library, when he joined Harvard University’s Houghton Library from May until December of 2014 (Garber, 2014; Velella, 2014). The Scientific Library of Lomonosov Moscow State University followed suit that September. Russian historian and publisher Mikhail Melnichenko became a resident in cooperation with the “Oral History Foundation” to load pictures, audio, and video materials about outstanding Soviet and Russian scientists (Число Российских Вики-Резидентов Удвоилось, 2014).
Library-based residencies’ activities could be summarized with the following five main activities:
- Writing pieces about their collections or improving Wikipedia citations utilizing the library’s collections (British Library Project Page, 2013; Harold B. Lee Library, 2020; Wikipedia Collaboration at the University of Alberta, 2020).
- Digitizing, uploading, and open-licensing of their media (Basel University Library, 2018; Wikiprojekt Biblioteki Narodowej, 2019; Университетска библиотека 2014, 2019).
- Improving their discoverability or metadata through Wikidata (National Wikimedian at the National Library of Wales, 2019).
- Creating training and event planning strategies and practices (The National Library of Scotland GLAM Project, 2020; ‘Wikipedia 101’ Series, 2020).
- Documenting successful cases and guides for their communities( /2019, 2020).
However successful these initiatives have been, they seem less common. If we take a look at a WIR timeline (see figure 2), depending on the source, one can see a peak around 2015 or 2016 and a steady decrease from 2017 onward.
While this could be due to a data capture problem, after parsing the mentions of WIRs in “This Month in GLAM” newsletter, a similar decline is observed after 2017 (see figure 3).
This decline could be a permanent trend or a normal fluctuation of the hype that will eventually grow back again. However scarce these
