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Artbooks

Hi, Wikimedia UK has been talking to the Public Catalogue Foundation here in the UK. They have offered us 12 of their books (8 still available) on Oil Paintings in public ownership in the UK to give to wikipedia editors who would find these useful reference material. If you would like one of these books, details of the 85 titles available are here. You do not need to be a member of Wikimedia UK or even resident in the UK to get one of these books, just choose a book and email me. Preference will be given to FA writers. Jonathan Cardy (WMUK) (talk) 13:39, 3 September 2014 (UTC)

Burlington magazine offer

The Burlington Magazine (fine and decorative arts) is running a temporary promotion whereby people can register for 24 hours free access to download articles from the current issue and the last five years of their archives. Info at http://www.burlington.org.uk/. - PKM (talk) 02:55, 6 October 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Resource_Exchange

thought your might want to check out John Mark Ockerbloom http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/, whose Template:Library_resources_box seems to incorporate some of your local library search; he gave a talk at wikiconference USA. Duckduckstop (talk) 21:51, 29 October 2014 (UTC)

Subpage inconsistency

Not all of the sub pages of Wikipedia:TWL are redirects to subpages of Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library and what is more of a problem not all the pages that are under TWL have redirects from subpages of Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library. Fore example the first four subpages are inconsistent:

For consistency I suggest that any subpages under Wikipedia:TWL are moved to become subpages under Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library

-- PBS (talk) 15:58, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

 Done fixed those and some by User:Nikkimaria and myself. Redirected a couple because they are out of use. Thank you for bringing this to our attention! Astinson (WMF) (talk) 17:58, 24 December 2014 (UTC)

Newsletter?

Are you still publishing a newsletter? It's been months since I've seen one. Just checking in. Liz Read! Talk! 13:39, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

Hey Liz! Glad to hear someone is reading! We've been doing Books & Bytes in two month intervals. The next issue (January-February) is in the oven, and should be out either Monday or Tuesday next week. The Interior (Talk) 14:19, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
@Liz: So glad to see we have active readers! If you really like the newsletter, and would like to learn more about what we are doing as The Wikipedia Library: we are looking for volunteers to support The Interior in developing the newsletters and for someone to help with communicating what is happening across the library in other venues (blog posts, etc). Would you be interested in helping? We would love to have you; and everything is volunteer, so subject to your level of interests/skills/time commitment/etc, Astinson (WMF) (talk) 14:35, 27 February 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the prompt response, The Interior and Astinson (WMF). I look forward to the next issue! Liz Read! Talk! 14:45, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

K. G. Saur microfiche

Knowing full well that only fanatical devotees of regional history would ever be even remotely interested in them, K. G. Saur has put together some frankly incredible, and yes, huge, collections of microfiche forms of older biographical dictionaries. Some of them can be found at the Cornell University library website at guides.library.cornell.edu/c.php?g=31575&p=200333. I have no way of knowing how expensive they are, although I imagine they are very expensive, and it may well be that few if any editors would ever use them, but if we really wanted to improve our coverage of broadly historical topics they might be extremely useful. John Carter (talk) 20:42, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Now all in World Biographical Information System Online afaik. Most of that is accessible via DFG-Nationallizenz in Germany. --HHill (talk) 05:51, 28 February 2015 (UTC)

Project MUSE access level

What access level are we looking at with the Project MUSE partnership? Is it all access or only certain packages? Thanks, czar ⨹ 12:54, 3 March 2015 (UTC)

Pinging Astinson (WMF), our MUSE point of contact. Cheers, Jake Ocaasi t | c 00:16, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
@Czar and Ocaasi: I am fairly sure we are getting the complete "Premium" collection: our contact wanted to make sure that our numbers were correct for both the books and journals described in our access, and the MOU which they customized states access to digitized materials, without a qualifier (our generic specifically focuses on qualifiers). I am sending an email to confirm, but there was never a comment about "what level of access should we give", something that most of our publishers bring up early in conversations, if they intend to limit it in some way. I will make a modification to our donation page if that is the case. Astinson (WMF) (talk) 03:19, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
Hi @Czar: Confirmed! They plan on giving access to everything! Astinson (WMF) (talk) 19:37, 5 March 2015 (UTC)
Excellent. Appreciate it! czar ⨹ 19:46, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Signpost

I think the newsletter could be regularly featured in the signpost. Nergaal (talk) 17:34, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

@Nergaal: I included it in the News and notes section for March 4. If there are better ways to highlight it through signpost, or any other Wikimedia communications venue, I would love feedback! In part, I think it would be great to have a "see latest newsletters" box that includes links to all the major community newsletters (Education, GLAM, Foundation Reports, and Books and Bytes), Astinson (WMF) (talk) 18:17, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Project Muse rejecting login

@Astinson (WMF): are you aware of any problems with accessing Project Muse at the moment? It was working ok but is presently saying that I am unrecognised. I'm using the details that were provided in an email from Nikkimaria when access was first arranged. If you are not getting reports from other Wikipedians then I'll contact their technical bods. - Sitush (talk) 04:08, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

I too am no longer able to sign in to Project Muse, receiving the error message "Incorrect username or password". RolandR (talk) 10:10, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

I have the same problem. --Raul Corazzon (talk) 10:55, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

@Sitush, RolandR, and Ontoraul: Thanks for letting me know. I will have an email inquiry out within an hour (need to get to my desk), Sadads (talk) 12:21, 1 June 2015 (UTC)
@Sitush, RolandR, and Ontoraul: According to the tech team at MUSE that problem should have been fixed yesterday. Please let me know if there are any other concerns that come up, or if it is still a persistent problem. Cheers, Astinson (WMF) (talk) 23:10, 3 June 2015 (UTC)
Yes, it's fine now. RolandR (talk) 00:32, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
Yes, fine for me also. Thanks very much. - Sitush (talk) 03:18, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
Yes, all OK, thanks. --Raul Corazzon (talk) 08:36, 4 June 2015 (UTC)
Awesome! Astinson (WMF) (talk) 15:12, 4 June 2015 (UTC)

New Wikipedia Library Accounts Available Now (June 2015)

Hello Wikimedians!

