Talk:The Wikipedia Library/Archive 1

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Comment[edit]

  • Is there any chance that a partnership with the digital library HathiThrust is possible? https://www.hathitrust.org/. Mainly english, but several europeans languages as well, huge database of books, maybe not have an acces to everything but at least to the Public domain content. Thanks for the answer. --Chome36 (talk) 18:25, 1 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Hi Chome36, we've spoken a few times with HathiTrust and they are split and somewhat constrained. Let me explain: On the one hand, institutions use HT as a repository for their proprietary holdings; we can't touch these. On the other hand HT has lots of OA and PD content. The parts of this which are already open and freely available online are already free to us. There's a darker segment of OA or PD content which is hosted by a partner institution, and which HT still places under the institutions restricts on use. To put it simply, from speaking with HT, we have access already to as much as HT permits, and no greater access would be possible under their current policy. Please let me know if you have other ideas or suggestions about how we could use or integrate HT. Cheers, Jake Ocaasi (WMF) (talk) 17:22, 3 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

New Wikipedia Library Database Access (September 2015)[edit]

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.

New Wikipedia Library Accounts Available Now (December 2015)[edit]

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.

Stories for our Newsletter?[edit]

Hello all Library coordinators!

(Apologies for the English)

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)[reply]

New Wikipedia Library Accounts Available Now (March 2016)[edit]


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.

Italians[edit]

I've helped to translate some pages in Italian some months ago, I see there are not a lot of it-N volunteers yet. I have therefore lft a message on itWikisource, if some Italian librarian there is interested to take a look.--Alexmar983 (talk) 06:36, 31 March 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Poke authors via Dissemin[edit]

Dissemin offers neat dashboards like http://dissem.in/0000-0002-3745-7931/ which list the known paywalled but depositable articles by an author. It would be nice to make a list of all paywalled DOI citations on Wikipedia, search their authors on Dissemin and then have the Wikimedia Foundation (e.g. Ocaasi) send them all an invitation to use said Dissemin dashboards to deposit all their articles in Zenodo and thus help Wikipedia citations be more accessible. Nemo 20:05, 2 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Really neat idea Nemo. I actually know someone in the OA community who has been toying with this idea for the past 2 years. I'll pass it on to them and see what we can do together. Cheers! Jake Ocaasi (WMF) (talk) 21:17, 2 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]
In the meanwhile, we got a list of DOIs, but I still have to figure out the best way to extract contact information. Nemo 05:29, 4 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Note to self: there's also https://oadoi.org/ (via [1]). --Nemo 09:38, 23 January 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Remember to follow https://github.com/dissemin/dissemin/issues/251 for updates. We already got dozens of papers self-archived in open access. --Nemo 08:52, 26 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Are you coming to Wikimania 2016?[edit]

Then please bring books along! See The Wikipedia Library/Esino. Thanks, --Elitre (talk) 14:08, 15 June 2016 (UTC)[reply]

New Wikipedia Library accounts available now (August 2016)[edit]


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 now sign up for new accounts and research materials from:

  • Nomos – Primarily German-language publisher of law and social sciences books and journals - 25 accounts
  • World Scientific – Scientific, technical, and medical journals - 50 accounts
  • Edinburgh University Press – Humanities and social sciences journals - 25 accounts
  • American Psychological Association – Psychology books and journals - 10 accounts
  • Emerald – Journals on a range of topics including business, education, health care, and engineering - 10 accounts

Many other partnerships with accounts available are listed on our partners page, including Project MUSE, EBSCO, DeGruyter, Gale 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 18:38, 30 August 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.

TWL Facebook group[edit]

Hi everyone! I am happy to announce that we now have a Facebook group The Wikipeda Library for better interaction with users and coordinators. Please feel free to join and invite your friends to join the group! Regards—UY Scuti Talk 17:45, 18 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

another referencing task[edit]

another task would be fixing old references to thomas.gov. we had an editathon, w:Wikipedia:Meetup/DC/THOMAS.gov_Link_Clean-Up, but there are 4000 to go. cheers. Slowking4 (talk) 15:38, 26 October 2016 (UTC)[reply]

New Wikipedia Library Accounts Available Now (November 2016)[edit]


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:

Expansions

Many other partnerships with accounts available are listed on our partners page. Sign up today!
--The Wikipedia Library Team 18:30, 1 November 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.

Sign up for the new Wikipedia Library User Group![edit]

Hello Wikimedians! After much contemplation and planning, The Wikipedia Library has decided to move forward its longtime desire of bringing together Wikipedians and librarians by creating a user group. The user group is yet to be recognized by the Affiliations Committee, but you are welcome to sign up as a member by adding your name in the user group meta page. Once you do that, please join the discussion in deciding the user group name, logo, and organizers. You can even volunteer to lead the group! And of course please don't forget to invite your friends! The user group intends to,

  • provide guidance for Wikimedians engaging with libraries, and libraries engaging with Wikimedia,
  • provide a venue for the exchange of ideas around collaborations and opportunities for Wikimedia and libraries,
  • work with libraries and library information schools promoting the use of Wikipedia in their curriculum, and
  • reach out to libraries that could potentially engage with Wikimedia.

