Siobhan Leachman

Leachman is a lawyer by background and a self-described "stay-at-home mother of two".{{Cite web|last=Mulligan|first=Jesse|date=22 November 2018|title=Sharing Kiwi biodiversity online|url=https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/2018672356/sharing-kiwi-biodiversity-online|access-date=27 June 2020|website=RNZ }} Bored after her children began attending kindergarten, she began her volunteer work at the instigation of her twin sister Victoria Leachman (Head of Collections Access at Te Papa){{Cite news|last=Crow|first=Kelly|date=2014-09-11|title=The Smithsonian Works to Digitize Millions of Documents|language=en-US|work=Wall Street Journal|url=https://online.wsj.com/articles/the-smithsonian-works-to-digitize-millions-of-documents-1410464327|access-date=2021-07-17|issn=0099-9660}}{{Cite web|title=Victoria Leachman's schedule for NDF2018|url=https://ndf2018.sched.com/victorialeachman1|access-date=2021-07-17|website=ndf2018.sched.com}} with the Smithsonian Transcription Center, transcribing diaries and field journals such as those of Vernon and Florence Bailey and categorising bumblebee collections of Arthur Wilson Stelfox.{{Cite web|date=17 October 2014|title=Online Amateurs Feed Their Science and History Addictions|url=https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/innovation/online-amateurs-feed-their-science-history-addictions-n223291|access-date=2020-06-25|website=NBC News|language=en}}{{Cite news|last=Crow|first=Kelly|date=2014-09-11|title=The Smithsonian Works to Digitize Millions of Documents|language=en-US|work=Wall Street Journal|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-smithsonian-works-to-digitize-millions-of-documents-1410464327|access-date=2020-06-25}}{{Cite journal|last=Arnold|first=Naomi|date=July–August 2016|title=Natural History 2.0|url=https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/natural-history-2-0/|journal=New Zealand Geographic|volume=140}} She moved on to volunteer projects with the Biodiversity Heritage Library,{{Cite web|title=Siobhan Leachman|url=https://blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/author/siobhan-leachman|website=Biodiversity Heritage Library blog}} Zooniverse,{{Cite web|title=Siobhan Leachman|url=https://www.zooniverse.org/users/SiobhanLeachman|access-date=2020-06-28|website=Zooniverse}} the Australian Museum, and the New Zealand Virtual Herbarium.{{Cite journal|last=Arnold|first=Naomi|date=July–August 2016|title=Natural History 2.0|url=https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/natural-history-2-0/|journal=New Zealand Geographic|volume=140}}

In 2014 at the encouragement of the Smithsonian Transcription Center she began working on Wikipedia; her first article, on botanist and collector Charlotte Cortlandt Ellis, was quickly flagged for deletion.{{Cite web|url=https://xtools.wmflabs.org/ec/en.wikipedia.org/Ambrosia10|title=Ambrosia10 – Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org) – Edit Counter – XTools}} She was spending at least two hours a day on Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons,{{Cite web|url=https://xtools.wmflabs.org/ec/commons.wikimedia/Ambrosia10|title=Ambrosia10 – Wikimedia Commons (commons.wikimedia.org) – Edit Counter – XTools}} Wikidata,{{Cite web|url=https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q54823671|title=Siobhan Leachman|website=www.wikidata.org}} and iNaturalist,{{Cite web|title=Siobhan Leachman's Profile|url=https://inaturalist.nz/people/siobhanleachman|access-date=2020-06-28|website=iNaturalist NZ|language=en}} and organised several volunteer events with Wikipedian Mike Dickison. Her Wikipedia work focussed on women in science, neglected scientific collectors, and the endemic moths of New Zealand. Inspired by Ahi Pepe Mothnet, her project to create articles on all 1,800 New Zealand endemic moth species draws on openly-licensed images from iNaturalist, the Auckland Museum, and the New Zealand Arthropod Collection. She has been an advocate of open licenses for digital collections of museums and cultural institutions. She has also worked on creating Wikidata entries and Wikipedia articles for female scientific illustrators in the collection of the Biodiversity Heritage Library.{{Cite web|last=Leachman|first=Siobhan|date=23 May 2017|title=The Serendipitous Discovery of Susan Fereday: A Story about the Impact of Citizen Science|url=https://blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2017/05/the-serendipitous-discovery-of-susan-fereday-a-story-about-the-impact-of-citizen-science.html|access-date=2020-06-28|website=Biodiversity Heritage Library|language=en-US}}