The TWL OWL says sign up today!

Today The Wikipedia Library announces signups for more free, full-access accounts to published research as part of our Publisher Donation Program. You can sign up for new accounts and research materials from:

  • Taylor & Francis — academic publisher of journals. The pilot includes two subject collections: Arts & Humanities and Biological, Environment & Earth Sciences. (30 accounts)
  • World Bank eLibrary — digital platform containing all books, working papers, and journal articles published by the World Bank from the 1990s to the present. (100 accounts)
  • AAAS — general interest science publisher, who publishes the journal Science among other sources (50 accounts)

New French-Language Branch!

  • Érudit (en Francais) — Érudit is a French-Canadian scholarly aggregator primarily, humanities and social sciences, and contains sources in both English and French. Signups on both English and French Wikipedia (50 accounts).
  • Cairn.info (en Francais) — Cairn.info is a Switzerland based online web portal of scholarly materials in the humanities and social sciences. Most sources are in French, but some also in English. Signups on both English and French Wikipedia (100 accounts).
  • L'Harmattan — French language publisher across a wide range of non-fiction and fiction, with a strong selection of francophone African materials (1000 accounts).

Many other partnerships with accounts available are listed on our partners page, including an expansion of accounts for Royal Society journals and remaining accounts on Project MUSE, JSTOR, DeGruyter, Highbeam Newspapers.com and British Newspaper Archive. If you have suggestions for journals or databases we should seek access to make a request! Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects: sign up today!
--The Wikipedia Library Team 22:08, 15 June 2015 (UTC)

We need your help! Help coordinate Wikipedia Library's account distribution and global development! Please join our team at our new coordinator signup.
This message was delivered via the Global Mass Message tool to The Wikipedia Library Global Delivery List
All I can say is that I applied for and was approved for WP:JSTOR access and even though I jumped through all the hoops, and did all follow-ups, in the end I never got it. So why would I expect any different now?Redddbaron (talk) 17:32, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
Sorry to hear that. What stage did you get to with the process? We'll happily chase this up for you. Sam Walton (talk) 17:45, 8 July 2015 (UTC)
Also as a bit of context, we have had some delays with JSTOR because of the number of accounts and some delays on their end and @The Interior: is the primary coordinator: he should be able to give you an update on your account status.Astinson (WMF) (talk) 18:21, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

Visual assault and battery

Quote: "How may we help you?" Well, reducing the font size would be a good start...MinorProphet (talk) 09:27, 30 August 2015 (UTC)

@MinorProphet: Thanks for the feedback. I have scaled the text differently, so it should work better with smaller screens: is it working? We partially want to maintain a larger, different look to the page, in order to make a more distinct space than the rest of Wikipedia. If not, please let me know what is overwhelming your view of the page. Cheers, Astinson (WMF) (talk) 15:56, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
If I may briefly but kindly add a suggestion, many web designers know that people do not like to scroll. So if a webpage has initial information that needs to be scrolled to, chances are it won't be seen. That's another way of saying that if your font size and surrounding spacing is so large that you have to scroll down to see your initial message, it probably needs modification. (Have you tested out the page on a phone?) - kosboot (talk) 16:56, 31 August 2015 (UTC)
@Kosboot and MinorProphet: Earlier in the week I updated the fonts to be scalable, with a more mobile friendly css variable, and reduced some of the text. Does that change feel more comfortable? I tested it on my mobile, and it looks fine, and does what we had hoped it would do: provide a list of buttoned options/opportunities for engagement. Astinson (WMF) (talk) 14:50, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for the response. Both at home and at work, the line about the interns is about the lowest I can see before the screen cuts off (and I have 22-23" monitors in both places). Meanwhile all that white space on the right is wasted empty space. I guess Google's style has become the norm. - kosboot (talk) 15:53, 4 September 2015 (UTC) P.S. Maybe it's not the font size so much as the blue background which is forcing the squares which appear to be unsizable. - kosboot (talk) 15:55, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
I did a little playing and I got the following. Fonts now should be bigger and the entire thing centered -- but you can see everything at a glance, which I think is important:
Find Sources

Request database access Find or share a source Explore open access Ask a reference question


Get Involved

Read our newsletter Help us coordinate Support library interns Become a Visiting Scholar


Partner with TWL

Donate source access Host a Visiting Scholar Involve your university Share your archives

@Kosboot: liked it, did some changes per recommendation: did a little bit of other modifying as well. Sadads (talk) 18:18, 4 September 2015 (UTC)

I think it's much better - bravo! - kosboot (talk) 18:20, 4 September 2015 (UTC)
Doh! I've just realised that many people have a monitor as wide as their living room. I have a stone-age 1280 x 1024 monster CRT thing which makes the buttons wrap round to the next line, making buttons as 6x2 rows rather than 3x4. If the pic of the Reading room was positioned right at the top of the page with the {{shortcut}} box in small (normal) font directly underneath, eg [[File:State Library of Victoria La Trobe Reading room 5th floor view.jpg|thumb|200px|right|]] {{clear}} {{shortcut|WP:LIBRARY|WP:LIB|WP:TWL|WP:WIKILIB}} , it would almost stop the buttons wrapping, but my layout skills are slim, and it's probably not an approved place for the box. >MinorProphet (talk) 00:00, 5 September 2015 (UTC)

New Wikipedia Library Database Access (September 2015)

Hello Wikimedians!

