Grants talk:PEG/WM UA/Kolessa recordings digitalisation

Discussion / Comments

Great project idea and proper presentation here. A few first comments:

1. Please check the transportation options. Transporting wax cylinders in a private car or even in a bus doesn't seem to be appropriate to me. I'd assume that the cylinders need special boxes to be transported in which make sure that they don't break and don't get to hot, as they are quite fragile and very sensitive to temperature.
2. insurance. These wax cylinders are old and especially after what has been said in paragragh 1: Please make sure that you get those insured. There is a lot of risk to the wax cylinders, your volunteers, the owners of the cylinders and the digitizers in this project. Add the costs to the Grant request.

--Manuel Schneider^(bla) (+/-) 08:51, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

hello. thanks for the idea. we shall try to find out the cost of insurance --アンタナナ 15:39, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

p.s. all other questions are for Yuri to answer ;) --アンタナナ 15:41, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

As with Manuel, I am concerned about the idea of using public transportation to move the cylinders. I agree with him that it would be a good idea to look for alternative transportation methods, and to get insurance. It would be nice if a non-Wikimedia movement entity could at least partially fund the digitization of the cylinders, since the content is historic and has significant cultural value - have you explored this possibility? (I would be okay with it if such funding wasn't available, but would like the option to be explored.) Kevin (talk) 21:49, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank you Manuel and Kevin for your comments and ideas. We will definitely get insurance, that's a very good idea. Regarding the transportation, it's a bit complex issue - in Ukraine we tend to trust private transport much more than any of the shipping services. I.e. I don't know a way of transporting them from L'viv to Kyiv that we can trust more than own car with driver that is close to the project and understands the value of the cylinders and how fragile they are. Initially we considered also train but since we cannot influence the temperature inside the train we decided to wait until Autumn and use a car. Also the people who own the cylinders (Kolessa's descendands) trust a private car of a trusted person more than shipping services or something like that. Also there was a similar project couple of years ago done by another entity and they also used a car (unfortunately they've put © on the result and it ended up being non-free. That's why I considered WMF as the main supporter for this project because this way we can request a free license for this group of recordings. The previous group of recordings didn't contain dumas though). If anybody will be able to propose something more reliable than private car, I'd be very happy to propose that to the owners of the cylinders. In any case we will do our best to pack the cylinders as safe as we can (in a box per cylinder with a soft wrapping) and to make sure the temperature is not higher than 20°C. The owners of the cylinder already began preparing for this. We will also make sure the single/pairs of cylinders in other cities will be transported in a safe packaging.

Thank you for your comments once more, esp. for the insurance idea. --Yury Bulka (talk) 10:18, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi,

• Could you clarify what does it mean "Identification of recordings" and how the cost of it was calculated? Is this a cost of employment someone to do this task, or rather some costs of materials/equipment needed for this task?

  This is an employment cost that was negotiated with the ethnomusicologist who studied history of these recordings and published a detailed article on it (google translation). This was the part of the project that I had most doubts about, but we decided to include it and thus let GAC members to make the final decision on this part. --Yury Bulka (talk) 21:14, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

• Is it necessesary to produce 100 CDs ? Would not be simpler and cheaper to send the information about the recordings available on Commons by E-mail?

  I suppose, it is. Unfortunately most of our musical colleges do not have free Internet connection so it seems to be impossible to use Wikimedia Commons from the most of musical libraries or laboratories directly. Morover, a lot of musicologists, especially ethnomusicologists are not skillful enough in Internet surfing either due to the old age or because they substantially do not trust Internet as a reliable source at all. This could sound little bit strange as for the XXI century, but it is really a matter of fact. Thus an actual task for us to raise the credence to Internet projects among scientists. Surely, I don`t mean Internet in general but concretely projects aimed to disseminate free knoledge, particularly Wikimedia projects. An officially publised CD looks more credible and could promote the credibility to Wikimedia Internet projects as well. --A1 (talk) 16:17, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

• What is the cost of petrol in Ukraine and what is the petrol consumption of the vehicles you want to use?