File:WikiCite 2018 Siobhan Leachman (45227191995).jpg

Leachman has presented at VALA,{{Cite web|url=https://www.vala.org.au/vala2020-proceedings/vala2020-plenary-4-leachman/|title=VALA2020 Plenary 4 Leachman|date=10 December 2019}} New Zealand's National Digital Forum,{{Cite web|last=Butler|first=Nick|date=21 January 2020|title=Copyright for digital GLAMs: Lessons from NDF2019|url=https://www.boost.co.nz/blog/2020/01/copyright-for-digital-glams-ndf2019|access-date=2020-06-26|website=Boost|language=en}} and WikiDataCon.{{Cite web|title=WikidataCon 2019 Program|url=https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikidataCon_2019/Program|website=Wikidata}} The Smithsonian invited her to be on the "Build the Crowdsourcing Community of Your Dreams" panel at SXSW in 2016.{{Cite web|title=Build the Crowdsourcing Community of Your Dreams {{!}} SXSW 2016 Event Schedule|url=https://schedule.sxsw.com/2016/events/event_PP48944|access-date=2020-06-26|website=SXSW Schedule 2016}} In 2018 she was awarded a travel scholarship to present at the WikiCite conference in Berkeley, where she spoke about the difficulties of finding metadata on historical biodiversity literature.{{Cite web|last1=Leachman|first1=Siobhan|last2=Shaw|first2=Diane|last3=Mika|first3=Katherine|date=31 January 2019|title=BHL and WikiCite 2018|url=https://blog.biodiversitylibrary.org/2019/01/bhl-and-wikicite-2018.html|access-date=2020-06-28|website=Biodiversity Heritage Library|language=en-US}} In 2019 at Biodiversity Next in Leiden she spoke about using Bloodhound Tracker (now Bionomia) to link museum specimen data to collectors.{{Cite web|last=Page|first=Roderic|date=5 November 2019|title=Thoughts on Biodiversity Next|url=https://iphylo.blogspot.com/2019/11/thoughts-on-biodiversity-next.html|website=iPhylo|issn=2051-8188}}

In 2019 Auckland Museum made Leachman a Companion of Auckland War Memorial Museum in recognition of her work with their openly-licensed digital collection images.{{Cite web|last=Auckland Museum|date=1 March 2019|title=Museum Medals Honour Outstanding Individuals|url=https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/AK1903/S00020/museum-medals-honour-outstanding-individuals.htm|website=Scoop News}} She has contributed to the digitization of their openly licensed collections. In 2023 Leachman was awarded the Wikimedia Laureate award.{{Cite web |last=Foundation |first=Wikimedia |date=2023-08-16 |title=Celebrating the 2023 Wikimedian of the Year Winners |url=https://diff.wikimedia.org/2023/08/16/celebrating-the-2023-wikimedian-of-the-year-winners/ |access-date=2023-08-16 |website=Diff |language=en-US}}

Leachman actively contributes to Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, and Wikidata, focusing on topics like New Zealand's natural history and underrepresented figures in science. She has also campaigned to include indigenous knowledge and promote the representation of women in science-related entries.