The TWL OWL says sign up today!

The Wikipedia Library is announcing signups today for free, full-access accounts to published research as part of our Publisher Donation Program. You can sign up for new accounts and research materials from:

  • EBSCOHost - this is one of our largest access donations so far: access to a wide variety of academic, newspaper and magazine sources through their Academic Search Complete, Business Source Complete and MasterFILE Complete
  • Newspaperarchive.com - historical newspapers from the United States, Canada, UK and 20 other countries, and includes an Open Access "clipping" feature (1000 accounts)
  • IMF Elibary- a digital collection of the IMF's reports, studies and research on global economics and development (50 accounts)
  • Sabinet - one of the largest African digital publishers, based in South Africa, with a wide range of content in English and other European and African languages (10 accounts)
  • Numérique Premium - a French language social science and humanities ebook database, with topical collections on a wide range of topics (100)
  • Al Manhal - an Arabic and English database with a wide range of sources, largely focused on or published in the Middle East (60 accounts)
  • Jamalon - an Arabic book distributor, who is providing targeted book delivery to volunteers (50 editors)

Many other partnerships with accounts available are listed on our partners page, including expanded accounts for Elsevier ScienceDirect, British Medical Journal and Dynamed and additional accounts for Project MUSE, DeGruyter, Newspapers.com, Highbeam and HeinOnline. Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects: sign up today!
--The Wikipedia Library Team 19:42, 16 September 2015 (UTC)

We need help! Help us coordinate Wikipedia Library's distribution of accounts, communication of access opportunities and more! Please join our team at our new coordinator signup.
This message was delivered via the Global Mass Message tool to The Wikipedia Library Global Delivery List.

WIkipedia:WikiProject Wikisource

The above named wikiproject is currently listed as inactive. I wonder if there might be any way to maybe revive it. If there are any bots which do such things, I don't know, having maybe if nothing else it could be contain listings of:

  • 1) PD works which have articles in wikipedia about them or directly relating to them, but where the works themselves are not available yet at wikisource. This might include everything some poems, Sherlock Holmes stories and other fiction, and biographies and reference works.
  • 2) Non-fiction works, both full-length and shorter works, which either have articles in wikipedia but are not at wikisource yet, and another list of works available at wikisource which don't yet have similar articles here.
  • 3) Articles or other works which are perhaps still counted among the better reference sources available on topics, such as some of those included in the various pages in Category:WikiProject libraries.

Any opinions? John Carter (talk) 18:03, 21 September 2015 (UTC)

Ill Communication?

I've applied to access a number of these archives over the last while, but I haven't heard anything back. Is there any process where I can track progress? Maury Markowitz (talk) 11:50, 6 October 2015 (UTC)

ping Nikkimaria (talk · contribs) . Ocaasi t | c 20:19, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
Hey Maury, not yet, but you can get an overview of the process and timeline here. You've applied for EBSCO, Newspaperarchive.com, and JSTOR, correct? Emails about the first two will be going out later this week or early next. For various reasons JSTOR processing has been delayed but I am optimistic about getting that moving again soon. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:44, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

WP Visiting Scholar question

The archives section of the University of Pittsburgh Library System has digitized a lot of its content. Is there a semi-automated way to upload the copy-right-free content? So far it has been a bit too labor intensive for me. If I attempted to accomplish this monumental task on my own, it would take me the rest of my life. I would be willing to go through some of the automated media uploads, provide descriptions and assign categories but I am not sure how this is done.

By the way, I've been reveling in the ability to access so much content through the University! To me its like standing in the middle of a candy store trying to decide which resource to utilize first. Best Regards,

