Wikipedia

 

This is the fifth in a blog series that features a collections object from images that we have donated to Wikipedia. Read the first blog post to learn more about why and how we have donated more than 264 images to Wikimedia Commons, Wikipedia's image repository.

We need your help! Can you think of Wikipedia articles where this image can be added? First, read on to learn more about the object from our Cultural World curator, Tris Perkins. Then, tell us where you think this image belongs in Wikipedia! 

 

Image: cc by-sa 3.0 The Children's Museum of Indianapolis 

Cricket-shaped hairpin with kingfisher feathers

• Year: 20th century
• Location: China
• Accession Number: 94.98.9

A woman's elegant hairstyle was once ornamented with this beautiful blue cricket. Delicate kingfisher (woodpecker) feathers are glued to the cricket's body to look like enamel. The iridescent quality of the feathers looks much like the shiny covering on real insects.  In China, crickets represent good fortune and luck.

Help us make an impact! So far these images do not appear in any Wikipedia articles. Can you think of any articles that should include them?  Do some browsing and be creative. Leave a comment and we’ll share your suggestions with the Wikipedia community. Then, come back in a week to see where in Wikipedia this image ends up!

Don't forget, you can also suggest articles for the Electric Marx Mobile, Quail Trap, Alaskan Red King Crab and Baculites!

This is the fourth in a blog series that features a collections object from images that we have donated to Wikipedia. Read the first blog post to learn more about why and how we have donated more than 264 images to Wikimedia Commons, Wikipedia's image repository.

 

We need your help! Can you think of Wikipedia articles where this image can be added? First, read on to learn more about the object from our Natural Science curator, Dallas Evans. Then, tell us where you think this image belongs in Wikipedia! 

Image: cc by-sa 3.0 The Children's Museum of Indianapolis 

 

Image: cc by-sa 3.0 The Children's Museum of Indianapolis 

Baculites

• Scientific name: Baculites compressus
• Accession Number: 2001.12.1

​The baculites is a cephalopod, belonging to the same class of animals as squid, octopi, and the extinct ammonites.   The animal had a flatly coiled shell when young, but on reaching maturity the shell develops into its typical straight  “walking stick” form. A distinctive feature of these baculites is the complex suture pattern apparent in its fossilized shell.  

Help us make an impact! So far these images do not appear in any Wikipedia articles. Can you think of any articles that should include them?  Do some browsing and be creative. Leave a comment and we’ll share your suggestions with the Wikipedia community. Then, come back in a week to see where in Wikipedia this image ends up!

Don't forget, you can also suggest articles for the Electric Marx Mobile, Quail Trap, and the Alaskan Red King Crab!

 

This is the third in a blog series that features a collections object from images that we have donated to Wikipedia. Read the first blog post to learn more about why and how we have donated more than 264 images to Wikimedia Commons, Wikipedia's image repository.

We need your help! Can you think of Wikipedia articles where this image can be added? First, read on to learn more about the object from our Natural Science curator, Dallas Evans. Then, tell us where you think this image belongs in Wikipedia! 

Image: cc by-sa 3.0 The Children's Museum of Indianapolis 

 

Alaskan Red King Crab

• Scientific name: Paralithodes camtschaticus
• Accession Number: 2001.20.1

​The Red king crab is one of the larger living crabs in the world and can have a leg span of nearly 5 ft.  Since a red king crab has an exoskeleton (shell) it must molt in order to grow.  The commercial harvesting of these crabs has been highlighted in The Discovery Channel program Deadliest Catch.  The catching of Red king crabs constitutes one of the most valuable fisheries for Alaska.

Help us make an impact! So far this image does not appear in any Wikipedia articles. Can you think of any articles that should include this image?  Do some browsing and be creative. Leave a comment and we’ll share your suggestions with the Wikipedia community. Then, come back in a week to see where in Wikipedia this image ends up!

Don't forget, you can also suggest articles for the Electric Marx Mobile and the Quail Trap!

 

This is the second in a blog series that features a collections object from images that we have donated to Wikipedia. Read the first blog post to learn more about why and how we have donated more than 264 images to Wikimedia Commons, Wikipedia's image repository.

We need your help! Can you think of Wikipedia articles where this image can be added? First, read on to learn more about the object from our Cultural World curator, Tris Perkins. Then, tell us where you think this image belongs in Wikipedia! 

Image: cc by-sa 3.0 The Children's Museum of Indianapolis 

Quail trap (or jebak puyuh)

• Year: Mid-20th century
• Location: Malaysia
• Accession Number: 86.145.3

Although this looks like a regular bird cage, it’s actually a trap for catching quails.  A female quail is placed in the basket or woven container in the back of the cage with netting placed in front.  When the female calls out, it attracts a male.  When he steps onto the trigger in front of the basket, he causes the net to fall on and trap him.  Although wild quails no longer exist in Malaysia, jebak puyuh continue to be created as decorative items.

Help us make an impact! So far this image does not appear in any Wikipedia articles. Can you think of any articles that should include this image?  Do some browsing and be creative. Leave a comment and we’ll share your suggestions with the Wikipedia community. Then, come back in a week to see where in Wikipedia this image ends up!

Wikipedia Image Update! Since last week, our first Wikipedia Image of the Week, the Electric Marx Mobile, was added to the Danish Wikipedia article "Toy car."