Join us and help spread the news! Thank you, AVasanth (WMF), via MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 17:58, 17 March 2017 (UTC)[reply]

New Wikipedia Library Accounts Available Now (May 2017)[edit]

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:

Expansions

  • Gale – Biography In Context database added
  • Adam Matthew – all 53 databases now available

Many other partnerships with accounts available are listed on our partners page, including Project MUSE, EBSCO, Taylor & Francis 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 18:52, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

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

RfC Announce: Wikimedia referrer policy[edit]

In February of 2016 the Wikimedia foundation started sending information to all of the websites we link to that allow the owner of the website (or someone who hacks the website, or law enforcement with a search warrant / subpoena) to figure out what Wikipedia page the user was reading when they clicked on the external link.

The WMF is not bound by Wikipedia RfCs, but we can use an advisory-only RfC to decide what information, if any, we want to send to websites we link to and then put in a request to the WMF. I have posted such an advisory-only RfC, which may be found here:

Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)#RfC: Wikimedia referrer policy]

Please comment so that we can determine the consensus of the Wikipedia community on this matter.

Note: This was posted at the request[2] of Astinson (WMF)]. Any questions regarding canvassing should be addressed to him.

--Guy Macon (talk) 17:30, 12 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Unexpected email[edit]

I just got an email saying I've been waitlisted. I didn't recently sign up, does this mean my existing access has been revoked? — xaosflux Talk 22:50, 15 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

For what it's worth, the only database I signed up for previously, JSTOR, is still working: "Your access to JSTOR provided by JSTOR, in collaboration with the Wikimedia Foundation". — xaosflux Talk 22:57, 15 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Xaosflux and anyone else getting these messages: the developer for Library Card is importing data from all of the old spreadsheets/Google Forms, and it sounds like that's resulting in a bunch of strange emails getting sent out. Your access is exactly the same, and you don't need to do anything in response to this. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:07, 16 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Server error on wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org[edit]

Tracked in Phabricator:
Task T170753

When attempting to logon to wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org, I'm getting error: 

Internal server error

Something went wrong.

Please email us about this error at wikipedialibrary@wikimedia.org or report it to us on Phabricator (?).
— xaosflux Talk 22:51, 15 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
This is very likely this error. Nikkimaria (talk) 00:08, 16 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikipedia Library Card platform[edit]

The Wikipedia Library team are happy to announce the migration of our free research access signups to the Library Card platform! The Library Card is a centralised location for signing up to all of the free resources available through the library - now totalling over 60 publishers and databases offering access to more than 80,000 paywalled periodicals to help you research and find citations for Wikipedia articles. On-wiki signup pages have been archived, and all future signups will be coordinated on the platform.

Log in directly with your Wikipedia account via OAuth, and if you find resources that would be useful to you, please sign up! Ongoing development will be occurring for the site, so please let us know if you run into any error messages or unexpected behaviour. You can flag bugs directly on Phabricator.

Later this year we'll be integrating an authentication system, enabling direct access to resources using your Wikipedia login. No more need to remember separate logins for each website! We'll also be using this system to allow automated no-application-required access to a subset of partners, and integrating it with a search tool to make it easier to figure out which aggregator or publisher has the content you need! Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 20:39, 9 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Withdraw request[edit]

Hey, I just asked for access to JSTOR. Then, I realized that I can simply get that access through my university and now I dont need the access request through Wikipedia and I wont even get it since I can get one through the uni. How do I withdraw my application?.--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 09:29, 13 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Attar-Aram syria: Hi, I just went through the requests list and couldn't find your application. So I guess you wouldn't have to worry about withdrawing your request. Thanks--AVasanth (WMF) (talk) 13:30, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@AVasanth (WMF): Hey, thanks for replying. I checked and its still there. You can find it on this link: [3].--Attar-Aram syria (talk) 14:02, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Attar-Aram syria: Ah, thanks for pointing it out. I have marked it as 'not approved'. --AVasanth (WMF) (talk) 14:06, 15 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Privacy[edit]

Some of the resources in the Library Card platform require that you provide real life information like your name and where you work, and that information apparently needs to be provided in the WMF information form.

Would you please address:

  • Who within the WMF and the WMF projects has access to this private information?
  • What restrictions, if any, are there on what the resource partners do with this information? Part of that is whether the private information linking the user name to real life identity is protected by the partner and what the consequences for the resources partners are, if that privacy is breached. The other part is more general.

If this is addressed elsewhere and I missed it, I apologize and would appreciate a pointer to the existing discussion. I didn't find it. Jytdog (talk) 19:21, 13 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Jytdog. Important question...
We have always disclosed that information would be shared with partners and with WMF staff and contractors and volunteer coordinators who signed a non-disclosure agreement:
"You will need to have a confirmed email address to participate. You understand and agree that your name and email address may be shared with representatives of the Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia Library, and JSTOR. While Wikipedia Library coordinators are volunteers (not employees or contractors of the Wikimedia Foundation or JSTOR), they have signed confidentiality agreements with the Wikimedia Foundation with regards to the personal information they may handle for the Wikipedia Library."
Per our new Wikipedia Library Card Platform we've detailed that policy along with what information is shared with whom: Terms of Use.
That's the easy part of the question. The answer relating to partners is less definitive because each partner has a different Terms of Use that editors agree to when signing up for access to them. The short but unsatisfying answer thus is, information shared with partners is bound by the partners' own privacy policy.
I understand the deeper underlying concern, that partners should under no circumstances publicly reveal the real name or other identifying information about a Wikipedia editor. We currently don't have a mechanism to require that partners never do this. Implementing one would take some considerable re-investment into our standard agreements with them, if it is possible within our current framework at all. It's worth considering and thank you for raising the issue so we can evaluate it. In the meantime, requests for real names are just requests and providing a pseudonym would be a simple way to avoid the problem if you're worried about it.
Cheers, Jake Ocaasi (WMF) (talk) 20:34, 21 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for answering! Jytdog (talk) 20:52, 21 August 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Newspaperarchive.com[edit]

User:Samwalton9 (WMF), you and I have recently communicated about this, but I cannot locate your email. So, I recall you told me that a new person was starting at NewspaperARCHIVE.com and the renewal snafus would be taken care of. I didn't get a notice from them, but happened to notice at my Library Card (or whatever you want to call that page), that it's been approved. Yep, I've been accessing it for a couple of days. Now it's gone awry. It lets me search and pull up any results that show up on the first page of the results. If I try to access the additional pages of results, it tells me to sign in (yet ... I'm already signed in). So, I sign in again ... and it still tells me I'm signed in. I try accessing the second page of Results ... and it brings up a page asking for my credit card information to pay for the service. I sure hope we get this straightened out, because I've been dangling on the line for months now. This is not helpful. Maile66 (talk) 23:56, 11 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Maile66: Sorry to hear about this. This sounds more like an issue on Newspaperarchive's side, so I would recommend first trying to go through their technical support. If you don't have any luck I'd be more than happy to speak to our contacts to see if it's a wider problem. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 17:24, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Samwalton9 (WMF): On the first go-ground trying to get to "Live Support" (there is no other kind), they say my browser won't allow cookies. It's the same browser and settings I had all along, with no complaint about cookies. Like what cookies am I supposed to allow? Any and all cookies across the board? So, I should let anybody and everybody on the internet invade my browser so NewspaperArchive.com will talk to people? If I keep clicking, I finally get through - except that it logs me out when it does that. There has never been any source thru Wikipedia - bar none, never - that is worse in customer service than Newspaperarchive.com. When I first got the account, I could at least get through to support - same browser I have now, with no different settings. But their advice wasn't of value, and the issues finally just disappeared over time. I am very, very unhappy with these people and their online system. At this point, the whole thing is of no use to me. If I can't get to what I browse beyond the first page of listings, what point is it? Not a very user-friendly site. Maile66 (talk) 23:51, 12 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
And by the way, if I click on "Account" next to my name, the only thing that pops up is that they want me to upgrade. For money. Maile66 (talk) 00:04, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Ah ah ah ... pardon this going on forever. I just checked my allowed cookie list for my browser. All newspaperarchive.com cookes are specifically allowed, and haves been all along. So, it's not my browser. It's them. Maile66 (talk) 00:43, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Maile66: I've sent an email to our contacts to verify that your account is set up properly. I'll let you know when I hear back. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 10:38, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Samwalton9 (WMF): Thank you very much, and I apologize for this wall-of-text-rant above. But if you have a subscription to something, you expect to be able to use it. Just imagine if Wikipedia required registration to use, but the registrants couldn't use it for months at a time with no clear explanation of why. Maile66 (talk) 11:32, 13 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Maile66: Could you check to see if your account is working now? It should now be functional through to August 2018. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 09:01, 16 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Samwalton9 (WMF): It seems to be functioning fine now. Thank you for your assistance. Maile66 (talk) 15:54, 16 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Guide for access to research: looking for early readers[edit]

To help researchers (and Wikipedians), I've been collaboratively working on a now 24-option guide about how to access sources when you don't have access to them. Many Wikipedians are pros at this kind of digging. Could you give it 10 minutes and feel free to make comments, suggestions, corrections, or additions? Don't hesitate to be bold :)

You're a Researcher without Access to Research: What do you do?

Thank you!

Jake Orlowitz Ocaasi (WMF) (talk) 18:47, 19 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Questia, Jstor and MUSE.[edit]

Currently, I have Questia, Jstor and MUSE membership, which all seem to be working...for today. My Questia account itself says it expires Dec 3, 2017, in one week. Jstor and MUSE don't provide that kind of detail to the user. On my labs Wikipedia Library Card platform, it says access to all three have expired, and they were sent to the partner who-knows-when. Those three also say "Renewals not available". These three accounts are vital to my editing. I would say there seems to be an information gap between labs Wikipedia Library Card platform and reality, since it also still says I don't have Newspapers.com and NewspaperARCHIVE.com, which we resolved a while back.

