Library Data in Wikimedia Projects

Case Study from the Czech Republic

Abstract

(Article language: English)
The National Library of the Czech Republic started collaborating with Wikipedia in 2006 by linking its authority records to corresponding Wikipedia articles. In 2014, the National Library and Wikimedia Czech Republic began working together to educate librarians and library users. Joint Projects on linked data and the use of authority records in Wikidata followed. For these projects, it proved important to have the National Library’s databases licensed under CC0. This was eventually achieved and from 2022 the National Library is making most of its databases available as open data under a CC0 license. In 2023, the National Library and Wikimedia Czech Republic signed a Memorandum of collaboration and the National Library officially launched its Wikimedians in Residence Program. This paper presents joint activities that benefit both organizations and especially their users and the multitude of ways in which people from the National Library and Wikimedia Czech Republic are involved in the efforts. It also identifies key factors which have contributed to the fruitful long-term collaboration. Desk research and an online survey were used as methods to identify the Milestones in the aforementioned joint activities, the success factors and the types of involvement on both sides.