Barbara (WVS) (talk) 22:55, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
Take a look at http://outreach.wikimedia.org/wiki/GLAM/Resources/Tools/Mass_Upload_staging_area to see issues with mass uploads. - kosboot (talk) 23:50, 3 October 2015 (UTC)
  • @Barbara (WVS): The GLAMwiki Toolset is useful for big uploads, whole collections, ongoing contributions from the same venue, etc. So indeed it might be worth using. It could be a bit more user-friendly, but efforts to develop them have been complicated. If you do use it, you'll probably want to coordinate your efforts with Seattle, who I know has plans to make some Commons contributions, too. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 21:30, 4 October 2015 (UTC)
Well this sounds pretty exciting and I will tell the WVS coordinator at Pitt. I'll also talk to Seattle about this possible route of uploading the files. He is doing a great job in uploading historical images from the Pitt archives and this may make it easier for him, also. Is there there a contact with the Wikipedia Library Project with whom I should contact? Best Regards,
Barbara (WVS) (talk) 14:20, 6 October 2015 (UTC)
@Barbara (WVS): Sounds good. Regarding a contact with the Wikipedia Library, that depends on what you would contact them about :) WPL has a number of programs/offerings you might want to check out, but if you're talking about questions concerning your Visiting Scholarship, you can just shoot an email to me or post to my talk page. Wiki Ed is running the Visiting Scholars program in the US and Canada now, and as community engagement manager it's part of my job to help you succeed in your Scholarship. :) --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 13:11, 7 October 2015 (UTC)
It occurs to me you may be referring to a contact about the GLAMWiki Toolset. If so, I'd first recommend reading through Commons:GLAMwiki Toolset and the end user documentation, which is pretty thorough. As you've probably realized if you've looked at it already, it's not the simplest of processes. The few people with experience helping people with these tools are, I think, usually stretched pretty thin, so I'd recommend holding off on contacting one of them until you've gone through the documentation and request the GWToolset userright on Commons/Beta. --Ryan (Wiki Ed) (talk) 13:48, 7 October 2015 (UTC)

I stopped donating to Wikimedia because of The Wikipedia Library

Here is what I have sent to Wikimedia France:

Hello,
I would like to suspend my monthly donation of ##€ to Wikimedia France from the account n°##############.
The reason behind this decision is the partnership between Wikipedia and academic publishing companies, for "The Wikipedia Library", and in particular the partnership with the biggest such company, Elsevier.
You probably know that these companies play a very nasty role in academia. They make astounding profits by selling scientific publications funded by universities to the universities themselves. For this reason, high-profile researchers have called for a boycott against Elsevier:
http://thecostofknowledge.com/
Simultaneously, Wikipedia is becoming an important tool for researchers. Many initiatives have started to foster the interaction between researchers and the encyclopedia, because they are valuable contributors. Researchers are also increasingly wary of the advantage of having their publications cited in Wikipedia articles: this gives them an excellent visibility that can also yield new citations to their works within the scientific literature.
It is not a surprise that open access articles are more likely to be cited in the encyclopedia. This gives an advantage to open access journals and could hence help us switch to healthier publication practices. The logical response from Elsevier is to offer Wikipedia contributors free subscriptions, so that articles published by Elsevier become more cited as well.
I understand that the Wikimedia Foundation has not spent a single penny to get these subscriptions (that would be a scandal! As a taxpayer, I already fund publishers way too much). But Wikimedia has to be aware of the fact that by accepting these donations, it plays into the hands of these publishers whose goals are the exact opposite of Wikipedia's mission. Their goal is only to maximize profit by restricting the access to knowledge.
As a reader, I want to be able to access the sources used to write the Wikipedia articles I read. Giving away subscriptions to a bunch of contributors is not a solution. We have to demand universal access to these publications.
For these reasons, I have decided to stop my monthly donation, and I would be grateful if you could send me a fiscal receipt for this year.
Best regards,
######

Pintoch (talk) 18:16, 11 September 2015 (UTC)

