Newest featured pictures

Hi, my name is Lise Broer. Currently I have 386 featured credits: 305 at English Wikipedia and 82 at Wikimedia Commons. Most of that represents digital restoration of archival material. Due to curatorial practices and copyright laws, the best sources tend to be American. A group of people are working to gain more diverse access to high resolution files from museums, libraries, and other archives globally. Many thanks especially to the Open Progress Foundation, WMF Netherlands, and the Tropenmuseum of Amsterdam for opening greater media access to the history of Suriname and Indonesia.

Overall I've contributed featured material at 5 of Wikipedia's 6 featured content types and have gotten 66 articles to Wikipedia's main page at Template:Did you know. A number of those involved creating and photographing examples of textile arts subjects such as smocking.

As of 19 December 2009 my most significant contributions have been:

• 275 featured pictures: 12.8% of Wikipedia's total 2,133 featured pictures
• 22 featured sounds: 17.2% of Wikipedia's total 128 featured sounds

There's plenty of historic media out there waiting to add value to this website. Wikipedia would be better off if more people joined in this undertaking. If you'd like to participate either by opening doors or learning restoration, please leave word on user talk.

Have a browse through my content galleries:

• Featured picture credits on English Wikipedia
• Featured picture credits on Wikimedia Commons
• Featured sound credits on English Wikipedia
• Other featured content and good articles
• Articles listed at Template:Did you know

One of the best things about media work is how readily it crosses international boundaries. One of my restorations was selected third place overall for the 2008 Commons Picture of the Year. And although I don't count other language projects toward my featured credit total, I happen to have 96 featured pictures on the Turkish Wikipedia--not all of which are featured here or on Commons.

• Featured pictures at the Turkish Language Wikipedia

Restoration on the Wounded Knee Massacre yields a discovery

Unrestored version: mislabeled scattered debris of camp in Library of Congress bibliographic notes.

Restored version: four human remains in foreground partially wrapped in blankets.

Detail from restored version: a face in profile, hand at right.

Library of Congress staff have updated the description. An excerpt of their reply follows:

Upon viewing the high-res TIFF file we made of the file, the human remains are quite visible, indeed. Thank you very much for contacting us regarding this image, and for your interest in our collections. You can imagine that among a collection of 14 million items here, there are a lot of secrets waiting to be uncovered!

Subsequent to this restoration, the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts ran an exhibit of historic photography and incorporated the updated Library of Congress bibliographic data into the museum's official program notes.

Other examples

In March 2009 the German chapter of the Wikimedia Foundation announced that the University of Dresden had agreed to release a quarter million images to Wikimedia Commons. This restoration of prewar Dresden is a gesture of thanks for that generous donation.

The Hotel del Coronado is a National Historic Landmark in Coronado, California. This image by William Henry Jackson c.1900 was unknown to the hotel staff when it turned up, badly damaged, in Library of Congress archives. The restored version ran on Wikipedia's main page for the fiftieth anniversary of the film Some Like it Hot, for which the hotel was the principal location.

A recording, a score, and a portrait is a drive to match free licensed music with related visual material in related sets.

A bust of Ludwig van Beethoven taken from his death mask.

Piano Sonata No. 28, Movement I Movement II Movements III and IV Problems listening to the files? See media help.

Piano Sonata No. 28 in A Major, Op. 101: manuscript sketch for movement IV.

Why the name Durova?

Nadezhda Durova was the first female officer of the Russian army. She enlisted as a private during the Napoleonic Wars, was decorated in combat, and retired as a captain. More than two decades later she met Aleksandr Pushkin, who learned that she had kept a journal during her wartime service and encouraged her to publish her memoirs. In part because of her example, Russia and the USSR had the highest participation of female wartime combatants of any Allied nation during World War I and World War II.