Community Strategist (Galleries, Libraries Archives and Museums)

Overview

The WMF recently received a major grant to support the development of Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons. This grant allows us the opportunity to hire an additional a GLAM (Galleries, Libraries Archives and Museums) specialist to help further develop tools, organizational partnerships, and advocacy to support the grant while helping grow the use of Structured Data on Commons in both our Wikimedia and external GLAM-Wiki communities.

The role will support the diverse international community of program leaders working with cultural heritage institutions to expand the impact of Wikimedia’s projects as educational platforms. These efforts will help Wikimedia projects grow with millions of media items uploaded into Wikimedia Commons, millions of data items improved on Wikidata, and millions of improvements across other linked movement projects.

The individual will support, facilitate, and amplify GLAM-Wiki work through better understanding and implementation of scalable GLAM-Wiki projects, greater cross-regional international partnerships among GLAM-Wiki volunteers, and deeper communication about GLAM-Wiki beyond the Wikimedia movement. The focus will be on supporting the broad adoption of external partnerships that utilize Structured Data on Wikimedia Commons and related external projects. A key component of this will be producing documentation and conducting training and outreach to help the GLAM-wiki community overcome technical and programmatic challenges.

The individual will join the Programs team at the Wikimedia Foundation and will also work closely with the Structured Data on Commons team including a Community Liaison, the structured data Program Manager, and the engineers and designers working on structured data implementation.

We’d like you to do these things:

• Help prioritize technical support from the Foundation and amongst institutional partners to further GLAM-Wiki efforts:

• Supporting development of partnership models and tools in the Wikimedia ecosystem which utilize Structured Data on Commons, in citations and in Wikidata.
• Advise on technical projects that improve the ability for local communities to implement GLAM partnerships and support the broader adoption of structured data from Wikimedia projects within cultural heritage communities.

• Liaise with GLAM-Wiki communities to strengthen the ability for volunteer groups to support institutional collaboration, especially in structured data projects:  

• Consult prior and existing GLAM-Wiki community leaders to determine best ways to facilitate GLAM-Wiki projects which utilize the new tools provided by Structure Commons.
• Act as point-of-contact directing institutions seeking information from WMF about GLAM partnerships to best-positioned community leaders and organizations to support partnerships.

• Help communities identify and implement best practices that facilitate growth of new GLAM-Wiki multimedia collaborations especially in emerging communities and communities without robust digital heritage sharing platforms, like Europeana and DPLA.

• Facilitate growth of international capacity within GLAM-Wiki projects and among program leaders, especially around linked-structured data in the Wikimedia ecosystem:

• Encourage development of trainings and GLAM-Wiki community events that help program leaders learn skills for collaborating with partners in using linked, structured, open data.
• Write and share documentation of tools and processes, which lead to robust use of Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata in GLAM communities.
• Partner closely with movement leaders in developing strategic Wikimedia outreach towards global organizations, including efforts with Europeana, DPLA, IFLA, ICOM, UNESCO, and other emerging opportunities.

• Develop strategies that popularly align Wikimedia projects with the educational missions of GLAMs by communicating Wikimedia Commons and other Wikimedia projects as critical platforms for public access scholarly research, digital literacy, and cultural heritage

We’d like you to have these skills:

• Strong written and spoken English
• Experience and skills working with GLAM projects that integrate programs and technology, ideally involving program leaders from the Wikimedia Community
• Knowledge and experience using linked open data, preferably Wikidata, for GLAM or  other applications
• Experience developing partner relationships and outreach materials, ideally for the Wikimedia community
• Proficiency and ability to create communications in a wide range of formats — to support relationships with partners, Wikimedia affiliates, and the Wikimedia community
• Experience travelling to present at conferences and facilitate live workshops
• Comfort advocating for and supporting technical projects related to analytics, multimedia, and metadata in an open, networked ecosystem
• Experience or skills needed to collaborate with a distributed and remote team with people of diverse skillsets and backgrounds

And it would be even more awesome if you have:

• Proficiency in languages other than English
• Training or experience working with academic, reference, research, and/or cultural heritage communities in collaborative projects, especially internationally
• An existing network of collaborators and contacts in international open knowledge, cultural heritage communities, or in the Wikimedia community.

Please include a cover letter when applying.  We want to hear from you about why you want to work with us at Wikimedia.