Please make sure I continue to have Questia, Jstor and MUSE. Thank you. Maile66 (talk) 12:56, 25 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Maile, per instructions here, if you want to keep the same email address for Questia, you'll need to request renewal via direct email to them. Pinging Sam regarding the Library Card bug(s?). Nikkimaria (talk) 01:08, 26 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Renewals on the platform are in a bit of an odd place right now, primarily because we naively attempted to automatically determine when your account would be expired, but then we present that information with language that implies certainty. It's something we're planning to change (scrapping the automatic expiry calculation altogether). If access to one of your resources expires and the platform doesn't present you with an obvious option to renew, just let us know and we'll get it sorted :) Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 10:06, 27 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Sam Walton, you have an email from me. Maile66 (talk) 00:36, 1 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Sigh ... my Questia expires today ... well, Samwalton9 (WMF), as I emailed you two days ago, I emailed Luis.Pedraza on November 25, in accordance with instructions for renewing Questia. I have not heard from either one of you. Sigh ... bummer. Maile66 (talk) 01:25, 3 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Maile66, if you have another email address I can set you up with Questia - it's just that system won't work with one you've used before, that can only be done on their end. I believe Sam is travelling at the moment as well. Nikkimaria (talk) 15:21, 4 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Nikkimaria Thank you for the offer, but I prefer to stick with my same email address. After a while, you forget which email address goes where. Too confusing. I believe you know what you are talking about, but it seems really odd that a process for any of our partners can't work with the established email address. Maile66 (talk) 16:01, 4 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]
@Maile66: Hooray! Glad to hear. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 10:39, 20 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Estimated time for an application to be processed[edit]

Hi, I've applied for access to Highbeam on the library platform and was just wondering what the estimated time to process the application will be, days, weeks, etc. Just so I don't keep checking for no reason, thanks. Kosack (talk) 07:09, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Scratch that, my application has been approved now. Kosack (talk) 17:26, 29 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Project MUSE restrictions[edit]

Samwalton9 (WMF) Nikkimaria Did our Project MUSE subscriptions get more restrictive lately? I've been noticing a trend where books are accessible (thank goodness), but journals are locked. It used to be only once in a while. But now it specifically tells me I can access the books, but journals are not part of the Wikimedia subscription. I tried it on two different browsers, to make sure the quirk was not on my end. Please advise. Maile66 (talk) 20:05, 4 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oh, yeah, something really odd is going. The box is clearly checked that says, "Only content I have full access to". I just ran a search for "Big Thicket Texas". I previously saved MUSE links to books on the subject, and those links are still accessible. But if I do a search on the subject today, no books come up. Just journals, which it has locked so I can't read them. Maile66 (talk) 21:34, 4 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Maile66: That's odd - I've sent our contacts an email asking about this. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 10:16, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Samwalton9 (WMF) Thanks. I just checked. Same phenomenon today. Must be their settings.Maile66 (talk) 13:57, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Samwalton9 (WMF) As of this afternoon, I now seem to have journal accesss restored to my account. The search, however, seems to be getting more strange. I just searched for "tourism in Hawaii", and it brought up results on basketball that had nothing to do with Hawaii. I did a search for "crown lands of Hawaii", and the only results was a book on Peabody College at Vanderbilt. Maile66 (talk) 22:55, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
That's great to hear! For search issues you're best off contacting Project MUSE support directly. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 11:24, 6 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
You might have better luck searching open access resources. I see several interesting results in BASE, for instance. --Nemo 15:50, 7 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Clairification regarding partners after the migration to the Library Card platform[edit]

Since access to partnered journals and databases has moved to the Library Platform, I was under the assumption that all global branches could list themselves as providing access to these. However, many local branches don't advertise access to all the journals and databases that the English branch does, and some of them have requirements that are project specific (as an example, en:Wikipedia:Royal_Society_journals lists en-wp-specific policies that don't exist on all other projects). Are users from other projects not permitted to request access to a partner that hasn't specifically communicated with their own local branch? InsaneHacker (talk) 11:48, 17 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@InsaneHacker: Anyone can apply for access to resources listed on the Library Card platform, regardless of which projects they are active on. Some global branches have additional partnerships not currently listed on the Library Card platform. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:48, 17 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Nikkimaria: Thanks for the clarification, much appreciated. InsaneHacker (talk) 09:08, 18 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]
The ultimate intention is to have all the partners (from any language) on the Library Card platform with more-or-less unified requirements :) Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 14:12, 19 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Fwd: Elsevier Launching Rival To Wikipedia By Extracting Scientific Definitions Automatically From Authors' Texts[edit]

Had missed this one: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170928/02375038300/elsevier-launching-rival-to-wikipedia-extracting-scientific-definitions-automatically-authors-texts.shtml --Nemo 20:41, 28 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Internet Archive awarded grant from Arcadia Fund to digitize university press collections[edit]

Nice, soon we'll have a real academic library at the Internet Archive. https://blog.archive.org/2018/05/21/internet-archive-awarded-grant-from-arcadia-fund-to-digitize-university-press-collections/ --Nemo 07:32, 24 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

New Wikipedia Library Accounts Available Now (May 2018)[edit]


Hello Wikimedians!

The TWL OWL says sign up today!

