Jason Evans
National Wikimedian , National Library of Wales
The Europeana Network Association (ENA) is a democratic community of experts working in digital cultural heritage. Members Councillor Jason Evans shares his experience of the Network - and why you should join it today.
I’m currently the Open Data Manager and National Wikimedian at the National Library of Wales. I actually started my career in cultural heritage as a readers assistant at the Library and spent many years supporting academic and hobby researchers in our non-print department. This is where I really got my passion for the humanities. It wasn't until I got a role as a Wikipedian in Residence that I began to focus my interest on digital and the opportunities and impact of sharing and developing digital library content. So I'm basically self taught and have learned my trade through networking, experimenting and by being inspired by others.
I remember attending a conference where someone from Europeana spoke about Open Access and she suggested joining the network. At the time I was just finding my feet as a Wikimedian in Residence and the Europeana Network Association seemed like a fantastic way of learning about the latest trends, discussions, tools and policy in the cultural heritage space. I ended up signing up to almost all the communities!
Being a member of ENA has been brilliant for networking. I’ve attended countless sessions, mostly online, on copyright, AI, open data and impact all organised by the network. These have been invaluable in helping me understand complex topics and have definitely helped to shape my projects design and policy proposals within my own organisation. Even just keeping tabs on discussion happening in the various communities is a great way of keeping up with the latest challenges, advances in technology and legislation. It’s definitely helped me to develop professionally and without ENA I simply wouldn't have known about these events.
I first started getting more ‘hands-on’ with ENA when the Impact Playbook was launched. Part of my role in Wales is to explore the impact and benefits of Open Access initiatives, so I was keen to try out the Impact Playbook with a Wiki project I was developing. I ended up writing a short case study for the Impact Community, which led to me joining The ‘Impact Light’ Task Force the following year.
Joining the Task Force was a bit of a game changer for me. Until then I'd kind of seen the network as something to mostly just observe. I’d follow discussions via email and I'd attend events, but joining the Task Force really made me feel like part of a community with a passion for developing the impact playbook concept further. It’s been great getting to know new people and working together as a team.
It was the Task Force experience which ultimately led me to joining the Impact Community steering group and to stand for election for the ENA Members Council.
It’s tricky to pinpoint just one great ENA experience! I really enjoyed being part of a Task Force and I'm tempted to do it again if I can find time. But I think my all-time best memory is probably attending my first Europeana Tech conference back in 2018. I was pretty new to the network at the time, but was actually invited to speak about my work at the conference. Getting to meet with so many like minded GLAM professionals from all over Europe and beyond was a fantastic experience and I came away with so many ideas for digital projects and initiatives. I had some great conversations which led to some great collaborations with other attendees and directly with Europeana.
Why join ENA? Why not? It’s quick, it’s easy, it's free and it gives you access to a vast network of professionals and their knowledge, regular talks by leading experts and opportunities to work together as part of a community towards common goals. There is really no pressure to be super involved and you can dip in and out as time allows. For me, the regular talks on fast moving topics like AI, data and copyright have helped me stay up to date with the latest developments, tools and ideas. All that aside, in my experience, ENA really has been the most friendly and welcoming community I've been involved with.