Hi Pintoch. I'm sorry to hear your deep frustration about the access donation we received. I would kindly request that you read WP:WHYNOTOA and WP:TWL/OA to understand how deeply we've have thought about this and aimed to improve Wikipedia while still advancing open access. It's a hard problem to solve and we're doing the absolute best we can to serve our editors and readers with accurate, uptodate information from high quality sources that are [sadly] paywalled. Elsevier is one of 40 of our partners, and perhaps the most controversial. I'd ask you to consider the pragmatic strategy involved in giving our top editors access to these expensive resources. They go on to summarize the information for a public who also doesn't have access to Elsevier. The situation, imperfect as it is, in preferable to the alternative of not having that information summarized at all. Those paywalls are already up and anything we can do to shine light into them is a good thing, even if it's not perfect. In the longer term, we are also advocating for open access in many ways: with tweets and blogs, with support for the signalling open access initiative, with free and open access resources guides, with editathons about OA, with promotion of OA Button. All of this is what we can do, while still writing the encyclopedia today in the current research climate--harsh and walled-off as it is. I hope this helps. I respect your criticism. I accept that this may be a decision on our part that you simply cannot live with. Best, Jake Ocaasi (WMF) (talk) 18:57, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
Much as I dislike sources behind paywalls myself, I have to agree with Jake above. Some, few, of us have comparatively really quick and ready access to academic libraries. I'm probably one of them. As such, I can access a lot of reference books on various topics, many of which are bought only by academic libraries, and, honestly, in some cases, only by a very few of them. One example which comes to mind is the Paulos Milkas Dictionary of Ethiopian Christianity which I used to help create the page at Wikipedia:WikiProject Oriental Orthodoxy/Prospectus. It clearly contains a great deal about the topic of Ethiopian Christianity, and even in the metropolitan area in which I live, one of the 20 biggest in the US, it can only be found in one library among the roughly half dozen theology libraries in the area. I would love to see it more readily available than it is, so that people like you and others can read it, but, until that happens, and I don't expect it to very soon, I'd rather have what few people who do have access to it be able to consult it than have it ignored because it has only limited availability. Maybe, and Jake might know better about this than anyone else, maybe we could arrange something with JSTOR and a few other of our providers to allow not only a few free subscriptions, but also cheaper access to some of the paywalled content, maybe on a per-work basis or whatever. But, if we are to build a really useful encyclopedia, we have to try to access all the good academic sources, even those behind paywalls which I myself despise as much as anyone else. John Carter (talk) 19:10, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
Thanks for your replies! Yes, I agree with you that, on the short term, it can be useful to have some access to these resources. But note that a fairly large proportion of them can now be accessed through other sources (open repositories, researchers' homepages, academic social networks or even pirate websites). I also really dislike the publicity this kind of agreement gives to Elsevier (see this blog post). Pintoch (talk) 19:43, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
I'd be wary of using pirate sites because of the linkvio issue, but access through other avenues is an option - we're brainstorming a bot to add OA links and would love your input on it. (This goes along with our broader "help people access sources" initiative). Nikkimaria (talk) 19:50, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
This bot project is great! I can probably help with the implementation. Pintoch (talk) 19:57, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
Follow-up: Peter Murray-Rust (Petermr) has taken a similar stance. Pintoch (talk) 11:24, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
There is still room for criticism and development of the Wikipedia Library, and perhaps you would consider staying around to better articulate your concerns. One wish that I have for the Wikipedia library is that it could also have open access partnerships. In the same way that The Wikipedia Library provides tracking and reporting services to closed journals, I wish that some amount of funding could be directed to supporting open access journals with comparable tracking and reporting, and I am not sure what kind of support TWL currently offers in that space.
For anyone who is interested - I have some friends and PLOS and reddit who want help with tracking and cross promotion of PLOS content on Wikipedia. I have some written about this at meta:Grants:IdeaLab/Reddit Science AMA + PLOS + Wikimedia, and I wish it would be possible to put together a grant request for someone - either the Wikipedia Library, PLOS, or another nonprofit - to better manage the relationship PLOS and other OA publications have with Wikipedia. There are lots of options other than abandonment in protest. Wikipedia is one of the few projects which notes the differences between OA and non-OA content, and I think this is a valuable field in which to have discussions from supporters on both sides.
For my own part - in the field of medicine I have no choice but to use non-OA publications. There can be no compromise here and I am powerless to boycott non-OA work in the way that some fields do. I hope you understand why I have to look for other paths even while I personally advocate that in the future, OA is the only viable long-term option. Blue Rasberry (talk) 15:22, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
I have never proposed banning Elsevier articles from Wikipedia: this would be a breach of Wikipedia's neutrality. But what if Amazon started to offer free books to top contributors, asking in return that they "cite" these books properly with a link to the relevant Amazon product page? Pintoch (talk) 19:14, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
That is an unfair comparison. These books could likely be acquired in many books stores, so there is no reason to link to Amazon specifically. The only way to (legally) acquire these journal articles is—unfortunately—through ScienceDirect. Omitting the link just puts an unnecessary burden on the people that want to read the source, whether through institutional access or by paying. I think that in the long run, more visibility and awareness of paywalls can only be a good thing for Open Access. —Ruud 20:06, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

Michael Eisen is playing a role for Open Access that Richard Stallman is playing for the Free Software movement. Both shouldn't be taken all too seriously, or at least literally and all of the time. Most of Wikipedia's community loves Open Access and Free Software as we have, to a large extent, similar and synergistic goals. But asking Wikipedia not to give free access to ScienceDirect to a select number of editors that have need for such access, or to stop linking to articles published in Elsevier journals is beyond ridiculous. This would be like Stallman demanding that Wikipedia deletes all articles on Microsoft software, because "they give too much publicity to closed-source software". In both cases the demands are completely antithetical to the core goal of Wikipedia—building a free encyclopedia—and should be dismissed. With his silly Twitter comments, lacking any kind of nuance, he's doing more harm that good to both Wikipedia and the Open Access movement and their otherwise good relationship. —Ruud 17:18, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

I agree with you that Wikipedia and the open access movement have similar goals. But your comparison with Stallman is not fair: the "free software counterpart" of Elsevier giving free access to Wikipedia editors is not "Wikipedia articles about Microsoft" but rather the free Microsoft products given to schools and universities. Just read the second paragraph of Elsevier's blog post about the programme: "Since its launch in 2001, Wikipedia has grown to become the sixth most trafficked website in the world, with 8,000 views per second and 500 million unique visitors each month." They write it themselves: they give subscriptions to the editors of this website so that "science reaching large parts of the public is reported accurately", i.e. with the proper link to the paywall. This should really ring a bell and be treated as paid editing. But I agree with you that we have to be careful not to do any harm to either Wikipedia or the open access movement. This is the reason why I have happily joined the OAbot project. Pintoch (talk) 19:14, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
I think the Stallman comparison is fair as they're both acting as zealots. Making sure that "science reaching large parts of the public is reported accurately" seems perfectly in line with Wikipedia's pillars. Equating that merely with a "proper link to the paywall" is a severe distortion of that sentence. Eisen's statement on the other hand, that "it SHOULD be difficult for @wikipedia editors to use #paywalled sources", implying such sources should be cited less often in practice, runs counter to Wikipedia's goals. If he would have instead suggested that scientists stopped citing paywalled articles in their papers, he would have been scolded at for encouraging academic dishonesty. I don't see why he would deserve anything less for encouraging people to break our policies on verifiability and presenting information from a neutral point of view. —Ruud 20:06, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
OK, I actually discovered Eisen's position after writing my initial message, and indeed I do not back him up on the tweet you mention. Pintoch (talk) 05:52, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

gees... well, good debate, I learned a lot XD. -- SzMithrandir (talk) 05:32, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

A question about whether I should apply for an account

Hi, guys..