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

  • Rock's Backpages – Music articles and interviews from the 1950s onwards - 50 accounts
  • Invaluable – Database of more than 50 million auctions and over 500,000 artists - 15 accounts
  • Termsoup – Translation tool

Expansions

Many other partnerships with accounts available are listed on our partners page, including Baylor University Press, Loeb Classical Library, Cairn, Gale and Bloomsbury.

Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects: sign up today!
--The Wikipedia Library Team 18:03, 30 May 2018 (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.

wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org/about needs an update[edit]

https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org/about/ – which I do not appear able to edit directly, for some reason – has some coding issues and needs an update:

The citation code shown under "Citation practices" is obsolete; in particular: 1) the subscription and via options are now part of the citation template itself (for several years now) and should not be done with a second template. 2) Worse, the |author= parameter is no longer used this way (also for many years); it is an alias of |last1=, and (in |author= form) should only be used for organizational authors. 3) MOS:INITIALS applies (like the rest of WP:MOS) by default to all citations, except where citation style requires a variance. (Something like this is apt to be true at well-developed wikis other than en.WP; most of them have their own style guides and most of them are based on w:en:Wikipedia:Manual of Style for basics and where local language norms do not diverge; the example provided is English and intended for en.WP, anyway). 4) |number= is just a parameter alias of |issue=, so don't make the parser do extra work to convert it. This:

  • {{cite journal|author=Zieger, R|title=Walmart and the broken narrative of US labor history|journal=Labor History|pages=563–569|date=November 2011|volume=52|number=4|doi=10.1080/0023656X.2011.632517}} {{subscription required|via=[[Taylor & Francis]]}}

should thus be changed to this (with some spacing also inserted to make it more human-readable):

  • {{cite journal |last1=author=Zieger |first1=R. |title=Walmart and the broken narrative of US labor history |journal=Labor History |pages=563–569 |date=November 2011 |volume=52 |issue=4 |doi=10.1080/0023656X.2011.632517 |url-access=subscription |via=[[Taylor & Francis]]}}

Secondly, the page in question is showing code markup as literal strings instead of applying the code markup. E.g.:

  • You can use <code>|via=<code> in templates using CS1 citation format or add <code>{{subscription required|via=}}</code> to identify the provider.

If this should be reported somewhere at wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org instead, please point me to where. I would prefer to just be an editor there so I can fix stuff like this myself.
 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  23:22, 9 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

@SMcCandlish: TWL has a phabricator project here. — xaosflux Talk 02:19, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Alright; I'll try that.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  02:37, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@SMcCandlish: I'm pretty sure wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org isn't a wiki, which is why you can't edit it directly. Labor History is also a poor example to use for this (cf. the recent VPP discussion) as it's actually published by T&F and so the |via= parameter is of questionable value there. It would be better to use an example from JSTOR or Project MUSE:
  • {{cite journal |title = Shakespeare's Purchase of New Place |last = Bearman |first = Robert |journal = [[Shakespeare Quarterly]] |publisher = [[Folger Shakespeare Library]] |issn = 0037-3222 |eissn = 1538-3555 |volume = 63 |issue = 4 |year = 2012 |pages = 465-486 |jstor = 41819765 |via = [[JSTOR]] |subscription = yes }}
Since these to a much larger degree are pure archive services (Project MUSE is run by Johns Hopkins, and some journals are published by Johns Hopkins University Press, but they also have a lot of journals published by others. JSTOR doesn't publish any journals themselves.). --Xover (talk) 05:47, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, I'll suggest something like that in the phab ticket. However, |year= is a deprecated parameter (use |date=), and |JSTOR= is used to add an additional JSTOR URL (and it made the |via=[[JSTOR]] link redundant). If it's the only URL we have, we'd use |url= for it. And | is more specific. The problem with the old |subscription=yes is that if someone adds another URL via another parameter, no one knows which URL that subscription refers to; |url-access= always refers to |url=, and parameters like |JSTOR=, |DOI=, etc., have their own access parameters, |jstor-access=, |doi-access=, etc. And it should have an en dash not a hyphen in the page-number range.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  06:25, 10 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Library Card platform now on Translatewiki![edit]

One of the core reasons we moved our signup processes for Wikipedia Library resources over to a centralised platform last year was the ability to open up the signup process to editors from all language Wikipedias. TWL resources shouldn’t just be available for the English Wikipedia, but for editors from any language project. I’m therefore very happy to announce that the Library Card platform interface is now available to translate on translatewiki!

If you are capable of doing so, please help out by translating some pieces of text! Doing so will help open up our resources to so much more of the Wikimedia community.

Note that this process only allows translation of the tool’s interface; we’re currently working on translation support for elements such as the publisher description text, which will likely be translated on Meta.

Thanks - Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 14:13, 16 October 2018 (UTC)[reply]

New Wikipedia Library Accounts Available Now (March 2019)[edit]

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 on the Library Card platform:

  • Kinige – Primarily Indian-language ebooks - 10 books per month
  • Gale – Times Digital Archive collection added (covering 1785-2013)
  • JSTOR – New applications now being taken again

Many other partnerships with accounts available are listed on our partners page, including Baylor University Press, Taylor & Francis, Cairn, Annual Reviews and Bloomsbury. You can request new partnerships on our Suggestions page.

Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects: sign up today!
--The Wikipedia Library Team 17:40, 13 March 2019 (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.

#1Lib1Ref May 2019[edit]

The Wikipedia Library – #1Lib1Ref

As you might've already known, #1Lib1Ref is happening again in May!

#1Lib1Ref, the annual campaign where librarians add references to improve Wikipedia, is back for another round, running from May 15th to June 5th, 2019.

  • Not every part of the world is in sync, more particularly the southern and northern hemispheres. While the January version of the #1lib1ref campaign works well mostly for the northern hemisphere, it doesn't for the countries below the equator. Hence #1lib1ref May! This is a great expansion of the event and it means that there is another opportunity to make Wikipedia more factual and verifiable by leveraging the expertise of librarians around the world.
  • While this campaign encourages participation from the southern hemisphere, we would love for you to join us even if you participated in the January campaign – after all, Wikipedia is only as strong as its references! So whether we call this 1Lib1Ref May, 1Lib1Ref for the Southern Hemisphere, or 1Lib1Ref Strikes Back, the point is the excitement is building again, and we'd like you to be a part of it.

On behalf of The Wikipedia Library Team --Aaron

For any queries/clarifications and help with organising, contact fnartey(_AT_)wikimedia[dot]org (Felix Nartey).

twl denied[edit]

Hi, on May 1 or thereabouts I applied to have access to Project Muse renewed, Questia renewed, which I've had access to via Wikipedia since the very first subscriptions were made available, and I believe a couple of other resources. I received an email telling me the application has been denied. Why? I've written 20+ featured articles, am in the process of a lengthy review of an article that garners 40,000 plus daily page views, and am working on another page to take to FA. It's true that I haven't been very active for some time for personal reasons, but I am still surprised at this. Is it because I have to create a dedicated email for TWL? If so, that makes little sense. P.s, I never come here, so if someone could leave a notification on my en.wp talk that would be helpful. Victoriaearle (talk) 13:50, 10 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Victoriaearle: It looks like your Project MUSE renewal request still hasn't been reviewed - I'm sure @Smmurphy: will get to it soon. It *does* look like your Questia renewal request was denied, but a comment was left explaining that renewal requests should be sent to Questia directly, unfortunately that's the system they want for this. You can find the instructions in the comment left at your application. Let me know if you have any questions. Samwalton9 (talk) 20:00, 10 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]
Hi Sam, thanks for the reply. From the wording in the email it seemed like the application in general had been denied, so thanks for the clarification. Questia reactivated yesterday. Victoriaearle (talk) 14:35, 14 May 2019 (UTC)[reply]

ProjectMuse access says "You are not currently authenticated."[edit]

@Samwalton9: I log in, and it seems to let me in. I can search. But if I try to read anything, ProjectMuse access says "You are not currently authenticated. If you would like to authenticate using a different subscribed institution that supports Shibboleth authentication or have your own login and password to Project MUSE". But if I then try to log in, it flips me to a Log Out. What is it doing? You renewed my subscription on May 1, 2019. Please advise. Maile66 (talk) 18:19, 4 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Library Card platform down for maintenance from 2.20pm UTC[edit]

Just a quick notice that the Library Card platform will be down for maintenance from ~2.20pm UTC. We expect the site to be back up within 30 minutes, but further delays are possible. I'll update here when the tool is back up. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 13:53, 12 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

And we're back. Please let me know if anything doesn't appear to be working as intended. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 15:12, 12 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Problem with OUP access[edit]

My request for library access to Oxford University Press was recently approved, and I just received a login name for about five different OUP sites (but no password; I had to request a password reset, which appeared to be successful). After logging in to the Oxford DNB I see "Wikipedia Foundation" displayed as my user details, but I cannot view the DNB biographies. I get a message saying "You do not currently have access to this article." So, there seems to be a technical hitch here. Muzilon (talk) 10:50, 18 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

@Cameron11598: Do you think you might be able to help Muzilon with this issue? Thanks! Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 15:14, 19 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
HI @Muzilon: sorry about the delay in replying I've been out of town quite a bit the last two weeks (and I leave again tomorrow for another trip.) Would you be able to send me an email so we can try to resolve this? Thanks! --Cameron11598 (talk) 23:24, 26 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]
@Cameron11598: Thanks, sent you an email. Muzilon (talk) 23:58, 26 July 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Departing the WMF, the Future of The Wikipedia Library, and What's Next?[edit]

Dear Wiki-Friends,

September 6th marks the end of my time at the Wikimedia Foundation.

At my center has been the belief that I serve the movement above all else. This was what motivated the creation of a research service for editors in the first place. Today, it leaves me to look outside the Foundation to how I can best influence and impact change for the open knowledge community, and our broadly fractured society.

When I founded The Wikipedia Library in 2011, the course of my life changed. I became a grantee with an Individual Engagement Grant, guided by Siko Bouterse and Anasuya Sengupta, to expand TWL. It was a dream fulfilled to be asked to join the Wikimedia Foundation full-time in 2014 to establish the program worldwide.

With much mentorship and help, we grew TWL from a one-man, English-only publisher signup project into an international, multilingual outreach effort with a global campaign, national convenings, and a functioning digital library stocked with 100,000 free-to-read scholarly journals. Those sources can be used to verify information, write new articles, close content gaps, and remedy systemic bias.

