2015. Nearly Three hundred and fifty thousand views in 3 months means Harrogate museums can confidently expect their objects to be seen by well over a million people in the next year. That's just on English Wikipedia. York Museums Trust already has images scattered across Japanese Wikipedia, Polish Wikipedia, Ukranian Wikipedia and Lithuanian Wikipedia as well as the familiar languages one might expect. Many of these images were added to articles by editors independently of the project.
These images, which formerly languished on the museum's computers can now be used by people around the world to learn about Ancient Egypt. They demonstrate that digital outreach can connect the collections of small museums to global audiences. As each image has a trail of links back to Harrogate's museums, interested readers can also find out more about the museum and see its other works.
Breaking down the c.350 thousand views by article allows us to see the value of adding images to popular topics such as Anubis (144705 views). However, knowing that Harrogate Museums has provided the key images on a well-written, specialist but less travelled article is also important: The lion hunts of Amenhotep III during the first ten years of his reign (486 views). The mean number of views per article was 31296 but the median demonstrates a more reasonable expectation of 18871 views per article.
In addition, these images have attracted the attention of an enthusiastic and knowledgeable Wikipedia editor who is now setting up a partnership with a Harrogate Museums volunteer to edit articles on pre-dynastic settlements using images and resources from Harrogate. Real engagement with a willing, 'e-volunteer' who may be anywhere in the world.
Harrogate Museums get huge credit for being Yorkshire's (and probably Britain's) first Local Authority museum to donate images to Wikimedia Commons. Leading the way for other museums in the region to get involved - contact patrick.hadley
ymt.org.uk to find out more.
- Images from Harrogate Museums in use on English Wikipedia
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Egyptian paint holder made from Giant clam shell -
Cartonnage Anubis Mask from Harrogate - rotating animation -
Green glazed cobra Uraeus -
Pre-dynastic Naqada cooking pot -
Cartonnage Anubis Mask from Harrogate - rear right view -
Ancient Egyptian Scribe's palette -
Bead net with scarab -
Alabaster kohl pot
