Yann Forget wrote:
I started a proposal on the Strategy Wiki: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:Building_a_database_of_all_books...
IMO this should be a join project between Openlibrary and Wikimedia.
Again, I don't understand why. What exactly is missing in OpenLibrary? Why does it need to be a new, joint project?
The page says "There is currently no database of all books ever published freely available." But OpenLibrary is a project already working towards exactly that goal. It's not done yet, and its methods are not yet fully developed. But neither would your new "joint" project be, for a very long time.
Wikipedia is also far from complete, far from containing "the sum of all human knowledge". But that doesn't create a need to start entirely new encyclopedia projects. It only means more contributors are needed in the existing Wikipedia.