  The A95 petrol costs around 10,5 UAH ([1]). As I don't know yet what exact car they will use, I was advised to calculate the total cost based on 8 liters per 100 kilometers petrol consumption as a safe bet. --Yury Bulka (talk) 21:14, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Anyway - except these minor in fact, technical questions I think this unique project is for sure worth supporting. Polimerek (talk) 23:19, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

MADe

I strongly support the idea. The proposal also looks well done. I especially love the idea to share the recordings with different cultural organisations. How will you do this (postal package, a visit, ...)? Has the project been promoted or discussed on the ua.wiki itself? Is the ipri a governmental organisation, if so, do they want to support this project by "lowering the bill a bit"? MADe (talk) 14:13, 8 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi MADe, thanks for your comments. I will let Andriy (A1) answer your first question because he is responsible for this part of the project. Regarding the ipri price question, to be honest, I don't know if they would "lower the bill". They already know that this is the Kolessa recordings and not something else and they also know this isn't a commercial project. Plus I want to discuss with them an option of releasing all copyrights by using CC-0 (as Solstag suggested) instead of CC-BY. I doubt that they will be interested in lowering the price in this case.

Regarding you question on Ukrainian Wikipedia. We only discussed this in Wikimedia Ukraine and not on Ukrainian Wikipedia because there's little wikipedians can do while the recordings aren't available in digital form. Of course there's much to do when the recordings become available, first of all writing articles that are related to the history of these recordings, and on wider topics like ethnomusicology in Ukraine. I hope to see a boost in edits on ethnomusicology, especially by students and teachers. So we will definitely announce this project on Wikipedia if the recordings will become available.

Thanks, Yury Bulka (talk) 21:48, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm missing a bit the connection with ua.wiki, but this will surely change after the upload of the recordings. I'm thrilled to learn how this project impacted your wiki (new articles, boost in edits on certain fields..), so please include this in the closing report MADe (talk) 12:36, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

License and a few other things

Ni!

Hello Yuri and A1,

Congrats on the proposal, can't wait to hear this music! =)

So, I agree with some comments above, about being very careful with transportation. I assume the keepers of the wax cylinders have agreed to your plans.

Other than that, it would be nice if we had a bit more information about these people, I miss external references about the people and specific objects you'll be working with, pictures maybe, but perhaps they want to remain anonymous?

Also, it would be nice to have some pointers supporting the lack of availability of public domain records of this kind, though I trust they must be quite rare.

And finally, as you propose to release under CC-BY a record of records which are in the public domain, you get to specify how the works are to be attributed. I see a few choices there: attribute them to the original authors and interpreters in case your scholar can identify them; attribute them to the current custodians of the cylinders; attribute them to wikimedia ukraine. You could also require attribution to all three of those. Or you could opt to keep the work simply as public domain by using the CC-0 dedication. What are your thoughts about that?

Have a nice week and hope you can get to work soon,

--Solstag (talk) 11:48, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi Solstag, thank you for your comments. In my opinion CC-0 would be ideal and this is still an alternative I view as a possible option. In fact, the (would-be) digital copies of the recordings are the only part of the materials that can receive copyright, and it would be appropriate to just give it away as public domain in my opinion. Initially I discussed cc-by with the digitizing institution because I thought they would simply not agree to fully give up copyright, but now I think I can ask them about pd. If we receive funding, we will sign a contract with them where the license/public domain dedication (and other terms) will be clearly stated. I'll update here when I discuss with them the CC-0 option.

Regarding the owners of the cylinders themselves, this is a private archive of Kolessa's descendants. Regarding the collection, there's an article on its history and the role of Lesia Ukrainka in the project at gazeta.ua (translated by Google), and a more detailed article here (translated by google). --Yury Bulka (talk) 21:06, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Yuri, and congratulations on being awarded the grant! I wish you great success and will keep an eye on the progress, so I can include the digitized recordings in the Portuguese language Wikipedia as well =) Cheers, --Solstag (talk) 18:19, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Comments and questions from Tony1

Hi, excellent idea. Before I return to review properly, I see the matter of insurance raised above. I don't think insurance is appropriate. These items cannot be replaced if lost or significantly damaged (as some are already, I see). So what would an insurance payout do? And how can they be priced by an insurer anyway? The premium would be huge, I suspect. To what extent are heat and humidity an issue? Public transport could well be safer than a private car (little chance of mechanical destruction through accident).