Now, librarians are as likely to be supporters and contributors as they used to be critics. The movement is full of 'wikibrarians', from the 200-member Wikimedia and Libraries User Group to the 2000 person Wikimedia + Libraries Facebook Group. Conferences around the world have strong advocates for the intersection and alliance of Wikipedia and Libraries.

Along the way I had the true privilege of building a team that gave me confidence and extremely good company. It's my conviction that good work is calm, full of humor, and has care for people at its core. I found that generous spirit heartily alive in my team at The Wikipedia Library. I cannot thank them enough.

The work is not yet finished and yet it is in good hands. With Sam Walton in charge of managing The Wikipedia Library, Felix Nartey and Aaron Vasanth running global outreach, Jason Sherman developing the Library Card Platform, and a whole crew of coordinated volunteers handling reference services…much more is still to come.

You can reach out to TWL any time at wikipedialibrary(_AT_)wikimedia.org.

As I look ahead to new vistas, I leave with questions and hope to hear your thoughts. What needs to be done next? Who could use the most support? Which organizations are ripe for change? What capacity still needs to be created? Where can I best advocate and help grow? How can we collaborate?

Email me at jorlowitz(_AT_)gmail.com and share what's on your mind, or just say hello.

It's been a true pleasure to serve our beautiful, messy movement: I couldn't be more excited to join its ranks again.

Thanks and cheers, Jake Orlowitz Ocaasi (talk) 17:34, 6 September 2019 (UTC)[reply]

#1Lib1Ref January 2020[edit]

The Wikipedia Library – #1Lib1Ref
#1Lib1Ref is happening again from January 15th through February 5th!

From January 15th to February 5th we will be joining together around the world to make Wikipedia more reliable. You can participate in #1Lib1Ref by simply adding a citation to Wikipedia's content!

That's all we ask and imagine: a world in which every librarian (or archivist, reference professional, and scholar) adds 1 more reference to Wikipedia. This is the fifth year of the #1Lib1Ref campaign and we couldn’t be more excited to support another year of activities.

  • If you are planning to host a coffee hour or a edit-a-thon focused on #1Lib1Ref, and you need funding for the event, you will be able to apply for a Rapid Grant. For the best chance of approval, requests should be made in the month of November, since requests related to #1Lib1Ref will be given priority by the Grants team during November.
  • You can make sure your contribution is counted by using the Program and Events Dashboard for your event, institution, or region, and using the #1Lib1Ref hashtag in your edit summary. Login to start a new event or join an existing one for the January campaign.
  • You can join the 1Lib1Ref community via the Wikimedia & Libraries, and 1Lib1Ref mailing lists, or by joining the Wikimedia and Libraries User Group.

Full resources and guides for participating are available on the campaign page.

On behalf of The Wikipedia Library Team --MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 14:45, 14 November 2019 (UTC)[reply]

For any queries/clarifications and help with organising, contact fnartey(_AT_)wikimedia[dot]org (Felix Nartey).

Script to detect unreliable sources (enwiki)[edit]

Main article: en:User:Headbomb/unreliable

I have (with the help of others) made a small user script to detect and highlight various links to unreliable sources and en:predatory journals. The idea is that it takes something like

  • John Smith "Article of things" Deprecated.com. Accessed 2020-02-14. (John Smith "[https://www.deprecated.com/article Article of things]" ''Deprecated.com''. Accessed 2020-02-14.)

and turns it into something like

It will work on a variety of links and references, including those from {{cite web}}, {{cite journal}} and {{doi}}.

The script is new, and I'm still expanding coverage and tweaking logic, but what's there already works very well. Details and instructions are available at en:User:Headbomb/unreliable. Questions, comments and requests can be made at en:User talk:Headbomb/unreliable.

I also figured this is something you could mention in the next edition of The Wikipedia Library/Newsletter. Ping me (because I'm not often on meta) if you have questions! Headbomb {t · c · p · b} 17:33, 16 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Wikimedia Project Grant Proposal on *Disinformation*[edit]

I'm proposing a Wikimedia Foundation Project Grant to study *disinformation* and provide actionable insights and recommendations.

Please check it out and endorse it if you support it.

Grants:Project/Misinformation_And_Its_Discontents:_Narrative_Recommendations_on_Wikipedia's_Vulnerabilities_and_Resilience

Cheers! -Jake Ocaasi (talk) 20:01, 19 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Seeking a Wikipedian in Residence! (U.S.)[edit]

Annual Reviews, an independent, nonprofit scholarly research publisher, seeks an enthusiastic Wikipedian-in-Residence (WIR).

The aim of this role is to improve Wikipedia’s coverage of the sciences by citing expert articles from Annual Reviews’ journals. The WIR will engage with Wikipedia editors across life, biomedical, physical, and social science articles and WikiProjects to help ensure responsible and valuable expansion of content.

This is a temporary position for 10 hours/week, paid at $30/hour USD, and is anticipated to last for up to 1 year. This position can only be based remotely from the following states: CA, OR, OH, NV, NC, WA, WI, CO, MA, PA, NY, HI, or MT.

