Hi all,
We've just published a blog post summarising the new features and
functionality available to active Wikipedia editors in The Wikipedia
Library:
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2022/01/19/the-wikipedia-library-accessing-free-…
The Wikipedia Library is a tool providing active Wikipedia editors with
free access to otherwise-paywalled resources, including journals, books,
newspapers, magazines, and databases. Over the past 5-10 years the library
has built up a large collection of content from a wide range of publishers.
In the past couple of years we've been finalising the centralised Wikipedia
Library tool used for accessing all this content:
https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org/. I'm really pleased to announce that
we've finished work on some long-requested and planned features which make
it really simple to use!
The library now has:
- Proxy-based authentication for direct access of resources without a
secondary login
- A centralised search feature for browsing multiple collections from
one place
- An on-wiki notification to let editors know about the library when
they have crossed the eligibility threshold (rolling out in stages
throughout January)
As the project I first joined the Wikimedia Foundation to work on years ago
I'm personally thrilled that we've finally been able to deploy all these
features!
If you're eligible to use the library (500+ edits, 6+ months editing) you
can jump in and start using the library straight away. We're now working on
expanding and diversifying the content available in the library, so let us
know on the suggestions page if there are collections you want us to make
available: https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org/suggest/
If the tool isn't currently localised into your language, you can translate
it on TranslateWiki:
https://translatewiki.net/wiki/Translating:Wikipedia_Library_Card_Platform
We're planning to host some Office Hours, which will be a chance to get a
walkthrough of how to use the library, as well as discuss your research
needs and requests for new collections with the team. Look out for more on
that in the coming weeks.
--
Sam Walton
Product Manager, The Wikipedia Library
swalton(a)wikimedia.org
Hello fellow Wikimedians, librarians, and bibliophiles,
I hope you are doing alright and staying healthy in this new year. The
January round of the 2022 1Lib1Ref <https://1lib1ref.org/> starts on the
21st birthday of Wikipedia,15th January, and will run until 5th February.
I am thrilled to share that 2 more languages from the CEE region have been
added to the list of languages supported by the CitationHunt tool over the
holidays, which makes it a total of 9 new languages added for the upcoming
round of the campaign. Huge thanks for the volunteer efforts of Guilherme
Gonçalves <https://github.com/eggpi> and Gorana Gomirac
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Gorana_Gomirac_(VMRS)>.
As always, participation is pretty simple. All you need to do is add more
references to Wikipedia articles, type #1lib1ref in the Edit Summary. In
case you are a newbie and would like to learn how to add references to
Wikipedia articles, Open Foundation West Africa <https://ofwafrica.org/> is
hosting an online Citation Masterclass on 14th January at 4 PM UTC. Sign up
here <https://t.co/ViqhZiJxc7>.
If you are already familiar with editing Wikipedia and would like to
experiment a bit, we are piloting a couple of contribution methods for
advanced contributors
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/The_Wikipedia_Library/1Lib1Ref/Participate#…>
in the January 2022 round.
*If you are an organizer, remember to add your local events to the campaign
dashboard
<https://outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org/campaigns/1lib1ref_january_2022/overv…>,
so we can learn and track activities happening across the world.*
Check the blogpost for more information about the campaign :
https://diff.wikimedia.org/2021/12/16/1lib1ref-2022
See you all in a couple of days!
Regards
Satdeep
--
Satdeep Gill (pronouns - he, him)
Program Officer
GLAM and Culture
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>