WikiMuseum = GLAM Wiki + Wikibase + Data Sharing Space

Our talk introduced the Wikimuseum concept: collaborative, multilingual exhibitions that bring together museum objects, archival documents, photographs, and private collections into Wikimedia-powered virtual showcases. As a case study, we presented the Livonian garment exhibition, where dispersed artefacts from Finland, Estonia, and Latvia were digitally reunited for the first time in a century.

We also showed how this approach interlinks with the Finno-Ugric Data Sharing Space (FUDSS), a demonstration of a rather complex system built around open knowledge graphs and a showcase of a particularly challenging data governance and curation use case involving FAIR and SAFE standards, different jurisdictions, rarely used languages.

Our federated Wikibase-driven dataspace designed for small, endangered, or diasporic heritage communities. The DSS applies the European Interoperability Framework to cultural data, connecting CIDOC-CRM museum records, DCTERMS library metadata, and Wikibase lexemes, while respecting local epistemologies and multilingual vocabularies.

Highlights

• How joint Wikimedia exhibitions allow GLAM institutions and citizen scientists to co-curate without moving artefacts physically.
• How multilingual Wikibase lexemes and semantic interoperability support endangered languages like Livonian, Võro, and Mari.
• How a Wikibase Suite and Lexeme can provide for an alternative incubator for small communities with modern AI support.

Next steps

• Extend the Livonian and Seto exhibitions with more garments, and photographs.
• Extend our music collections and publish ethnomusicologically relevant datasets.
• Align the Wikimuseum model with the ECCCH Heritage Digital Twin Ontology.

Livestream recording

You can watch our presentation here, with two of us slightly pale with the virus that went around in the conference rooms: