WEBVTT

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(speaking in Maori)

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As has been explained,
I'm Siobhan Leachman.

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I'm a Wikimedian from New Zealand.

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I contribute to Wikidata,

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as well as English Wikipedia
and the Wikimedia Commons.

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I'd like to thank
the Wikimedia Foundation,

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Wikimedia Deutschland,

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and, in particular,

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the organizing committee
of the WikidataCon

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for enabling me to attend
this conference and present today.

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Now, in this presentation,

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I want to tell you about the vital role

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I think Wikidata and Wikidata editors
can play in surfacing notable women.

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I want to take you through my workflows,

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ensuring that these underacknowledged
women and their work

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can be added to Wikidata.

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I want to show how the curation
of data on these women

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can assist with the creation
of citable secondary sources.

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This, in turn, can encourage and enable

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the creation of Wikipedia articles
about these women

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in a variety of languages.

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Now, I'm sure you're aware

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that Wikipedia editors are working hard
to write more articles on women.

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Examples of projects
focusing on this type of work

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are the Women in Red project
or the WikiProject Women Scientists.

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But one of the main hurdles
I've experienced

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when attempting to write
about women in Wikipedia

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is the notability criteria.

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When writing articles on women,

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I've found this criteria
can be a challenge to achieve.

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I've discovered women
are less likely to be written about

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in citable secondary sources,

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and this has particularly
been brought home to me

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when I've attempted to write articles
about women and the scientists pre-1950.

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However, just like in our Wiki projects,

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there are plenty of researchers
and creators of secondary sources

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out in the wider world
attempting to change this.

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They just need to be pointed
in the direction of these women,

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and I believe Wikidata can be their arrow.

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Now, yes, like Wikipedia,
Wikidata has a notability criteria

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that must be met.

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But this criteria is a much lower bar.

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I'm advocating using Wikidata
to get a foot in the Wiki door

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for unrepresented groups.

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By adding these women to Wikidata,

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editors can then make it easier

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for the data about them
to be collated, curated, and linked.

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In doing so, it would make it easier
for researchers and writers,

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the generators of these vital
secondary sources,

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to find these women

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and then to use the data
to guide their research.

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Once coverage reaches
the Wikipedia notability threshold,

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Wikipedia editors can then create articles
on these underrepresented people.

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Now, I want to show you
how I put this into practice,

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to take you through how I started
on this data journey,

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and to give you examples
of the collaborations

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I and others like me
have managed to forge,

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enabling this type of work to be done.

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Now, I tend to focus on data about women
in the field of natural history--

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these women scientific illustrators,
collectors of specimens

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as well as women scientists,
such as botanists and zoologists.

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I became interested in these women

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when I started volunteering
for the Smithsonian Transcription Center.

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I helped transcribe
natural history specimens

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or scientific handwritten field notebooks,

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and, in doing so, I frequently
came across women,

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many of whom had contributed
specimens to the Smithsonian

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or had undertaken scientific research.

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At the same time, I was volunteering
for the Biodiversity Heritage Library,

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or BHL.

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Now, BHL is the world's
largest open-access digital library

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of biodiversity literature and archives.

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Much of the biodiversity literature
they host is historic

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and therefore in the public domain.

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They've got an extensive collection
of scientific illustrations in Flickr.

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So I would tag those images
with not just taxonomic names

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but as well as illustrated tags.

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That metadata is in turn ingested
and stored into BHL.

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The hope is to use those tags
to become searchable

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at some point in the future
on BHL's website.

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But as an added bonus, many of these tags
have been incorporated into Wikicommons

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as a result of those Flickr files
being bulk uploaded

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by other Wikicommons editors.

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It was while transcribing
with the Smithsonian

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I met and started collaborating
with another volunteer,

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Michelle Marshall.

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Both of us were avid taggers

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of BHL images,

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and while doing this work,

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both Michelle and I
were enthusiastically kept encouraged

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by Grace Constantino, the BHL Outreach
and Communications Manager.

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And while tagging, we would again
come across women,

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so many women, amazing women,

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about whom there appeared
little known or written.

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Some of these women
would be illustrating multiple articles,

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books, and scientific publications.

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Others would be writing
the books or articles,

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amassing collections of specimens,
or having species named after them.

