ECHOLOT attends Art History Loves Wiki 2026

The Art History Loves Wiki 2026 conference, co-organised by the KuWiKi community (the German art historians and Wikipedia working group), took place at the Museum Schnütgen in Cologne from 27 to 29 March. The event included presentations by art historians, museum curators, researchers, representatives of state-level cultural initiatives and Wikimedia volunteers. For the third year in a row, the communities came together to discuss the impact, challenges and benefits of working with cultural knowledge and data on platforms such as Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons and Wikidata. 

Many interesting points were raised regarding staff and resource challenges, as well as issues relating to tools. For example, how can the museum’s databases and digitisation projects, such as digitised inventory books and catalogue cards, be best connected to the world of interconnected encyclopaedic and data knowledge? Furthermore, how can the long-term maintenance of knowledge infrastructures be ensured? Inspiring talks demonstrated the potential of public workshops and crowdsourcing, as well as the flexibility of systems such as Wikidata, which can help to avoid the systemic bias inherent in older cataloguing systems. The use of AI was also discussed, with the focus being on how it could enhance the curation process rather than replace it. 

The ECHOLOT presentation, titled ‘Optimierte Linked Open Data Tools für das kulturelle Erbe in Europa’, and delivered by the project’s coordinator Lozana Rossenova from TIB, was a perfect fit for the discussions, offering the tools and infrastructure connections that are still largely missing.  The barcamp sessions on Sunday covered linked open data and the seamless integration of Wikidata, Wiki Commons and museum systems, confirming the timeliness of the ECHOLOT development. 

Read the presentation here: https://zenodo.org/records/19349561 

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