I try to catch up with the new tidings so I read several discussions above. But I still don't quite understand what's the criteria of getting these accounts. Sounds like I need to be an experienced editor? By edit-count? Or simply just auto-confirmed will be good?
Anyways, I wanna know (suppose I'm eligible), should I apply? I'm currently a university student, and our school has quite a full access of everything. Is this necessary for me? Are the spots limited, so that I'd better leave to other people in need? Or is there a deadline of application, so that I should act ASAP?
Hope my many question marks ain't that confusing. Really looking forward to an answer. Thank you! -- SzMithrandir (talk) 08:09, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
Hi SzMithrandir, for most of the partnerships you need to have at least 500 edits and 6 months of editing, and be active in the area covered by the resource. For example, if you edited a lot of medical articles you could apply for DynaMed and the other medical resources. However, if you already have access to a university library, you likely already have access to many of the resources we have available. Most partnerships only have a limited number of accounts available, so obviously people who already have the resource through another library would not be priorities for access. You can take a look at what your library has and what we have available, and see what you might be missing and interested in getting. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:31, 8 October 2015 (UTC)
Thanks a lot, Nikkimaria! I'll not apply for then. I'm at UofT, and at least for this year I don't need to worry about access. :) -- SzMithrandir (talk) 14:05, 8 October 2015 (UTC)

Fulfilling Stale Requests

Hi there,

I'm currently volunteering at the Resource Exchange and I've been going to the Stale Requests helping fulfill old requests. While going them, I got an idea.

I know that the Resource Exchange is part of the Wikipedia Library, and that a LOT of the sources users request are resources that are partnered with the TWL.

I was wondering if there was a way to help out with the stale requests.

Maybe we could sort them out by year, and which TWL resources are needed to complete the request. This would help users focus on the backlog and know exactly which requests they can help out with by using their TWL resources they have access to. --MrLinkinPark333 (talk) 03:05, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

MrLinkinPark333 I love this idea. We really want to see more integration of WP:RX with the access donations. I'm going to ping Nikkimaria who organizes the Research Coordinators. Perhaps she can develop a plan with you. Thanks and cheers, Jake Ocaasi (WMF) (talk) 06:34, 14 October 2015 (UTC)

wikipedia-amplifying-impact-of-open-access

http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2015/09/08/wikipedia-amplifying-impact-of-open-access/ Xb2u7Zjzc32 (talk) 11:55, 20 October 2015 (UTC)

RSC Gold

Please can someone check the outstanding request on Wikipedia:RSC Gold? It appears the coordinator may be AWOL. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:08, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

Banned user

I am somewhat surprised that we appear to have provided (or at least tried to provide) a JSTOR account to a banned user. User_talk:Jagged_85#WP:JSTOR_access

All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 12:56, 10 October 2015 (UTC).

While I can't find any evidence one way or the other, my assumption is that they applied for access before being blocked (JSTOR is a long running partnership) and never filled out the form. That then is an automated reminder to fill the form out; I doubt Sadads checked every editor for blocks before sending it out to all those who haven't yet filled out the form. We should not process their request any further though, you're right. Sam Walton (talk) 14:42, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
This user is not a current JSTOR recipient through the Library. The Interior (Talk) 14:44, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
They can still continue their application though; they've done the only on-wiki part, so we should keep an eye out that their form doesn't get processed. Sam Walton (talk) 14:46, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
Definitely. We should discuss some sort of formal workflow for blocked users in the future. The Interior (Talk) 14:48, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
Agreed, especially since this is more likely to happen now that we've been decreasing the activity/edit requirements. Sam Walton (talk) 14:50, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
I've removed the invitation on this case. However, any workflow such as that suggested above should account for the fact that a user banned on one project may still contribute to others. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:17, 1 December 2015 (UTC)

New Wikipedia Library Signups!


Hello Wikimedians!

The TWL OWL says sign up today!

The Wikipedia Library is announcing signups today for, free, full-access accounts to published research as part of our Publisher Donation Program. You can sign up for new accounts and research materials from:

  • Gale - multidisciplinary periodicals, newspapers, and reference sources - 10 accounts
  • Brill - academic e-books and journals in English, Dutch, and other languages - 25 accounts
  • Finnish Literature Society (in Finnish)
  • Magiran (in Farsi) - scientific journal articles - 100 articles
  • Civilica (in Farsi) - Iranian journal articles, seminars, and conferences - 50 accounts

Many other partnerships with accounts available are listed on our partners page, including EBSCO, DeGruyter, and Newspaperarchive.com. Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects: sign up today!
--The Wikipedia Library Team 01:01, 11 December 2015 (UTC)

Help us a start Wikipedia Library in your language! Email us at wikipedialibrary@wikimedia.org
This message was delivered via the Global Mass Message tool to The Wikipedia Library Global Delivery List.