Some months ago I shared a little about the special QRpedia codes that we have in exhibits around the museum. When you scan these unique QR codes they go directly to Wikipedia articles about our collections objects. While Wikipedians (volunteers who edit Wikipedia articles) already know a lot about QRpedia codes, many museum visitors do not. I was very excited to teach Claire and Josh (and you!) all about QRpedia in This Week's Wow!

While I have been the Wikipedian in Residence at The Children's Museum for over a year and a half, this is my very first This Week's Wow appearance.  My four year old son is a huge fan of This Week's Wow, so he was amazed to see his very own mom on his favorite show.  His reaction: "Mommy, how did you get in there??" That will have to remain a mystery.

Check out This Week's Wow to learn all about our QRpedia codes, from who wrote the Wikipedia articles to the special feature that helps even more visitors learn about objects like Captain Kidd's cannon...

You might not realize it, but over the past year the Children’s Museum has been hard at work taking pictures of objects from our collection and making them available to the public in Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that is written and managed by the community that uses it, so the success of Wikipedia largely depends on the quality of the content and images that people contribute. 

Because Wikipedia is such a widely-used free source of information, The Children’s Museum considers it a great place to share images of our objects and information from our experts. With 120,000 artifacts, The Children’s Museum has a wide range of images that we can contribute to a broad range of topics (like “Pie” or specific topics like “Bucky (Tyrannosaurus rex).")  We only get the opportunity to put a small number of objects on display in the museum, so contributing images to Wikipedia is a good way for the public to see objects typically kept in storage.

So far we have donated 264 images to Wikimedia Commons, which is the image repository for Wikipedia. Our contributions have included everything from toys to tribal masks from our American, Cultural World, and Natural Science Collections.

Once our images are in Wikimedia Commons, volunteers from all over the world who edit Wikipedia articles - called Wikipedians - find our images and place them in related Wikipedia articles. Did you know that once an image is in a Wikipedia article written in English, it’s often used in Wikipedia articles of many languages?  Wikipedia includes articles in over 280 languages! Another reason we contribute images to Wikipedia is because it makes it easy to share pictures of our objects with families from all over the world.

But it takes a lot of work for Wikipedians to place these images in articles – and we need your help! This is the first in a blog series that will feature one of our donated images and give you the opportunity to see where this image can end up in Wikipedia. Are you ready?

Wikipedia Image of the Week #1:

Image: cc by-sa 3.0 The Children's Museum of Indianapolis

The Electric Marx Mobile

• Year: 1959
• Accession Number: 2006.8.28
• Maker: Louis Marx Company
• Material: Lithographed Steel

This electric “Marx Mobile” was made for driving fun! From the ignition key in the dashboard to the classic fins at the rear, this car mimicked real vehicles of the 1950s and 1960s. Using an electric motor, this riding toy transported kids from pedal power to the battery powered toys popular today. 

Help us make an impact! So far this image only appears in the Hafner Manufacturing Company article.  Can you think of any other Wikipedia articles that should include this image? How about the detail image of its intricate dashboard? Do some browsing and be creative. Leave a comment and we’ll share your suggestions with the Wikipedia community. Then, come back in two weeks to see where in Wikipedia this image ends up! 

The Children’s Museum is very proud and excited this week to share that our Wikipedian-in-Residence, Lori Phillips, was appointed US Cultural Partnerships Coordinator by the Wikimedia Foundation.

Sounds really important, right? But what does it mean?

The Children’s Museum recognizes that Wikipedia is a frequently-used source of information for families. We brought Lori here to work with our curators and volunteers who write Wikipedia articles to ensure that the content in Wikipedia related to The Children’s Museum was accurate, informative, and accessible to families and children everywhere.

We're not the only museum who recognizes the value of contributing to Wikipedia, and now Lori will lead an effort to help other US museums do what we've done.

In the past year and a half, the work Lori has done has far-exceeded our expectations. We have hundreds of images of our objects in Wikipedia articles and volunteers around the world are helping to write, edit, and translate articles about our museum in many languages. Lori even managed to bring Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales, to the museum to see the work we’ve been doing.

Thanks to Lori’s great work, the Children’s Museum has been leading in the development of projects for the GLAM-Wiki community (GLAM stands for Galleries, Libraries, Archives, and Museums.)  GLAM-Wiki is an emerging international group of Wikipedians who assist cultural institutions with collaborating with Wikipedia in order to share their resources and expertise.

Lori will continue to serve as Wikipedian-in-Residence at The Children’s Museum while also serving in this new role with the Wikimedia Foundation (the organization that operates Wikipedia and other collaborative wiki projects). She’ll be taking all the great things she has learned from The Children’s Museum Wikipedia effort plus all the connections and partnerships she has fostered, and will work with the Wikipedia community to build a support system for other US cultural institutions who want to participate in the GLAM-Wiki project and collaborate with Wikipedia.

We are proud that Lori and The Children’s Museum has been at the forefront of this community of cultural organizations as it has grown and become established over the past two years. The work that this community is doing on a global scale has made huge strides toward making cultural heritage more accessible to the world. We’re looking forward to seeing how Lori and the GLAM community can help even more museums around the US begin partnerships with Wikipedia. Our collaboration with Wikipedia has been extremely rewarding and we know other museums will feel the same way.

If you’d like to learn more about Lori and the work she has been doing with Wikipedia, see some of our past blog posts.

You can also read the announcement on the Wikimedia Foundation blog.