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Both Michelle and I were really keen
on making known more about these women,

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but there was very little
about them on the internet.

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Every once in a while,

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there would be a women
who had significant coverage,

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enough so there was a Wikipedia article
created about them,

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but this was an exception
rather than the rule.

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This lack of coverage
was frustrating to both of us,

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and, as a result, I became keen
on learning how to edit Wikipedia.

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Both the folk in the Smithsonian
and BHL were extremely encouraging.

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They too were keen
on addressing this issue

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of underrepresented women

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and wanted to highlight
notable women in their collections

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via various WikiProjects.

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So both Michelle and I
started researching,

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me with the aim of writing
Wikipedia articles,

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her with the aim of writing blog posts
and enriching the BHL Instagram account.

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Now, on the rare occasion we managed
to find enough sources and references

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to get these women over
the English Wikipedia notability criteria,

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I'd actually write an article.

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But as I've explained, this tended to be
the exception rather than the rule.

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Historically, much
of these women's illustration work

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was not regarded
at the time of their creation

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as being worthy of comment.

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At most, they received a passing remark
in the reviews of the publication

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or perhaps an acknowledgment
by the author of the work.

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This lack results in them
being overlooked by library catalogs,

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and they and their contributions
were simply not recorded.

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They created scientific illustrations

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so didn't tend
to exhibit in art galleries.

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The art was created to enhance
the scientific publication

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and wasn't treated as a stand-alone work,

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worthy of critique and public display.

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It was, therefore, very rare
to find enough sources

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to get these women artists
over the notability hurdle.

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But we tried.

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Working together, Michelle and I
began researching these women

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and gathering our information
into a Google spreadsheet,

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Often, we'd track down enough data
to work out who they were,

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the works they contributed to,
and who they worked for.

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BHL recently enabled a full text search,

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which has significantly improved
our ability to find information on them.

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We'd search for and, if we were lucky,
find external identifiers,

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such as the BHL creator ID

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or the Stuttgart Scientific
Illustrators Database ID,

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or if we were really lucky, a VIAF ID.

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However, there was no guarantee

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an external database
identifier would exist.

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So we'd tag their plates in Flickr,

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collate our research on these women
in our spreadsheets,

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and then wait for more books and articles

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and institution blogs
and research to be generated.

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For me, getting them into Wikipedia
was the gold standard,

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but I could stretch
the notability criteria only so far.

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My first Wikipedia article
on a woman botanist

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was nominated for deletion,

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and ever since that experience,
I've been extremely careful

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about ensuring I did everything possible
to meet the notability criteria.

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But I was actively looking for ways

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to make our work
more impactful and effective.

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Now, at this point,
I know what you're thinking,

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what about Wikidata?

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And I completely agree.

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As soon as I discovered Wikidata,
I took the leap and started editing.

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But, again, unfortunately,

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I came up against
the Wikidata notability criteria.

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Early on, I had an item deleted

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due to my failure to meet
even the Wikidata notability criteria.

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I was having to meet even that low bar.

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But this was all part
of my learning by mistakes,

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and I soon adapted
my workflow to allow for this.

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I realized I could ensure these women
met the Wikidata notability criteria

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by creating at least
one valid WikiCite link.

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So my workflow started

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with me creating a Wikicommons
category page for these women

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and then manually adding
this category to her illustrations,

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the illustrations that had been
previously uploaded

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from the BHL Flickr feed

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into Wikicommons by other editors.

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Once the category page was created,

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I would then create
a Wikidata item for that woman,

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including that category in the item.

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I'd then begin to collate

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all the information
and research we'd found out

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about that particular woman.

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I would autogenerate
a creator page in Wikicommons

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via that Wikidata item.

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I'd improve the structured data
of the scientific art in Wikicommons

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by adding the creator markup
to each of her images.

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And I believe this assists
with the structured data on Commons

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as it links the Wikidata item
to the artist

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and to the work in Commons.

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I'd like to emphasize
this was a manual process.

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I wasn't working from established dataset.

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There is no established dataset
for these women that I can find.

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I would also use the reference section
of the Wikidata statements,

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not just to reference
the statements themselves,

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but also with an eye to help collate

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all the links we discovered
during our research.

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I wanted to leave a research trail,

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making it easier for me and others like me

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to find these links

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and then write either secondary sources

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or, if appropriate,
a Wikipedia article on these women.