The measures of success are not quantified as "hunches", and so can't be measured. What would you be happy with, in each of the three cases? Needs to be written into the application.

There's no mention of the style and genre (solo voice(s)? piano accompaniment?). I presume the language is Ukrainian. Has anyone auditioned samples of the recordings? Are they field recordings, or studio recordings? Are they community or professional performers? Who would be the audio-engineer? Presumably the $50 per recording would go to the use of the machine and the audio-engineering/editing.

Will there be transcriptions of the music and the poetry? Are there plans for providing information on the Commons description pages?

Tony (talk) 21:53, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Hi Tony1 and thank you for your comments. Regarding insurance, since I don't have much experience with insurance I will seek advice from other wikimedians who know more about it (and how it works in Ukraine) and get back to you on this part.

Yuri, I hope you don't mind my interleaving indented responses to each point, for your convenience. On the insurance matter, I'm not sure there's much more to know about it. Great works of art are "insured", often without premium by governments, when taken on touring exhibitions; but the expectations is that the only functional cost might be repairs if damaged in transit. Complete loss could attract a payout, but all the insured parties can do is spend the money at auction on another "equivalent" work of art, which doesn't seem relevant here. I'd do my best to ensure that transit is safe; an insurance company would probably insist on all sorts of extreme, risk-averse measures. It would be a hornet's nest. Tony (talk) 16:11, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Regarding measures of success, thanks for your suggestion, I'll make edits accordingly.

Thx. Tony (talk) 16:11, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Now let me detail a bit what the recordings are. They were made in 1904-1910 by Filaret Kolessa from folk musicians called kobzars and lirnyks under financial and organizational support of Lesia Ukrainka, an important women in Ukrainian literature. It was more like a research initiative than a commercial one (the recordings weren't published as vinyl records for example). The type of music captured is folk music of special kind - Ukrainian dumas, they are a kind of sung poetry with accompaniment on kobza, bandura or lira. Later, in 1930-s, kobzari and lirnyky (the folk musicians who performed and passed along their repertoire) were persecuted and the tradition was broken.

The dumas were transcribed by Filaret Kolessa himself and published in 1912 as score, but as Lesia Ukrainka said, "This property [recordings] are of value because despite phonograph gives yet incomplete picture of the performance, it is clearly better than musical score in preserving the manner of the performance".

Dumas are improvisational musical compositions, they contain much ornamentation and voice figures that are hardly compatible with western musical notation. Therefore it is important to preserve these recordings and make them available, first of all to be able to learn how this music was performed when the tradition was still existing.

The recordings themselves were used by Kolessa later and an attempt to transfer them to tape has been made in 1970-s. However the quality of the result was low because the reading method was simply playing them back on the phonograph itself and re-recording them on microphone. The digitizing method in Kyiv is different because they scan the cylinders in a non-realtime manner (20-30 times slower than realtime) and perform various noise-reduction techniques to extract the audio information as much as they can.

Note to GAC and grantmaking staff: this is almost too much information, but it is far better than none at all; it's important background for us to judge the case that this is important, WMF-relevant work, and is viable. May I say that this underlines the need to update the order of the sections and to start with "Background and aims"—this would be far more engaging for GAC members to read, rather than the raft of eligibility information that currently obstructs our ability to absorb what the project is about (the first section should be at the end, I believe). Tony (talk) 16:11, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks Tony, I've made an edit to the grant page to add the "Background and aims" section. I'm not sure if I did it properly, so please change the order/remove if you want.

Regarding you audio-engineering question: yes, $50 includes the needed post-processing. I discussed FLAC or WAV files as the output they will give us.

OK, good: I presume the files will be about 5 minutes long on average, and that the main audio-eng issue will be to minimise the presence of artefacts from the turning of the wax cylinder; there might also be hiss and other noise from the original recording. Were they studio recordings? Tony (talk) 16:11, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

The recordings were made indoors (the musicians were invited and came to the place where Kolessa and Lesia Ukrainka were recording them). But I'm not sure if this can be called a studio recording, it was early days of audio recording and not so advanced equipment. I think the sound is similar to something like this file. --Yury Bulka (talk) 17:55, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Detailed identification information of each track will be provided on the corresponding files' pages at Commons. This will be based on work by ethnomusicologist who will inspect the result and identify the recordings based on known history of the recordings. This way a reliable source with the identification information will be available for Wikipedians to use. Ethnomusicologist's identification work will be released under CC BY-SA 3.0. --Yury Bulka (talk) 13:31, 11 September 2013 (UTC)

Yet another review

First of all: Great idea. There's nothing more to say. Period.

