The Wikipedia Library/Books
The Wikipedia Library
Book requests:
We send books to Wikipedia editors for writing Wikipedia articles.
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How it works
[edit]- Our first pilot community for this program is Arabic Wikipedia and its success or challenges will inform future versions of the program.
The first step is to contact a Wikipedia Library representative to arrange funding for book purchases in your community at the Wikipedia Library talk page, Ocaasi's talk page or wikipedialibrary
gmail.com.
In order for us to develop a book purchase program in your community, we need to find at least two local coordinators to work with us (and set up a local library branch if one doesn't yet exist).
Once we arrange funds, we check that shipping is available to your region from the online booksellers you select. We set up a Book Requests page using the kit.
Then we find online booksellers that ship to your region, like Amazon.com (global), Neelwafurat.com (middle east), or another regional service.
For our book requests we set some minimum criteria:
- The books must be a reliable source according to your Wikipedia policy, and be purchased for use to improve Wikipedia articles
- The maximum cost per request (without shipping) is $200
- Recipients must be an active editor who has made at least 200 edits to Wikipedia.
- For repeat requesters, past book requests have to have been put to good use you completed all status updates for your request, demonstrating how you made use of the book to improve Wikipedia.
Local library coordinators then approve (or deny) requests based on those criteria. They also keep track of all of the purchase details in a tracking spreadsheet that is shared with the Wikimedia community. In order to handle shipping purchases, coordinators contact editors to learn their home or shipping address. That information is kept confidential between Wikipedia Library coordinators, the Wikimedia Foundation, and the book purchase website. Our coordinators have signed non-disclosure agreements supporting the safe and responsible handling of private data and limiting its sharing.