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Obviously, if external
identifiers existed,

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I wanted to include them.

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Again, to my disappointment,

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despite the prestige
of the works they were illustrating,

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many of these women
were not listed in external databases.

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I would always check VIAF,

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the Virtual International
Authority File database.

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But, from my personal experience,

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there appears to be
a bias against illustrators,

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no matter what their gender.

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I admit this is anecdotal

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because I'm unable to find
any research to support this.

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But VIAF would often list
the author of the [inaudible] publication,

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but not the illustrator.

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And this would even be the case

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even if the illustrations made up
a large proportion of the work,

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or the woman was thanked profusely
on the dedication page.

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I would also check the Stuttgart
Scientific Illustrators database.

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This is one of the most
comprehensive databases

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for scientific artists.

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Sometimes the woman would be in there,

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but sometimes not.

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Although a fabulous starting point,

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this database wasn't
as comprehensive as I needed.

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But the wonderful thing about it
was how responsive its creator,

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the History Department
of the University of Stuttgart,

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was to emails.

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Both Michelle and I would write to them,

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including our research
on particular women illustrators,

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asking for these women to be included.

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Again, there is a threshold to this.

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I certainly wouldn't write to them

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unless I had reasonable
supporting evidence

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to justify their inclusion.

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But the information they needed
to generate an external identifier

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was definitely less than what was needed
to do a Wikipedia article.

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Folk in charge of this database
were very grateful for our input,

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and once our research
was confirmed by them,

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they would add these women
to their database

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and then would generate
an external identifier.

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They were also able to access resources
that neither Michelle nor I had access to.

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Often, more data was added
on these women in the DSI database

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as a result of their further research.

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A Wikidata property had already
been created for this database,

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and so once awarded,

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it was an identifier I could then add
to the woman's Wikidata item.

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Now, Michelle and I also contacted
the BHL about these women.

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This is where our collaborative
relationship with Grace

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came to the fore.

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Grace would encourage us
to submit a request

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that the woman's name be added
to the BHL catalog record.

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This is a more convoluted process
than it might appear.

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BHL metadata is sourced
from numerous contributing institutions.

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Since it was a cataloging change,

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the BHL protocol required that the change
be submitted as a change request

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to the BHL cataloging group
for review and final approval.

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So, again, to obtain
the change to the catalog

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and the subsequent external identifier,

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it wasn't an easy rubber stamp process.

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We had to back up our request
with sources and proof

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in order for the catalog to be changed.

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However, because we were doing
this relatively frequently,

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the catalog group
became used to our requests

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and were very appreciative of our efforts.

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If the necessary criteria was satisfied,

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the institutions were prepared
to edit their metadata,

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and in doing so,
create another external identifier,

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the BHL creator ID.

00:13:31.905 --> 00:13:34.710
At around the same time
we were undertaking this work,

00:13:34.710 --> 00:13:37.517
BHL, in its intern program,

00:13:37.517 --> 00:13:40.319
was collaborating
with other Wikidata editors.

00:13:40.319 --> 00:13:45.060
The BHL resident [Katie Nika]
was working with Andy [Mebert]

00:13:45.060 --> 00:13:48.431
trialing adding
BHL creator IDs to Wikidata.

00:13:48.431 --> 00:13:54.023
The original test case was 1,000 names
into the Mix-n-Match tool,

00:13:54.023 --> 00:13:55.219
But, subsequently,

00:13:55.219 --> 00:13:58.731
the whole created dataset
was uploaded into Mix-n-Match,

00:13:58.731 --> 00:14:02.556
allowing the matching
of BHL dataset to Wikidata items.

00:14:02.556 --> 00:14:07.017
This dataset is huge and continues
to be worked on by editors today.

00:14:07.697 --> 00:14:09.098
Due to the lack of resources,

00:14:09.098 --> 00:14:14.157
unfortunately, BHL can't continue
Katie's work in Wikidata,

00:14:14.157 --> 00:14:17.713
but there are very encouraging
of folk reusing their data

00:14:17.713 --> 00:14:20.293
and their collections and WikiProjects.

00:14:20.953 --> 00:14:26.143
Now, editors have also approved
several BHL Wikidata properties,

00:14:26.143 --> 00:14:28.096
not just for the creator ID,

00:14:28.096 --> 00:14:32.453
but also the bibliographic ID,
page ID, and item ID.