However, while I love the idea, I am concerned about certain parts, which I would encourage to change or improve (some may mention already addressed points):

Digitizing

I am not a big friend of fully paying commercial companies for buyouts of materials, even in such cases like this, and if I was to decide about the funds, I would seriously hesitate to fund this part (although it is obviously the most important one). Try to negotiate free digitization with the company first. I am also concerned about whether WMF should be funder of such activities, how much it falls into its scope. Try to negotiate with the owner of cylinders to fund the digitization itself, it is also in their own interest to have it. Both of previous points open Pandora's box and can quickly turn against us. (I think I'll put some general comments/recommendations to the GAC Learnings or similar page, since this is not the first nor the last case obviously) There are always ways how to make publicity around this which is a good PR for interested parts and usually is worth more than anonymous payment.

Transport & insurance

I strongly discourage you from taking the personal responsibility for the transport. In case of fail it would be not only a huge issue for whoever would be the courier, but consequently due to the publicity which it would obviously gain also to the Wikimedia/GLAM movement. Not even speaking about the historical damage. If I was to decide where to put the money to, I would rather grant bigger amount to use the professional company than to personal transport. I am pretty sure that like in other countries, also in Ukraine there is some "kunsttrans" company - couriers specialized for careful transportation of cultural works. Try to find those and negotiate a sponsorship or deal with them. They are also fully insured for various issues.

Identification of recordings

If this part is to pay for labour (which is not 100% clear, cf. Polimerek's comment), I would be against this part. Wikimedia in general does not pay for labour on content of Wikimedia projects. Also as mentioned in the Digitizing part - it is also in the interest of the owner of the cylinders and they will definitely have somebody to work on it, furthermore especially if they would not be paying for the digitization itself.

CDs with the recordings

I am pretty sure not only local musical educational institutions in Ukraine would appreciate such CDs. There should be definitely some in archive of WMF, other chapters, GLAMers or individuals may find it useful to have it too. (Personal COI/bias: I work on similar project here too since last year, so having something to show for "Look, they have done that elsewhere" purposes would be useful.) As in previous parts - try to negotiate free manufacturing or at least for factory price only.

License

According to the type of recordings - wax cylinders - I assume that the content is already in PD (or its local legal equivalent). I am not familiar with Ukrainian copyright law, but I would generally assume, that you can't start to claim any rights on such work. Even for digitization. So consider releasing the records under PD/CC0 (while the other content of the CD can obviously be under any other license).

Measures of success

Don't forget about the usage on Wikimedia projects as well. Orphaned files only uploaded to Commons are worth almost nothing if not being used

General notes

Not sure if you've done that already, but in case that not, don't forget to inform worldwide GLAM community about this project (GLAM maillists could be good point to start with). They may share their experiences and advices with you and will definitely welcome your experiences.

Once again, great idea!

Tech note: Please do not put comments inside my post to keep its consistence.

— Danny B. 10:09, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Transportation and insurance discussion

Dear Wikimedians, since there were multiple suggestions and comments on transportation of the cylinders and insurance, as a matter of convenience I decided to discuss this topic under a dedicated subsection rather than below each of the comments.

Let me first discuss the transportation situation. Most of what we suggest here is directly from the owners of the cylinders, i.e. they find a car to be the safest way to do it. Also they will decide who will drive the car so they can choose a person they trust in carrying the cylinders. At least the driver will be aware of what he is carrying.

I can only suggest alternative ways of transporting the cylinders to them but in the end they will decide if they allow to use a certain way of transporting cylinders. Their view now is that the shipping services in Ukraine are not reliable enough.

But this way it is more of their responsibility than ours, i.e. if something bad happens, the owners won't blame us for it.