New template that is mostly especially for TWL

Not sure this is the best of this project's multiple talk pages for this announcement, but here you go anyway:

{{Via}} is hand tailored to suit this project's crediting needs. Various of the donors of site/database access (HighBeam, Credo, Oxford Scholar, etc.) have made fairly specific requests about how they'd like to be credited, but it's a big hassle to work this info into the main citation templates (it can take three or more parameters). Instead, TWL can just add entries to the #switch tests in {{Via}}, for each of the access-donors who expect credit, and then people can just do {{Cite journal|...}} {{Via|JSTOR}}. I'd initially proposed this solution |here about a week ago.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  18:44, 14 November 2015 (UTC)

We'd want to add switch entries for the purposes of allowing shorthand/abbreviations, right? (Full text via EBSCO.) also works on its own. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:59, 1 December 2015 (UTC)
Sure. There's no reason to make people write out something long.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:18, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
Ugh. Please don't encourage people to use more than one template; the confusion out there is pretty staggering as is without adding to the cognitive load. Why not do this with Module:Citation/CS1's |via=? Then you could even trigger |registration=y and |subscription=y as needed based on the keyword provided. --Xover (talk) 05:04, 3 December 2015 (UTC)
@SMcCandlish: Have you tried suggesting set of requirement for Module:Citation/CS1? Without having looked at it in detail, I imagine it would be possible to make the functionality of {{via}} a sub-module triggered by |via= and thus could be edited independently of the main module. That would seem to provide all the requirements that led to {{via}} without the need for two templates per ref tag, and as a bonus would provide its benefits also to users of the |via= parameter. --Xover (talk) 18:33, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
I have not pursued that, but anyone is welcome to do so. I've found it extremely difficult, and frustrating, to get any traction on any matter with the editors who maintain the CS1 templates. Their primary focus seems to be COinS metadata compliance, not WP editor utility. What I did do is TfD a weird template that was being misused to imply that every single source cited in an article came from the same place, leading it to its conversion into something, {{Via}}, that can be used to credit access providers on a per-source basis. It is independent of the {{Cite}} family of templates, because many editors do no use them; we have two "official" citation styles, and no requirement to use either of them. I agree that the code for citing specific WP:LIBRARY providers should live in one place, preferably Via, but I have better things to do than continue to try to pull teeth at Help talk:Citation Style 1, which is where all CS1 template decisions are made (and, actually, plenty of CS2 ones, since development on it is pretty moribund, and they share a lot of code). You're all welcome to try. I have to suggest that shooting the messenger that Via exists and can be used by you, including by people who don't use CS1 templates, is probably inimical to your desire to see this kind of thing centralized. Rather, Via should be encouraged, until the bare-bones, CS1-specific code is seen as redundant and obsolete, giving the CS1 people an incentive to adapt. The switch code can be broken out into a segment of meta-template code called by CS1 and CS2 as well as by the stand-alone Via template. And it can be edited directly by people from WP:LIBRARY instead of having to get "permission" from the CS1 gatekeepers first. In the interim, if you provide a list of providers you want added, I can add them to the Via code if you're not comfortable with the template coding yourself or have better things to do.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ≼  21:18, 14 December 2015 (UTC)
All of the currently available resources are listed here. I'm not sure adding all of them to the coding would be worthwhile, since some of the names are quite short, but open to suggestions.
Would Xover's suggestion of implementation via module be workable? I'm not a big template coder, so I'm not sure how much change to CS1 templates would be required to implement that. That probably also means I'm not the best person to propose this there. Xover, would you be interested in pursuing that? Nikkimaria (talk) 02:07, 15 December 2015 (UTC)

My name thereof

I would be glad to offer an novice researcher contributors help to building reputatable citations. But I first and foremost must replace my disassociative network with your percluding Network and...see where I fit in. --PCruiser (talk) 21:00, 31 December 2015 (UTC)

Your user contributions don't merit the minimal standards of passing the Turing test. Nice try, bot you can't help here. -- Paulscrawl (talk) 16:17, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Comments requested on grant for open access for a paper

I am requesting money to make an academic paper open access. I am posting here to request comments, criticism, or endorsements.

I wanted to post here on The Wikipedia Library talk page because in October 2015 The Wikipedia Library was criticized for its supposed lack of support for open access. Open access is not cheap - I need $3000 for this one paper, and The Wikipedia Library makes lots of papers available. In the longer term it would be nice if users of The Wikipedia Library resources could help develop appropriate open access policies for Wikipedia. Blue Rasberry (talk) 16:25, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Hi @Bluerasberry: I added my support using my volunteer account. I think there is a larger and more complicated conversation that needs to happen from the WMF perspective with the Grants team and groups like The Wikipedia Library and WMF Research (likely a whole other grant program focused on funding research publication -- like a lot of Universities are building -- this is probably more complicated than it appears at first (you need to create a committee that can assess whether or not the research meets certain criteria, such as significance to the movement, or that the researcher is representing Wikimedia projects with a movement-informed perspective, rather than using Wikimedia projects as an arbitrary test case of some pet theory)). If they end up needing to create a policy at GAC or in WMF Grants, please ask them to talk with Dario of WMF Research and myself in the consultations leading up to that. Astinson (WMF) (talk) 15:44, 4 February 2016 (UTC)

Stories for our Newsletter?

Hello all Library coordinators!

Once again, the time has come to collect Wikipedia Library stories in our newsletter, Books & Bytes. We would love to hear from Library branches about how things are going on their projects. Successes, difficulties, new programs, partnerships, and ideas are all very welcome. Please submit your stories (either to the talk page of the newsletter, or to the email thread on the topic) no later than next Wednesday, February 10th!

A reminder that Meta has some great resources for coordinators - make sure to update your Global Branch page with what you are doing!