00:14:32.453 --> 00:14:35.541
And, as a result, it's now possible
to link these women illustrators

00:14:35.541 --> 00:14:37.962
to their works via Wikidata.

00:14:37.962 --> 00:14:41.668
Obtaining a creator ID
and therefore a Wikidata item

00:14:41.668 --> 00:14:45.234
can ensure a cascade
of linked open data on them

00:14:45.234 --> 00:14:48.913
that can raise the visibility
of these women to researchers.

00:14:48.913 --> 00:14:51.417
Slowly, I began to feel
we were making real difference

00:14:51.417 --> 00:14:52.870
in surfacing these women.

00:14:52.870 --> 00:14:54.980
At least now when folk googled them

00:14:54.980 --> 00:14:56.910
the Wikidata item would appear

00:14:56.910 --> 00:15:00.632
and images they had created
would show up in the image feed.

00:15:00.632 --> 00:15:05.189
Our research, tags, blogs,
Wikidata items, and external identifiers

00:15:05.189 --> 00:15:06.659
brought about by our requests

00:15:06.659 --> 00:15:07.983
were all coming together,

00:15:07.983 --> 00:15:10.947
making these women
much more easier to discover.

00:15:11.667 --> 00:15:14.365
Grace had already been using
our tagging work

00:15:14.365 --> 00:15:16.409
in the BHL social media feeds

00:15:16.409 --> 00:15:20.114
to highlight the illustrations
in the collections.

00:15:20.114 --> 00:15:23.536
Member institution librarians
were writing blogs on these women

00:15:23.536 --> 00:15:27.393
and raising their visibility
to a variety of audiences.

00:15:27.393 --> 00:15:30.948
These edited, well researched
and referenced blogs

00:15:30.948 --> 00:15:32.635
were a definite step in the ladder

00:15:32.635 --> 00:15:36.853
towards obtaining citable sources
for Wikipedia articles.

00:15:37.693 --> 00:15:39.395
But our work really came to the fore

00:15:39.395 --> 00:15:42.230
when BHL held their "Her Natural History:

00:15:42.230 --> 00:15:45.906
A Celebration of Women
in Natural History" campaign.

00:15:45.906 --> 00:15:49.062
This was a multi-institutional,
multi-platform campaign

00:15:49.062 --> 00:15:50.252
to raise awareness

00:15:50.252 --> 00:15:53.969
and to celebrate the contributions
of women to natural history.

00:15:53.969 --> 00:15:56.245
This campaign resulted
in numerous outcomes,

00:15:56.245 --> 00:15:58.226
many of which had a direct impact

00:15:58.226 --> 00:16:01.378
on the richness of the metadata
available on these women.

00:16:02.048 --> 00:16:03.618
So the BHL cataloging group

00:16:03.618 --> 00:16:06.510
added more female contributors
to the BHL catalog,

00:16:06.510 --> 00:16:09.254
generating more external identifiers.

00:16:09.254 --> 00:16:11.981
More images by the women
were added to the Flickr feed,

00:16:11.981 --> 00:16:14.954
and these were either
in the public domain or openly licensed

00:16:14.954 --> 00:16:17.507
so were able to be uploaded
into Wikicommons.

00:16:17.507 --> 00:16:18.995
Numerous blog posts were written

00:16:18.995 --> 00:16:21.314
by the employees
of the member institutions.

00:16:21.314 --> 00:16:25.070
Some of these blogs used the research
Michelle and I had undertaken

00:16:25.070 --> 00:16:26.071
as a starting point,

00:16:26.071 --> 00:16:28.262
picking it up and running with it.

00:16:28.262 --> 00:16:29.497
These blogs often resulted

00:16:29.497 --> 00:16:32.666
in the discovery of new resources
and sources of information

00:16:32.666 --> 00:16:34.352
that assisted in pushing
some of the women

00:16:34.352 --> 00:16:37.589
over the notability threshold
for a Wikipedia article.

