Breaking New Ground Again
In May 2011, Dominic McDevitt-Parks joined the National Archives as our first Wikipedian-In-Residence. This put the National Archives at the forefront of many cultural institutions in partnering with the Wikimedia community.
Working for the National Archives as a part-time student intern, our Wikipedian led ground-breaking efforts for the agency. His automated-upload project provided 100,000 digital images of NARA’s records on the Wikimedia Commons for use in Wikipedian articles. As a result of his efforts, the top 4,000 Wikipedian articles that include NARA digital copies are on track to receive one billion views in 2013. That’s why it is important to work with the Wikimedia community, they share a common mission with the Archives, to provide world class access.
After a brief hiatus, our Wikipedian is returning in late September. Dominic will join the Office of Innovation as a full-time, permanent employee of the National Archives. We are the first GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums) institution that is providing a permanent position assigned to focus full-time on Wikipedia initiatives – again we are breaking new ground. Dominic’s work will continue to drive access to the National Archives’ records, which is, after all, at the heart of our mission.
Welcome home Dominic McDevitt-Parks, Wikipedian for the National Archives.
Read the full post on the AOTUS blog.
For his first day, they took him out to five guys for lunch. Gold stars all around.
