Enrich the contents linked to the history and culture of the city by making the monuments and symbolic places further accessible. The “Wikimuseums in Cesena – Open Renato Serra” experience has concluded for the moment, second edition of the Wikimuseums project, dedicated this year to the famous literary critic and writer from Cesena Renato Serra. Wikimuseums wants to make cultural heritage increasingly accessible. With an open and collaborative approach, it involves museums, local institutions and citizens to collect and share data, as a basis for the co-creation of open and accessible content. Through training sessions and activities on Wiki projects, such as, for example, editathons of Wikipedia entries, it promotes active participation around cultural heritage.
Organized thanks to the union of BAM! Cultural Strategies, Municipality of Cesena and Wikimedia Italia, the event took place at the Malatestiana Library over the course of three different days, attracting 24 participants. The main objective was to actively involve young high school and university students in the Cesena area in the use of open data to enhance the local cultural heritage and strengthen the community’s bond with it.
The main stages of the initiative
During the first day, participants received accelerated training conducted by experts from Wikimedia Italia and OpenStreetMap. This course provided them with the methods and tools needed to actively participate in creating and editing entries on Wikipedia and mapping on OpenStreetMap. With a first practical approach to the platforms, the kids accessed Wikipedia and entered their names as official participants in the GLAM project.
The second day was dedicated to the actual start of the editathon and georeferencing activities. The participants focused on editing encyclopedic entries linked to Renato Serra and the culture of Cesena. Divided into groups, they chose which, among the items to be modified, they were most passionate about and began the siteographic and bibliographic research work. In this way, participants created and improved several Wikipedia entries regarding Renato Serra and other cultural places and institutions in Cesena. The entries created entirely were: Renato Serra House Museum and Cesena Monumental Cemetery. Those integrated with information relating to Renato Serra are: Porta Montanara and Liceo Ginnasio Vincenzo Monti. At the same time, the groups of participants on OpenStreetMap worked on mapping the places to be georeferenced and on the creation of supports for the QR codes to be placed in the significant places linked to Renato Serra in the city of Cesena: Biblioteca Malatestiana, piazza Maurizio Bufalini (where the bust of Renato Serra), the Renato Serra House Museum, the Monumental Cemetery and Porta Montanara.
This has allowed us to create an interactive digital path that will help promote knowledge and valorization of the city’s cultural heritage. Finally, with the skills acquired during the project, participants will be able to continue working on the encyclopedic entries created and delve deeper, thanks to the abundant availability of sources in the Malatestiana Library, into the cultural themes that fascinate them most. To find out more about the project, visit the Wikimuseums website where the activities and results obtained during these editathon days are described in detail.
The participants expressed their desire to continue contributing to the project in the future. In fact, some were interested in borrowing sources from the Malatestiana Library and planned to meet again shortly to further explore the created and geolocalized entries. Now that all of them have the skills to continue independently, the Malatestiana Library is available to remain a point of reference for all those who want to work on the Wikipedia platform, with easily accessible first-hand sources, free wi-fi and spaces to work Together.