00:16:37.589 --> 00:16:40.862
During the campaign, there were also
three Wikimedia workshops:

00:16:40.862 --> 00:16:42.598
the Wikimedia District of Columbia

00:16:42.598 --> 00:16:44.953
ran a workshop concentrating
on generating and improving

00:16:44.953 --> 00:16:47.106
Wikipedia articles on these women;

00:16:47.106 --> 00:16:50.579
two additional workshops
were organized by Esther Jackson

00:16:50.579 --> 00:16:53.422
and jointly hosted
by the New York Botanical Garden

00:16:53.422 --> 00:16:56.005
and the Wikimedia New York City.

00:16:56.005 --> 00:16:59.860
The first workshop focused
on editing tags to the BHL Flickr feed

00:16:59.860 --> 00:17:04.217
and the second workshop focused
on editing Wikidata and Wikicommons.

00:17:04.217 --> 00:17:06.555
These events made use
of research [inaudible]

00:17:06.555 --> 00:17:09.559
that Michelle and I had undertaken
in the preceding years.

00:17:09.559 --> 00:17:10.747
Worklists were generated

00:17:10.747 --> 00:17:13.415
by both the spreadsheets
Michelle and I had created,

00:17:13.415 --> 00:17:16.991
as well as from Wikidata items
that I, along with other editors,

00:17:16.991 --> 00:17:18.557
had helped create.

00:17:18.557 --> 00:17:22.136
And this campaign, I think,
shows how effective Wikidata can be

00:17:22.136 --> 00:17:25.084
in assisting with
the interlinking of knowledge.

00:17:25.084 --> 00:17:27.605
The Wikidata items became
a leaping-off point,

00:17:27.605 --> 00:17:30.136
providing a framework enabling research

00:17:30.136 --> 00:17:33.698
to be collated and writing to commence.

00:17:35.918 --> 00:17:37.921
Now, this is just one example
of a collaboration

00:17:37.921 --> 00:17:40.852
that can improve linked
open data on these women.

00:17:40.852 --> 00:17:43.197
Once these women
have a presence on Wikidata,

00:17:43.197 --> 00:17:45.504
the item itself can be put to use.

00:17:45.504 --> 00:17:46.613
An example of this

00:17:46.613 --> 00:17:49.107
is women natural history
specimen collectors.

00:17:49.107 --> 00:17:52.228
Many underacknowledged women
contributed to scientific knowledge,

00:17:52.228 --> 00:17:54.361
collecting specimens,

00:17:54.361 --> 00:17:57.188
and these are held
in museums and herbaria.

00:17:57.188 --> 00:17:59.509
As more and more
of these collections are digitized,

00:17:59.509 --> 00:18:02.363
more of the collectors
are coming out of the woodwork.

00:18:02.363 --> 00:18:03.781
There are now sites being developed

00:18:03.781 --> 00:18:07.035
to assist scientists in getting
the recognition they deserve

00:18:07.035 --> 00:18:09.441
from their fieldwork and collecting.

00:18:09.441 --> 00:18:12.811
The site I've recently been utilizing
is Bloodhound Tracker.

00:18:12.811 --> 00:18:16.033
It uses the ORCID ID or the Wikidata item

00:18:16.033 --> 00:18:19.062
to link the collector
to their collected specimen

00:18:19.062 --> 00:18:23.663
via the Global Biodiversity
Information Facility, or GBIF.

00:18:23.663 --> 00:18:29.071
Collection information is a rich vein
of data on early woman scientists,

00:18:29.071 --> 00:18:32.878
particularly as at that time,
they'd been unable to publish works

00:18:32.878 --> 00:18:34.698
or join scientific societies

00:18:34.698 --> 00:18:36.992
due to the social norms of the day.

00:18:36.992 --> 00:18:39.790
Wikidata can be used
to collect information on these women,

00:18:39.790 --> 00:18:46.350
linking the information held on them
from archives, libraries, and museums,

00:18:46.350 --> 00:18:49.672
or to the scientific literature,
based on the specimens they've collected,

00:18:49.672 --> 00:18:52.226
or the species
that have been named after them.

00:18:52.226 --> 00:18:54.166
Once a Wikidata item is created

00:18:54.166 --> 00:18:56.466
and sufficient metadata
has been added to it,

00:18:56.466 --> 00:18:57.741
the Bloodhound Tracker site

00:18:57.741 --> 00:19:01.774
will then automatically ingest details
about those women into its site.