Regarding insurance, Manuel Schneider and Kevin suggest using it while Tony1 warns that it may not be appropriate because "these items cannot be replaced if lost or significantly damaged". I would add that they can hardly be repaired if something bad happens. Tony1 also warns that "an insurance company would probably insist on all sorts of extreme, risk-averse measures. It would be a hornet's nest." Additionally, this is very unusual material for insurance companies in Ukraine and I doubt that any of them have ever worked with such type of materials. After discussing this with Ukrainian wikimedians I begin to think that we should take a step back with insurance in this case. Of course we're open to suggestions and discussion since our goal is to make the recordings widely available as free culture while making sure the cylinders are safe.

Thanks, Yury Bulka (talk) 17:11, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Thank you for your answers. I am comfortable with them. Kevin (talk) 20:41, 12 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, everyone. On the matter of insurance, I agree with everyone. :) That is, it's a huge responsibility to undertake, but also insurance only shifts the damages, but can't replace the originals. Clearly, any form of moving the cylinders involves a risk, and that risk cannot be avoided. However, the fact those cylinders are the only extant copy of this extinct art form is itself a huge risk (something could happen to the cylinders physically where they are right now -- fire, flood, etc.), and digitization is the only way to ensure significant mitigation of the risk of permanently losing these recordings. Therefore, it is in everyone's interest to undertake the risk of moving the cylinders for digitization. I would therefore get the owners -- who seem to already be cooperative and approving of the private car transportation method -- to agree in writing that they are authorizing this transportation and are agreeing not to sue in case of force majeure. That should be enough. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 01:49, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

Indeed. Another strategy, which is standard in the carriage of valuable collections of art works, is to split the carriage into smaller lots. That way, you'd only ever lose a fraction. I'd be inclined to categorise them into types/performers etc, and mix the lots in these terms. Tony (talk) 17:43, 15 September 2013 (UTC)

Suggestion of spliting the cylinders is a good one - is it the reason why 4 rides (2 times to Kiev and back) are planned? What is more I do agree that dedicated people giving a proper attention and casings with hard exterior and a proper soft feeling can do a better job than a random employee of a transfer company. Do the institutions have proper casings or can you obtain something proper on your own? aegis maelstrom δ 21:56, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Aegis

Firstly let me join the supporters of these efforts. great idea.

Regarding the particular budget items:

• Digitizing

  I do agree it would be better if it were paid (or simply already done) by a public Ukrainian institution like a museum, ministry of culture or some other NGO. Unfortunately, this is not a case so far and due to the equipment and skills requirements it cannot be delivered by volunteers only. Therefore, what we can do is: a) redirecting this project into a lobbying effort, b) asking WMUA to find other sponsors (grants from government, NGOs, companies) or c) funding it as WMF.

  I don't agree that digitalization is something we don't pay for by definition. AFAIR this cannot be done by any volunteer and WMF is probably the simpliest partner for WMUA, so I am not surprised with this submission. My issue is different: will this endavour benefit for the future? Will it open oportunities for WMUA, Wikimedia and Free Culture Movement in Ukraine, build credibility and enable WMUA to win grants, gain new sponsors, attract new volunteers and attention etc. - or on the contrary it will only make public institutions lazy, teaching them to wait for a funding from WMF? :)

  I think this is a key question here. For me, I would give Wikimedia Ukraine a chance; however my requirement would be looking for more and more external resources in the future.

Note: certainly looking for a better price or a grant/co-sponsor NOW would be great and would increase my enthusiasm in funding WMUA in the future.

• Transport - see above
• Identification of recordings

  I am not sure how professional this service is. Is it really not done yet (there were some tapes made before?) and cannot be funded by a public institution? However, it would be great to have it (on a free licence :) ) and if it cannot be made in a different manner, I would fund it this time. It is an important part of the package after all.

• CDs

  2,5 USD per unit means at least a semi-professional quality. I am not sure if it is needed but no strong oppose here.

• Missing item: mastering of the recordings

  I assume that the digitalized .wav file can use some mastering, noise reduction etc. Is it included in the digitalization service or will it be done by a volunteer afterwards? This labour can be done with a proper sound engineer, probably even for free on a volunteer basis - but please remember about it. :)

Executive summary:, the goal is good and cannot be done by volunteers. Funding by WMF: in short term as a positive push for WMUA - yes. In long term as a continued effort to publish Ukrainian (or any other) culture solely using WMF funds - doubtful.

