[Foundation-l] Bertelsmann publishes "Wikipedia Encyclopedia in One Volume"

[Mary Murrell]

Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:

>  2. How will this "make wikipedia material accessible to a wider range of readers" than wikipedia on-line? Can you be more specific about that?

Our mission is to "disseminate [our content] effectively and
globally". I'm not speaking on behalf of WMDE, but it's clear to me
that there are many people (and institutions) around the world who are
not comfortable with purely internet-based things. Books, they can
grok.

1. Free as in $19.95-a-pop beer, yeah.

2. And free as in anyone can use and re-use it? I hope so. However, can, say, Indian printers make even cheaper editions and sell them wherever they want in all parts of the world, even Europe? 

It's not a silly question.  Books, publishers, and the structure of that business come with a lot of old traditions that aren't so easy to get around. 

3. This is German encyclopedia--an important but hardly global language. It is a commercial endeavor by a publishing behemoth for a prosperous European audience.  Ideals of global distribution to those underserved by the Internet hardly seem to apply here.

Perhaps the real value to wikipedians is the increased "branding" of wikipedia? I don't know, but I think this print projects feels like a diminution of wikipedia. ButI respect people's labor, always, and I don't want to denigrate that. I just wonder why this is any sort of priority to wikipedians.


       
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