00:19:01.774 --> 00:19:04.830
Contributors can help those women
claim their collections,

00:19:04.830 --> 00:19:07.217
enriching not just the linked open data,

00:19:07.217 --> 00:19:10.510
but ensuring these women
get the credit for their vital work.

00:19:10.510 --> 00:19:14.229
But, again, Wikidata notability criteria
can be a challenge.

00:19:14.229 --> 00:19:16.165
If the women collected significantly

00:19:16.165 --> 00:19:17.189
but didn't contribute

00:19:17.189 --> 00:19:19.730
either to the published record
or as an illustrator,

00:19:19.730 --> 00:19:23.677
it can be difficult to hurdle
the notability criteria for Wikidata.

00:19:23.677 --> 00:19:26.465
However, as more and more libraries,
archives, and museums,

00:19:26.465 --> 00:19:33.026
and genealogical databases are gaining
Wikidata external identifiers,

00:19:33.026 --> 00:19:34.822
it's becoming easier for these women

00:19:34.822 --> 00:19:37.233
to become notable
for the purposes of Wikidata

00:19:37.233 --> 00:19:40.671
and then use Wikidata
to link them to their works.

00:19:40.671 --> 00:19:43.210
I believe similar workflows
to what I've outlined

00:19:43.210 --> 00:19:46.081
can be used for other
underrepresented groups.

00:19:46.081 --> 00:19:49.992
By actively working to achieve
the notability criteria for Wikidata,

00:19:49.992 --> 00:19:52.141
and then expanding the Wikidata items

00:19:52.141 --> 00:19:55.225
to highlight the contributions
of underrepresented people,

00:19:55.905 --> 00:19:58.231
it's possible to improve their visibility.

00:19:58.231 --> 00:20:01.422
This, in turn, assists with the generation
of secondary sources

00:20:01.422 --> 00:20:03.675
and creates a virtual cycle

00:20:03.675 --> 00:20:06.548
of information creation,
sharing, and linking.

00:20:06.548 --> 00:20:08.568
By being proactive and collaborative,

00:20:08.568 --> 00:20:12.307
it's possible to work towards
eliminating underrepresentation.

00:20:12.857 --> 00:20:14.076
Thank you.

00:20:14.076 --> 00:20:16.197
(applause)

00:20:28.797 --> 00:20:31.304
(women) Have you found any publication

00:20:31.304 --> 00:20:38.065
in which all of the illustrations
actually need their own item?

00:20:39.242 --> 00:20:41.837
I think there will be;
there definitely is.

00:20:41.837 --> 00:20:44.926
But if I went down that rabbit hole...

00:20:46.986 --> 00:20:48.432
I've got to stop somewhere,

00:20:48.432 --> 00:20:50.419
and I'm just trying
to concentrate on the women.

00:20:50.419 --> 00:20:56.613
But, yes, there are classics
of biodiversity literature

00:20:56.613 --> 00:21:01.904
that not only should have
an item for the book itself

00:21:01.904 --> 00:21:03.823
but also for each illustration.

00:21:03.823 --> 00:21:06.461
I mean, Elizabeth Gould
immediately springs to mind.

00:21:06.461 --> 00:21:08.113
Every piece of art that she ever did--

00:21:08.113 --> 00:21:10.033
(woman) I would just say Maria Sibylla...

00:21:10.033 --> 00:21:12.482
Yep, she's a classic too.

00:21:18.030 --> 00:21:20.200
(man) James [Heald].
While you've been working on this,

00:21:20.200 --> 00:21:22.949
do you think that the way
the notability criteria

00:21:22.949 --> 00:21:25.229
have been being applied has changed?

00:21:25.229 --> 00:21:27.947
- Is there are drift in a good direction?
- Yes, I do think it has.

00:21:29.477 --> 00:21:32.212
Other than that first item being...

00:21:32.982 --> 00:21:35.004
I admit it was partially my mistake.

00:21:35.004 --> 00:21:38.313
I did the item, and I didn't have
an external identifiers,

00:21:38.313 --> 00:21:43.270
and it seemed, because of the lack
of the information I provided,

00:21:43.270 --> 00:21:45.223
I am not surprised it got deleted.

00:21:45.223 --> 00:21:46.993
Now I'm more experienced.

