[WikiEN-l] WikiPrint service - Could we make it easy to print out a selected category of Wikipedia for libraries etc.?

[jasonspiro4]

Hi all,

Huge libraries (large / U.S. Ivy League universities' libraries, public 
libraries in world-class cities, Library of Congress, etc.) spend unbelievable 
amounts of money on buying books and magazines every year. Books and magazines 
are great, but there are certain subjects with no relevant books or magazine 
articles available. Example: TV. For any popular TV show, Wikipedia has a main 
article and numerous subarticles on characters, episodes, and so on. For some 
subjects, Wikipedia is truly the best choice for information.

I propose we band together and start a WikiPrint service. We could somehow make 
it easy for schools, corporations and libraries to print out subsets of 
Wikipedia: e.g. if they want a PDF of a whole category to send to an online 
print-on-demand shop, we compile the PDF for them, add a nice cover page etc., 
and send it to the shop for them if they like. They would pay us for the 
service.

I am not sure if this would be a for-profit service or a free service (e.g. 
part of the WikiPress system). For-profit would mean we would be able to 
promote ourselves more and we would be more motivated to do well.

Would this be a useful / popular service? What kinds of customers would come to 
us? For example, a question for you librarians among us: would libraries be 
interested in such a service?

Jason Spiro
Computer programming student and Wikipedian
Toronto, Canada

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