On the 23rd of May, a new edition of our Fashion Edit-a-thons, the event series dedicated to the WikiGLAM collaboration, organized by Europeana Fashion in collaboration with Wikimedia Italia, has been held in Rimini, at Valgimigli’s complex, branch of Degree Courses in Fashion Culture of the University of Bologna, supported by ZoneModa project.

The event was reserved to the students of the two Degree Courses in Fashion.
The day started with the welcoming speech from Ms. Daniela Calanca, Professor of contemporary history and Mr. Marco Rufino, President of Europeana Fashion International Association, followed by a presentation of Europeana Fashion and its portal, by Erica Marigliani and by a full explanation of the “instructions for use” for the publishing of new articles on Wikipedia, held by Virginia Gentilini, member of Wikimedia Italia.

Daniela Calanca, Virginia Gentilini and Marco Rufino. "Europeana Fashion Edit-a-thon / La Moda digitale al Campus di Rimini". Photo by Leandro Palanghi. CC BY SA

In the afternoon, the participants set up the online publication of five new fashion entries in Wikipedia: “sartoria”, “Renee Gruau”, “Baldinini”, “swimwear” and “crinoline”. The sources for the articles have been gathered both online and in books provided by the University library.
Two members of Wikimedia Italia supported the students in solving operative and methodological issues related to the editing of new entries on Wikipedia.

Erica Marigliani presents Europeana Fashion. "Europeana Fashion Edit-a-thon / La Moda digitale al Campus di Rimini". Photo by Leandro Palanghi. CC BY SA

A selection of images were uploaded in Wikimedia Commons to give the participants materials for the illustration of the new articles. Great part of the images were taken from the repository of Europeana Fashion and the remaining were provided by Baldinini, a well known fashion firm based near Rimini. All the images have been released under Creative Commons licence.

Students working during the event. "Europeana Fashion Edit-a-thon / La Moda digitale al Campus di Rimini". Photo by Leandro Palanghi. CC BY SA

Wikimedia Italia considers the collaboration with universities, museums, archives and libraries as an important chance to spread its working method and to start a dialogue with the institutions which use to “keep” and develop the culture. Wikimedia Italia believes that there is a small distance between them and the education system and they are sure they should start to collaborate with each other to take advantage of the digital divulgation capacity, today possible through the web. In addition, with this kind of events Wikimedia is trying to bring into Wikipedia new content, which has not a widespread attention as others.

Students working during the event. "Europeana Fashion Edit-a-thon / La Moda digitale al Campus di Rimini". Photo by Leandro Palanghi. CC BY SA

Twelve students have actively parteicipated to the edit-a-thon and 5 new articles have been published on Wikipedia. Proud of the results and satisfied with the outcomes of the day, the University of Bologna has announced its interest in organizing a follow-up event. Stay tuned for more news on our forthcoming edit-a-thons.