00:21:47.333 --> 00:21:50.331
But, saying that, I'm pretty sure
I could put the same thing in nowadays

00:21:50.331 --> 00:21:51.774
and it wouldn't get deleted.

00:21:51.774 --> 00:21:53.453
I actually do think it has improved.

00:22:01.708 --> 00:22:03.187
(James [Heald]) Different question.

00:22:03.187 --> 00:22:05.223
I've seen on your Twitter sometimes,

00:22:05.223 --> 00:22:08.897
you've found women's work
credited to their husbands.

00:22:08.897 --> 00:22:10.992
- Oh God, yes!
- Would you say a bit more about that?

00:22:11.952 --> 00:22:14.258
Okay, there's a whole problem...

00:22:16.328 --> 00:22:18.323
Specifically, what gets me

00:22:18.323 --> 00:22:20.683
having to be peeling myself
off the ceiling with rage

00:22:20.683 --> 00:22:23.904
is when the women botanists
go out and collect

00:22:23.904 --> 00:22:28.195
and they're known
under their marriage name,

00:22:28.195 --> 00:22:32.741
and then they put
their specimens into the herbaria

00:22:32.741 --> 00:22:34.505
and the herbaria have a database,

00:22:34.505 --> 00:22:35.989
they transcribe the names,

00:22:35.989 --> 00:22:38.987
but they don't have
a space in their database

00:22:38.987 --> 00:22:41.503
for the vital, important missus.

00:22:41.503 --> 00:22:45.940
And so what happens is that always,

00:22:45.940 --> 00:22:47.342
if it's pre-1950

00:22:47.342 --> 00:22:49.078
and the guy's known for being prolific,

00:22:49.078 --> 00:22:50.347
check his wife,

00:22:50.347 --> 00:22:53.669
because most of the time
either she's typing

00:22:53.669 --> 00:22:56.440
and helping him produce
the scientific papers

00:22:56.440 --> 00:22:58.827
or she's out there collecting with him.

00:22:58.827 --> 00:23:02.183
Yes, that's a definite problem
that I have been raising

00:23:02.183 --> 00:23:03.384
with a lot of the herbaria.

00:23:03.384 --> 00:23:04.386
They just keep saying,

00:23:04.386 --> 00:23:07.274
"Our database doesn't have
a place for the missus,"

00:23:07.274 --> 00:23:10.250
and I say, "Find a place
because it's important."

00:23:10.793 --> 00:23:11.957
Yeah.

00:23:18.347 --> 00:23:20.679
(man 2) What other domains
will you copy this to?

00:23:20.679 --> 00:23:23.902
Because you're now doing it
for a very specific subject.

00:23:23.902 --> 00:23:25.254
What comes to mind?

00:23:29.108 --> 00:23:30.321
It's a good question.

00:23:33.771 --> 00:23:36.856
I think anything
where people get disappeared,

00:23:36.856 --> 00:23:39.761
where they're not credited for their work,

00:23:41.261 --> 00:23:42.882
it tends to be where they get lost.

00:23:42.882 --> 00:23:46.872
So something historic
and the data just isn't linked.

00:23:46.872 --> 00:23:50.111
For me, women are the classic example.

00:23:50.111 --> 00:23:53.098
But I also think if there's, for example--

00:23:54.598 --> 00:23:59.542
one that does spring to mind
is artists in New Zealand,

00:23:59.542 --> 00:24:05.231
Maori artists, for example,
who get acknowledged to oral history,

00:24:05.231 --> 00:24:07.623
but there are no written works,

00:24:07.623 --> 00:24:13.181
and so the scholarship could possibly be
a problem later on down the track.

00:24:13.971 --> 00:24:18.624
I think that was a group that's ripe
for using this type of work,

00:24:18.624 --> 00:24:20.393
to try and get identifiers for them,

00:24:20.393 --> 00:24:23.064
to make them more notable,
to get them into Wikidata,

00:24:23.064 --> 00:24:26.270
so that then researchers
are pointed towards them

00:24:26.270 --> 00:24:29.932
and can start doing the research
needed to rediscover them.

00:24:36.853 --> 00:24:39.744
(woman 2) Okay, so I do
a lot with women artists,

00:24:39.744 --> 00:24:44.489
and what I've found,
apart from the married name thing,

00:24:44.489 --> 00:24:48.259
is they also tend to stay local,

00:24:48.259 --> 00:24:51.294
so they don't move and cross borders.

