museumsandtheweb.com - Comments for "Specific Wikipedia article where collaboration is desired"

I should emphasize that an

Mpellegrini — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 06:21:16 +0000

I should emphasize that an entry in that table does not have to be the extent of the collaboration. Wikipedia has many articles on individual works of art, ranging from skimpy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrestlers_%28painting%29

to "featured" articles which are considered the best on the site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Swimming_Hole

To prove my point, I've gone ahead and created an article about your Eakins painting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pianist_%28painti...

It's short, but it's a start (It was surprisingly hard to find a substantive mentions of the painting or Stanely Addicks personally in the Eakins literature.) Now if I may be so bold, I'm now going to throw the ball into your court -- let's find a way to make that article grow. I'll be happy to walk anyone through the process of editing and/or clean up after them if they're having problems.

Hobby v. lifelong calling

Maxwell Anderson — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 00:03:43 +0000

As the director of a museum with an Eakins portrait which IS in the table created by MPellegrini, I'm struck by the hope that a table of works marks a reasonable point of departure for an article on a very complicated and prodigious artist. The forum in which we have chosen to highlight a portrait by the artist in the IMA's collection is here:

http://www.imamuseum.org/art/collections/artwork/pianist-stanley-addicks-eakins-thomas

While the reference in the Wikipedia table is here:

The Pianist (Stanley Addicks)
278
Oil on canvas
Circa 1895

Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indianapolis, Indiana[61]

The provision of a table with five fields of data is a beginning--but what museums think is important to furnish may not line up with what is sought in creating a list. We often seek to situate a work within the career of the artist, and to do that, a more forensic search of the date and circumstances of a particular work are likelier to bear fruit when tied to works of the assumed period of the work than against the entirety of the artist's oeuvre. From the intersecting circles of research on intersecting periods, media, and specific works, there can emerge a fuller picture of an artist's contributions--still leaving plenty of room for debate about authenticity, workshop v. autograph work, poor condition hiding true artistry that leads to an inaccurate attribution, etc.

As to why there is no single list of works of art, that is a good question--and the answer is tied to the fact that lifelong research on the career of a single artist has been the preferred mechanism for assembling a comprehensive catalog, rather than the roll-up-our-sleeves and compile a list approach. The blending of paintings and works on paper, for example, in a list, leads to an inchoate mass of data when it would be easier to make headway by segregating media.

All of which is to say that museum scholarship is untidy in the extreme, since it has relied on the chance expertise of individual curators making time to undertake collections research when not planning exhibitions, sorting through loan requests, researching and chasing acquisitions, cultivating patrons, and navigating the bureaucracies spun by directors, registrars, conservators, designers, installers, and photographers, to name a few.

"Your compiling the locations

Mpellegrini — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 21:19:18 +0000

"Your compiling the locations of Eakins works is original research in the world I come from." - it would be original reseach if I said that "I know painting X is in museum Y because I visited Y and saw X there." But that is not the case with my Eakins article - with few exceptions, I have not visited the museums listed there.

I know those paintings are in those museums because I found those paintings listed on the Museum's websites, or in published paper catalogs. It is not original research because the claim that those museums own those paintings did not originate with me. I can point to a credible source for each and every entry listed (Ideally, I should have have a citation for each entry in the table, and eventually I might do that. From a practical standpoint, I don't think anyone is going to get upset because it is obvious from looking at that article that I used lots of sources and wasn't making it up)

"And publishing examples of museum objects to an article about that sort of thing, whether specimens of plants or locomotives from our collections, to an appropriate article on the subject, is original research" - I'm not sure what you mean by 'publishing examples of museum objects.' Are you talking about providing pictures of curatorial objects? Or about writing about them? The former doesn't require citations and cannot be construed as original research; the latter does and can.

interesting question

dbear — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 20:38:00 +0000

Your compiling the locations of Eakins works is original research in the world I come from. And publishing examples of museum objects to an article about that sort of thing, whether specimens of plants or locomotives from our collections, to an appropriate article on the subject, is original research (see http://conference.archimuse.com/forum/original_res...) and in some people's minds it represents a conflict of interest as well and raises issues of notability (see http://conference.archimuse.com/forum/notability_c...). I hope these are the kinds of things we can sort through a bit at the workshop, since they are serious barriers to curators contributing content

One more thing

Mpellegrini — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:31:55 +0000

Just a note that if anyone at the conference is representing a museum on that list (or better yet, you represent a museum with an Eakins painting that I haven't located or which isn't on that list), I'd love to have a chat with you.

"a general question for

Mpellegrini — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 19:27:15 +0000

"a general question for Wikimedia then is whether such examples are desirable" - Certainly. And if there's no good article on Wikipedia that "fits", then on Wikimedia Commons.

"and if so whether their are special editorial guidelines that are recommended." - I'm don't understand this question. We want all editors to follow the general rules of Wikipedia like neutrality, no original research, etc. These aren't particularly onerous requirements. What special editorial guidelines are you talking about?

General Question: extensive examples

dbear — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 00:14:16 +0000

Museums could contribute many examples to almost any article - washing machines from different manufacturers and periods, buttons from throughout history, hats of every sort from everywhere - a general question for Wikimedia then is whether such examples are desirable and if so whether their are special editorial guidelines that are recommended. Within these constraints museums could vastly extend the power of Wikipedia as an explanatory force.