Leachman is a vocal advocate for citizen science and the importance of open knowledge. She frequently speaks at conferences and workshops, emphasizing the need to close tue gender gap in science representation and ensure the inclusion of indigenous knowledge systems.{{Cite web |date=2023-10-04 |title=Search Results for “Siobhan Leachman” |url=https://diff.wikimedia.org/?s=Siobhan+Leachman |access-date=2025-01-22 |website=Diff |language=en-US}}

• {{Cite journal |last1=Groom |first1=Quentin |last2=Bräuchler |first2=Christian |last3=Cubey |first3=Robert |last4=Dillen |first4=Mathias |last5=Huybrechts |first5=Pieter |last6=Kearney |first6=Nicole |last7=Klazenga |first7=Niels |last8=Leachman |first8=Siobhan |last9=Paul |first9=Deborah L. |last10=Rogers |first10=Heather |last11=Santos |first11=Joaquim |last12=Shorthouse |first12=David |last13=Vaughan |first13=Alison |last14=Mering |first14=Sabine von |last15=Haston |first15=Elspeth |date=2022-10-10 |title=The disambiguation of people names in biological collections |journal=Biodiversity Data Journal |language=en |volume=10 |pages=e86089 |doi=10.3897/BDJ.10.e86089|pmid=36761559 |pmc=9836581 |doi-access=free |issn=1314-2828}}
• {{CiteQ|Q104815631}}
• {{Cite journal|last1=Waagmeester|first1=Andra|last2=Mietchen|first2=Daniel|last3=Leachman|first3=Siobhan|last4=Groom|first4=Quentin|date=2019|title=Using Crowd-curation to Improve Taxon Annotations on the Wikimedia Infrastructure|url=https://biss.pensoft.net/article/35216/|journal=Biodiversity Information Science and Standards|volume=3|pages=e35216|doi=10.3897/biss.3.35216|doi-access=free}}
• {{Cite journal|last=Leachman|first=Siobhan|date=2019-06-18|title=Wikimedia Projects and Citizen Science|url=https://biss.pensoft.net/article/34722/|journal=Biodiversity Information Science and Standards|volume=3|pages=e34722|doi=10.3897/biss.3.34722|doi-access=free}}
• {{Cite journal|last=Leachman|first=Siobhan|date=2018-05-17|title=How A Citizen Scientist Can Reuse & Link Biodiversity Heritage Library Data|url=https://biss.pensoft.net/articles.php?id=25298|journal=Biodiversity Information Science and Standards|volume=2|pages=e25298|doi=10.3897/biss.2.25298|doi-access=free}}
• {{Cite journal|last1=Ferriter|first1=Meghan|last2=Rosenfeld|first2=Christine|last3=Boomer|first3=Dana|last4=Burgess|first4=Carla|last5=Leachman|first5=Siobhan|last6=Leachman|first6=Victoria|last7=Moses|first7=Heidi|last8=Pickering|first8=Felicia|last9=Shuler|first9=Megan E.|date=2016|title=Crowdsourcing as Practice and Method in the Smithsonian Transcription Center|journal=Collections|language=en|volume=12|issue=2|pages=207–225|doi=10.1177/155019061601200213|s2cid=69364344|doi-access=free}}

• List of Wikipedia people

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{{Commons category|Siobhan Leachman}}

• "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLitfMzpMy7R-IWZntoOO0bCUglXV2fX6k&v=wNc35-U1TzA&itct=CAoQxjQYAyITCJrL-enB3NMCFcFhqgodJZcKPDIKcGxwcF92aWRlb1okVkxQTGl0Zk16cE15N1ItSVdabnRvT08wYkNVZ2xYVjJmWDZr&gl=US&hl=en&client=mv-google&app=desktop Crowdsourcing & how GLAMs encourage me to participate]" (presentation by Leachman at National Digital Forum 2016)
• "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AP38TJMVaA&feature=youtu.be Giz it: A journey in reuse]" (presentation on behalf of Leachman at National Digital Forum 2019)
• "[https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/afternoons/audio/2018672356/sharing-kiwi-biodiversity-online Sharing Kiwi biodiversity online]" (interview with Leachman on RNZ Afternoons)

{{Wikimedian of the Year}}

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Category:Living people

Category:21st-century New Zealand lawyers

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)

Category:New Zealand Wikimedians

Category:21st-century New Zealand women lawyers

Category:Wikipedia people