00:24:51.294 --> 00:24:54.266
It turns out notability
is very highly correlated

00:24:54.266 --> 00:24:56.670
with the number of borders
you cross in your lifetime.

00:24:56.670 --> 00:24:58.377
Right, yeah.

00:24:59.717 --> 00:25:02.395
To tell you the truth,
I actually find that a benefit.

00:25:02.395 --> 00:25:05.668
It's much easier to disambiguate
someone if they don't shift.

00:25:05.668 --> 00:25:07.870
If they've been in one place,

00:25:07.870 --> 00:25:10.234
you can then find the database,

00:25:10.234 --> 00:25:13.399
like the births or deaths
or marriages database,

00:25:13.399 --> 00:25:18.188
and you can work out
on the basis of their address

00:25:18.188 --> 00:25:22.194
or you can find them
a lot easier if they don't shift.

00:25:22.194 --> 00:25:26.571
It's when they shift, and they change
from maiden name to married name

00:25:26.571 --> 00:25:29.040
that it can get really difficult.

00:25:29.040 --> 00:25:30.249
(woman 2) Yeah.

00:25:35.090 --> 00:25:36.868
(woman 3) Just adding to the question

00:25:36.868 --> 00:25:40.331
that was asked earlier
in what field you could use this.

00:25:40.981 --> 00:25:46.850
If it's a case where people
are disappearing or are not visible,

00:25:46.850 --> 00:25:49.231
meaning that for women, in my opinion,

00:25:49.231 --> 00:25:51.107
that would mean like everywhere.

00:25:51.107 --> 00:25:52.184
Yeah.

00:25:54.194 --> 00:25:57.902
(woman 3) One of the things I work on
is Delftware pottery workshops,

00:25:57.902 --> 00:26:02.193
and that was an official job
in the 17th century.

00:26:02.193 --> 00:26:08.152
And when the potter died,
there needed to be a new potter

00:26:08.152 --> 00:26:15.080
that was inscribed
in the official guild book,

00:26:15.080 --> 00:26:17.497
- unless his wife could take over.
- Ah!

00:26:17.497 --> 00:26:20.394
(woman 3) And then she could take over
without that diploma,

00:26:20.394 --> 00:26:21.808
or whatever you want to call it,

00:26:21.808 --> 00:26:23.264
sometimes for years.

00:26:24.094 --> 00:26:26.582
And it would be attributed to her husband?

00:26:26.582 --> 00:26:31.925
(woman 3) Yes, because the pottery
is always attributed to the owner.

00:26:34.045 --> 00:26:37.300
And they're like one line
in the official encyclopedias...

00:26:37.300 --> 00:26:38.451
This doesn't surprise me.

00:26:38.451 --> 00:26:41.557
...where the women are like taking care
of the business for 10 years

00:26:41.557 --> 00:26:44.394
[and say for a job]
of their husband for two years,

00:26:44.394 --> 00:26:46.865
but all the pottery items
would be marked--

00:26:46.865 --> 00:26:51.105
I think this is a really good example
of how Wikidata can actually be used

00:26:51.105 --> 00:26:52.775
to surface these women

00:26:52.775 --> 00:26:55.981
and have something
to hang the scholarship off,

00:26:55.981 --> 00:26:58.073
so that then, eventually,

00:26:58.073 --> 00:27:03.659
the more people who don't struggle
to try and find the base information

00:27:03.659 --> 00:27:06.752
can then start the research,
and the in-depth research

00:27:06.752 --> 00:27:08.901
that's required to surface these women.

00:27:08.901 --> 00:27:12.290
Wikidata, I think, is the easy way
to have a framework,

00:27:13.050 --> 00:27:16.816
a skeleton to hang the bare data
that you've got on

00:27:16.816 --> 00:27:19.818
to enable that research to happen.

00:27:19.818 --> 00:27:21.087
Yeah.

00:27:22.173 --> 00:27:24.665
(man 3) I'm sorry we are out of time.

00:27:24.665 --> 00:27:27.522
We have the lunch break now, so thank you.

00:27:27.522 --> 00:27:29.695
Well, come talk to me
if anyone else has any questions.

00:27:29.695 --> 00:27:31.480
(applause)