We hope that 2016 is starting to be a good year for your branch. Remember, everyone is free to use the Wikipedia Library mailing list for anything Library-related - sharing news stories, advice, or just saying hi!


Best regards, Patrick Earley (WMF) via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 18:22, 5 February 2016 (UTC)

Tech Talk on Zotero and citations

Some of you may be interested in this:

There is a Tech Talk next Monday, 29 February at 20:00 UTC (12 Noon Pacific Time) about Zotero and the mw:citoid service.

The main subject is how to extract accurate, automated bibliographic citations from websites. This talk is mostly about Zotero, which is a free and open-source citation management tool. Zotero is used on the Wikipedias through the automagic citoid service. Citoid is currently an option in the visual editor and will (eventually) be used for automated citations in the wikitext editor at some Wikipedias. Zotero is also used by many academics and researchers, and most of the information presented will be useful to people outside of Wikipedia as well.

Please share this invitation with anyone that you believe will be interested. If you have questions, then please leave a note on my talk page. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 03:41, 24 February 2016 (UTC)

Unanswered queries on project talk pages

First off, the "join" link is just a redirect to the database request page, with no directions or information on how to access the existing databases... I'm not sure why this is. For a project that is such an integral part of Wikipedia's commitment to free culture, I'm not sure why some of the content seems to be rather user [un]friendly. Now the crux. On the talk page of that particular said project page, there are several questions (including people asking how to sign up) that have gone unanswered, or worse, received answers that are less than helpful; one user was just directed to another talk page that seems unrelated.

The most recent question are related to phishing concerns, which should be addressed immediately.

If someone who is an active member of this Wikiproject could answer the questions, it would be appreciated; I'm sure those users are a bit frustrated by the lack of help. I know a few of them are a couple months old, but they're still relevant. Quinto Simmaco (talk) 12:06, 11 March 2016 (UTC)

Which page are you referring to? We would be happy to review the talk page, and answer. Is this one of the journal signups?Astinson (WMF) (talk) 14:09, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
@Quinto Simmaco: Also, we are working on a better tool for distributing accounts that will make . We are currently operating off infrastructure that made sense when our program was smaller, but doesn't make a whole lot of sense with 50 partnership donations -- we are working on building a software solution that allows us to better support our editors (see Wikipedia:The_Wikipedia_Library/Processes/Library_card_platform).That should be implemented within the next 5-6 months, and will remove a lot of the backlog currently happening, Astinson (WMF) (talk) 14:14, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
@Quinto Simmaco: I responded with this edit, Astinson (WMF) (talk) 18:19, 11 March 2016 (UTC)
Thank you, Astinson! It is much appreciated; both the response itself and your promptness in addressing my concerns. Apologies if I came across as at all gruff... I just felt for those users who might have been feeling left out in the cold, so to speak. Don't necessary want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but there is one more question that wasn't directly answered (the one I referenced where the user was directed to an unrelated page), in this section. Figured I'd bring that one to your attention that one would be helpful to anyone else who stumbled across the page as well. I'd answer it myself, but I'm not 100% certain I actually know. Thank you again, in advance. :)
Anyway... You guys do excellent work here, and I hope I can contribute to the project at some point in the future, wherever I might be able to be of assistance. Keep it up! And keep me in mind if you need any volunteer help. Quinto Simmaco (talk) 05:03, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

Open access icon for citations

Thought TWL would be interested in this discussion re: the practice of adding {{open access}} to TWL citations manually: Help talk:Citation Style 1#Open access icon czar 22:13, 12 March 2016 (UTC)

New Wikipedia Library Accounts Available Now (March 2016)


Hello Wikimedians!

The TWL OWL says sign up today!

The Wikipedia Library is announcing signups today for free, full-access accounts to published research as part of our Publisher Donation Program. You can sign up for access to research materials from:

  • Cambridge University Press - a major publisher of academic journals and e-books in a variety of subject areas. Access includes both Cambridge Journals Online and Cambridge Books. 25 accounts.
  • Alexander Street Academic Video Online - a large academic video collection good for a wide range of subjects, including news programs (such as PBS and BBC), music and theatre, lectures and demonstrations, and documentaries. 25 accounts.
  • Baylor University Press - a publisher of academic e-books primarily in religious studies and the humanities. 50 accounts.
  • Future Science Group - a publisher of medical, biotechnological and scientific research. 30 accounts.
  • Annual Reviews - a publisher of review articles in the biomedical sciences. 100 accounts.
  • Miramar Ship Index - an index to ships and their histories since the early 19th century. 30 accounts.

Non-English

  • Noormags - Farsi-language aggregator of academic and professional journals and magazines. 30 accounts.
  • Kotobna - Arabic-language ebook publishing platform. 20 accounts.

Expansions

  • Gale - aggregator of newspapers, magazines and journals. 50 accounts.
  • Elsevier ScienceDirect - an academic publishing company that publishes medical and scientific literature. 100 accounts.

Many other partnerships with accounts available are listed on our partners page, including Project MUSE, De Gruyter, EBSCO, Newspapers.com and British Newspaper Archive. Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects: sign up today!
--The Wikipedia Library Team 20:30, 17 March 2016 (UTC)


You can host and coordinate signups for a Wikipedia Library branch in your own language. Please contact Ocaasi (WMF).
This message was delivered via the Global Mass Message tool to The Wikipedia Library Global Delivery List.
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