This is all for now. :)
aegis maelstrom δ 22:40, 17 September 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Aegis, for these comments. I definitely agree about the need to avoid encouraging the cultural sector to be lazy and rely on WMF funding. In this case, however, it seems the recordings are in private hands without institutional backing, and the initiative makes sense for WMF funding, among other things, as you say, as a model project to inspire future digitization efforts funded (or at least co-funded) by cultural/governmental institutions. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 02:56, 18 September 2013 (UTC)

Therefore I support this particular request (if it hadn't been clear so far :) ) and an overall maturing of local chapters. :) Sorry I've missed the private institutions detail. aegis maelstrom δ 20:58, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

Evaluation by the GAC

GAC Members who read the grant request without comments

1. Great proposal. I have no big additional comments to the ones above. Good luck! NLIGuy (talk) 08:18, 14 September 2013 (UTC)

GAC Members who approve this grant request

1. There are minor issues that need to be worked out still, and I definitely still would prefer to see part of the costs taken on by another organization interested in open culture, but these issues aside, I think that this is too unique of an opportunity to pass up. I'd like to see more discussion before the grant is actually funded, but given that the organizers have been actively engaging on this page so far, I think I feel comfortable saying I support this grant. Kevin (talk) 20:40, 12 September 2013 (UTC)
2. I would like to see an elaborate overview of the impact of this project on the local community and wiki MADe (talk) 12:38, 15 September 2013 (UTC)
3. Seems to be very interesting project. Polimerek (talk) 09:03, 18 October 2013 (UTC)

GAC Members who oppose this grant request

1. .

GAC Members who abstain from voting/comment

1. .

Requesting an Extension

Hello,

We would like to request an extension for a month. We are negotiating with the heirs at the moment and need more time to consult with our lawyer, so the agreement signed would be as flawless as possible, so we do not want to rush things, if it can be helped. Our expected deadline is 31 December 2013. Thank you very much

--アンタナナ 11:40, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Nataliya Tymkiv

Treasurer (Board Vice-President on Finance) Wikimedia Ukraine

Comments

Sounds fine to me... --Solstag (talk) 16:56, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Approved

The extension is approved. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 00:08, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

thank you very much! --アンタナナ 00:30, 5 November 2013 (UTC)

Requesting an Extension-2

Hi,

Due to current events in Ukraine, we would like to request an extension of this grant for one month (until 31 January 2014). In particular, we were unable to organise a presentation of the CDs in December, as it would not be noticed, moreover, there were significant delays in production of the CDs due to involvement of producers in the ongoing events. We decided to postpone the presentation until mid-January 2014 in order to attract more attention from the media. Thus we would need an extra month to complete this grant.

Best regards,

Mykola Kozlenko

Deputy Chair of the Board — Treasurer of Wikimedia Ukraine

(since 17 December 2013, replacing Nataliya Tymkiv aka antanana following our AGM and election of the new board)

NickK (talk) 16:24, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

This is approved. Do I take it that the digitization itself has already successfully concluded? Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 18:07, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. Yes, the digitization was finished couple of weeks ago. The next stage, cleaning the recordings, has also just finished. We'll begin uploading them soon. Both the raw (unprocessed) tracks as well as the cleaned ones will be published. --Yury Bulka (talk) 18:55, 26 December 2013 (UTC)

Requesting an Extension - 3

Hi,

Due to ongoing events in both Kyiv and regions, we would like to request an extension of this grant for another three weeks (until 23 February 2014). We have completed most of grant acrivities, but transporting wax cylinders back to Lviv is not safe at the moment, thus we have to postpone this until situation stabilises.

Best regards,

Mykola Kozlenko

Deputy Chair of the Board — Treasurer of Wikimedia Ukraine

NickK (talk) 16:36, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. This delay is quite understandable, and we approve this extension. Please do not hesitate to request additional extensions if the situation still doesn't permit the travel. Asaf Bartov (WMF Grants) talk 18:51, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Requesting an Extension - 4

Hi,

Given the current situation any travel is now not just unsafe, but simply impossible: all roads leading to Kyiv are now blocked. Thus we have to request another extension — until 10 March 2014.

