Michael R. Dickison (born ) is a New Zealand museum

curator A curator (from , meaning 'to take care') is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the particular ins ...

zoologist Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the structure, embryology, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct, and how they interact with their ecosystems. Zoology is one ...

and

Wikipedia Wikipedia is a free content, free Online content, online encyclopedia that is written and maintained by a community of volunteers, known as Wikipedians, through open collaboration and the wiki software MediaWiki. Founded by Jimmy Wales and La ...

editor. He was New Zealand's first Wikipedian at Large, in 2018–19, receiving a grant from the

Wikimedia Foundation The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (WMF) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, and registered there as foundation (United States law), a charitable foundation. It is the host of Wikipedia, th ...

Early life

Dickison grew up in

Christchurch Christchurch (; ) is the largest city in the South Island and the List of cities in New Zealand, second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand. Christchurch has an urban population of , and a metropolitan population of over hal ...

. His father was an apprentice

boilermaker A boilermaker is a Tradesman, tradesperson who Metal fabrication, fabricates steels, iron, or copper into boilers and other large containers intended to hold hot gas or liquid, as well as maintains and repairs boilers and boiler systems.Bure ...

, and his mother was a

homemaker Homemaking is mainly an American English, American and Canadian English, Canadian term for the management of a home, otherwise known as housework, housekeeping, housewifery or household management. It is the act of overseeing the organizational ...

. His father encouraged his interest in curating and

collecting The hobby of collecting includes seeking, locating, acquiring, organizing, cataloging, displaying, storing, and maintaining items that are of interest to an individual ''collector''. Collections differ in a wide variety of respects, most obvi ...

. Dickison gained a

PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...

zoology Zoology ( , ) is the scientific study of animals. Its studies include the anatomy, structure, embryology, Biological classification, classification, Ethology, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinction, extinct, and ...

from

Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...

in 2007. His dissertation subject was the

allometry Allometry (Ancient Greek "other", "measurement") is the study of the relationship of body size to shape, anatomy, physiology and behaviour, first outlined by Otto Snell in 1892, by D'Arcy Thompson in 1917 in ''On Growth and Form'' and by Jul ...

of giant

flightless bird Flightless birds are birds that cannot Bird flight, fly, as they have, through evolution, lost the ability to. There are over 60 extant species, including the well-known ratites (ostriches, emus, cassowary, cassowaries, Rhea (bird), rheas, an ...

Career

Dickison was

natural history Natural history is a domain of inquiry involving organisms, including animals, fungi, and plants, in their natural environment, leaning more towards observational than experimental methods of study. A person who studies natural history is cal ...

at the

Whanganui Regional Museum The Whanganui Regional Museum in Whanganui, New Zealand, has an extensive collection of natural and human-history objects. The emphasis is on items from the Manawatū-Whanganui region, but the collection also includes objects of national and in ...

from 2013 to 2018. In 2015, he led an effort to mount the museum's collection of more than 2000 bones and 10 articulated moa skeletons. He became interested in

in 2009. In 2012, he created a community group "Whanganui Wiki Wednesday" which met once a month to edit local pages on Wikipedia. He then started running Wikipedia workshops around New Zealand. He has advocated for

museum A museum is an institution dedicated to displaying or Preservation (library and archive), preserving culturally or scientifically significant objects. Many museums have exhibitions of these objects on public display, and some have private colle ...

s to engage with Wikipedia to get their

collections Collection or Collections may refer to: Computing * Collection (abstract data type), the abstract concept of collections in computer science * Collection (linking), the act of linkage editing in computing * Garbage collection (computing), autom ...

accessible to the public. He argues that Wikipedia can also be a powerful tool for governments to share information and doing public outreach, citing the example of

kauri dieback ''Agathis'', commonly known as kauri or dammara, is a genus of evergreen coniferous trees, native to Australasia and Southeast Asia. It is one of three extant genera in the family Araucariaceae, alongside ''Wollemia'' and ''Araucaria'' (being ...

. In 2019, Dickison was a judge for the Voyager Media Awards.

Wikipedian at Large 2018

In 2018, Dickison received a $61,000 grant from the

to become New Zealand's first Wikipedian-at-Large. The grant paid his salary, travel costs, and conference registration fees. The aim of the project was to address the gaps in New Zealand-related content on Wikipedia, such as the lack of articles on

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Co ...

and

women A woman is an adult female human. Before adulthood, a female child or adolescent is referred to as a girl. Typically, women are of the female sex and inherit a pair of X chromosomes, one from each parent, and women with functional u ...

. He also hoped to attract more female editors to Wikipedia to address the

gender bias Gender bias is the tendency to prefer one gender over another. It is a form of unconscious bias, or implicit bias, which occurs when one individual unconsciously attributes certain attitudes and stereotypes to another person or group of people ...

of article topics. During 2018, he travelled around New Zealand in his 4WD, which acted as a mobile office and entomology

field station Field research, field studies, or fieldwork is the collection of raw data outside a laboratory, library, or workplace setting. The approaches and methods used in field research vary across disciplines. For example, biologists who conduct fiel ...

. In July 2018, his first stop was

Auckland Museum The Auckland War Memorial Museum (), also known as Auckland Museum, is one of New Zealand's most important museums and war memorials. Its neoclassical architecture, neoclassical building constructed in the 1920s and 1950s, stands on Observatory ...

. He went on to extended working stops, presentations and events at multiple institutions, in 16 different towns and cities across New Zealand, working with staff and the public. He recorded

Māori language Māori (; endonym: 'the Māori language', commonly shortened to ) is an Eastern Polynesian languages, Eastern Polynesian language and the language of the Māori people, the indigenous population of mainland New Zealand. The southernmost membe ...

pronunciations to add to Wikipedia articles, and called for locals to share their stories.

''Critter of the Week''

Dickison presented about the ''

Critter of the Week ''Critter of the Week'' is a weekly RNZ National programme about endangered and neglected native plants and animals of New Zealand. Beginning in 2015, ''Critter of the Week'' is an approximately 15-minute discussion between Nicola Toki (origi ...

'' radio programme in

Bali, Indonesia Bali (English:; Balinese: ) is a province of Indonesia and the westernmost of the Lesser Sunda Islands. East of Java and west of Lombok, the province includes the island of Bali and a few smaller offshore islands, notably Nusa Penida, Nu ...

at '' ESEAP 2018.'' An updated presentation was given at the

Wikimedia Australia The Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. (WMF) is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization headquartered in San Francisco, California, and registered there as a charitable foundation. It is the host of Wikipedia, the eighth most visited website ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

meetup Meetup, headquartered in New York City, is a social media platform and social networking service for hosting and organizing in-person and virtual activities, gatherings, and events for people and communities of similar interests, hobbies, and pro ...

in November 2018. ''Critter of the Week'' was discussed as an example of a museum

outreach Outreach is the activity of providing services to any population that might not otherwise have access to those services. A key component of outreach is that the group providing it is not stationary, but mobile; in other words, it involves meetin ...

at the 2018 SPNHC conference in

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; ) is the second-most populous city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from ("fort of Edin"), the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of S ...

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Dickison, Mike Living people Year of birth missing (living people) People from Christchurch New Zealand entomologists Wikipedia people Duke University alumni New Zealand Wikimedians