Best regards,

WM UA Treasurer — NickK (talk) 21:30, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the update. We approve this extension. Again, please let us know if you need to request additional extensions if the situation does not permit travel. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 21:59, 18 February 2014 (UTC)

Requesting an Extension - 5

Hi,

Due to current situation in Ukraine we are unfortunately again unable to complete this grant in time, The situation remains unsafe, so we have to postpone this until the end of the month, thus we would like to extend this grant until 31 March 2014.

We really hope that we will not need another extension and the situation will be back to normal by that time.

Best,

WM UA Treasurer — NickK (talk) 22:20, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for the update. We approve this extension. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 23:07, 4 March 2014 (UTC)

Requesting an Extension - 6

Hello. I need to ask for another (but I believe final) extension till 14 April 2014. The situation is now safe for us to transport the cylinders back, hovewer we couldn't do it till today because we're also dependent on Kolessa descendants with this task. I've already negotiated with them that we'll be able to transport the cylinders back until 14th of April. Otherwise the project is very close to completion. Thank you, Yury Bulka (talk) 19:07, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you for your committment to completing this project successfully. Your extension request is approved. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 19:13, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Thank you. --Yury Bulka (talk) 19:23, 31 March 2014 (UTC)

Project Completion (a few comments)

hello all

we have successfully (we believe) completed the project. the report is underway. we have encountered some issues, not related to the project directly, but resulting in asking for a number of extensions (listed above). also there were a few major changes that have occurred along the way:

• the total number of the existing cylinders is 62. we have believed only 54 to be fit for digitizing, but 58 were digitized in the end. the good thing is that it didn't cost us more - 21600 UAH / 2702.36 USD
• the actual identification cost was higher, than we have believed it would be - 1822.26 UAH / 227.98 USD (instead of 150 USD)
• the travel costs were lower, out of 280 USD budgeted we have spent around 200 USD
• we have decided to manufacture 100 CDs instead of 250 CDs, thus around 100 USD were spent

that being said, we have been able to stay within the budget proposed and even have some funds remaining (around 300 USD)

best regards,

--アンタナナ 12:41, 13 April 2014 (UTC)

ED of Wikimedia Ukraine

Thank you for this detailed update. We're happy to hear the project was completed successfully and we look forward to reading the report! We enjoyed speaking with Yury at the Wikimedia Conference to learn more about the importance of this work. We're curious to know why the team decided to manufacture 100 CDs instead of 250. Thanks. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 07:20, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi Alex! It was my decision - and the cause was that since there were four more cylinders digitized, I initially thought we had to pay extra money for the digitization and thus will not be able to make that much CDs. However the institution did the extra 4 cylinders without raising the cost. So that's a little glitch on my side:) --Yury Bulka (talk) 20:50, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi Yury! Thanks for the clarification. We are fine with the changes and thanks again for communicating them with us. Alex Wang (WMF) (talk) 20:54, 14 April 2014 (UTC)

• I'd like to extend serious congratulations to all of those at WMUA involved in this. Successfully digitizing privately owned clay cylinders that contain historically significant recordings of uncommon rarity due to past persecution, doing it with such a reasonable budget, and managing to successfully do so given the ongoing political situation is a really remarkable accmplishment. Kevin (talk) 00:16, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

  Thank you, Kevin. --Yury Bulka (talk) 10:58, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

• Congratulations indeed. Now the next stage will begin, I suppose: interpreting the performances from an ethnomusicological stance. Will notes accompany the CDs, I forgot to ask? Tony (talk) 01:59, 15 April 2014 (UTC)

  Hi Tony! During the project we received a cc by-sa permission for an article on history of the recordings, that is perhaps the most detailed (and reliable) source about the origin of this collection of cylinders. It is now on Commons, and we'll also upload it to Wikisource soon. It will accompany the recordings on the CDs. Additionally, a short introduction and the revised information regarding the performer, date and recorder of each of the files are listed. --Yury Bulka (talk) 10:58, 15 April 2014 (UTC)