PLEASE APPLY! https://annualreviewsnews.org/2020/02/25/seeking-a-wikipedian-in-residence/

Cheers, Jake Ocaasi (talk) 18:16, 26 February 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Retrieving password[edit]

I have forgotten my passwords for Highbeam and JSTOR, both accesses courtsey of Wikipedia Library. How can I get them back? 163.53.182.25 16:35, 16 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi IP, here's the link for JSTOR. As for Highbeam, see "A Note for Former HighBeam Users". Nikkimaria (talk) 01:24, 17 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry to have forgotten to log in. I guess too dependent on auto sign in. Thanks for the response. Aditya Kabir (talk) 06:46, 17 May 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Authentication-based access and the Library Bundle now available![edit]

The Wikipedia Library is pleased to announce the implementation of authentication-based access and the Library Bundle! These new features will help improve your research workflow by minimizing the number of individual logins you need to remember, and by providing on-demand access to a set of partners to all qualifying users without the need for manual application and approval. Along with the launch of Bundle/EZProxy, we are happy to announce several major new partnerships are now available, including large multidisciplinary collections from Springer Nature and ProQuest. Check out your Bundle eligibility and the new available collections by logging in at https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org/. Please let me know if you have any questions, and feedback on the new systems can be left at the project page. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 08:37, 10 June 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Procedure of adding new library to Library Card Platform[edit]

Hey,

what is the procedure of adding new library to LCP? --Juandev (talk) 21:29, 28 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Juandev, could you explain what you mean? Are you wanting to request a new collection? Nikkimaria (talk) 01:02, 29 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I am negotiating with the library, which could provide their collections online to the users of other libraries. So I wonder how Wikipedians via Library Card Platform can reach their collection. What is the procedure behind and who is responsible for LCP? --Juandev (talk) 09:41, 29 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Which library? If they're willing to give access to Wikipedians, their collection could be listed here. Sam is away this week but could help you organize that. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:44, 29 July 2020 (UTC)[reply]

New Wikipedia Library Collections Now Available (September 2020)[edit]


Hello Wikimedians!

The TWL owl says sign up today!

The Wikipedia Library is announcing new free, full-access, accounts to reliable sources as part of our research access program. You can sign up for new accounts and research materials on the Library Card platform:

Many other partnerships are listed on our partners page, including Adam Matthew, EBSCO, Gale and JSTOR.

A significant portion of our collection now no longer requires individual applications to access! Read more in our recent blog post.

Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects!
--The Wikipedia Library Team 09:49, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

This message was delivered via the Global Mass Message tool to The Wikipedia Library Global Delivery List.

Can I contact users who have access to a certain source?[edit]

Hi, is it a bug or a feature that there is no way to contact users that hold certain access, such as the 17 users who have access to Die Zeit, e.g. when I want to ask them to check a source for me? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 07:03, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Samwalton9, please forgive me for pinging you but maybe you missed this question. --Gnom (talk) 22:10, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
You can post a request for checking a source at eg. en:WP:RX (several wikis have pages of this type), where it will be open to everyone who has access to a source through any avenue. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:36, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]

'Search partners'[edit]

Why is it that there is no search bar on the 'search partners' page? I know I can use Ctrl + F, but shouldn't there be a search bar on that page? Thanks, --Gnom (talk) 07:07, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Gnom: There totally should be! It's just something we didn't prioritise while the list of publishers was shorter. We're undertaking some design work this year and I expect something like this will be a component of that page :) Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 09:35, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks! My feature request would be to make it easier to 'see what's there'. Right now, the home page doesn't have a button or section that offers that. I know that you have to click on the ambiguous 'learn more' button on the bottom right, but it is in the 'apply' section so someone who is just curious about the 'holdings' of the Wikipedia Library wouldn't look there first. --Gnom (talk) 10:01, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Gnom: That makes sense - what do you think about merging My Library with the publisher list (https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org/partners/) page? It might look closer to the latter but with simple toggles to show you only what you have access to (and include a search bar!). Would it be confusing to have the access and browse/apply workflows in the same place? Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 10:27, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]
That's probably a good idea. --Gnom (talk) 11:46, 14 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

irishnewsarchive.com[edit]

Has there been an approach to https://irishnewsarchive.com ? I get access through my state library's readers ticket and find it a really useful for 19th and 20th century Irish news,e specially for obituaries as they have good regional coverage.  — billinghurst sDrewth 01:22, 19 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Not to worry, I forgot that there was a suggest section. Added there.  — billinghurst sDrewth 01:31, 19 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Content of the Library Bundle?[edit]

Where can one look up the list of publishers/resources included in the Library Bundle? Regards, HaeB (talk) 03:15, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@HaeB: Good question! It's less obvious than it should be and we're working on making that easier to browse. If you head over to the publisher list, any with a bundle icon in the corner are part of the Bundle. If you qualify for the Library Bundle and log in, you'll find them all in My Library. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 09:46, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Got it, thanks for clarifying! I have added that information to the documentation page linked above. Regards, HaeB (talk) 10:30, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Private use[edit]

I have been granted access to Ancestry.com, which is super-handy because I work a lot with biographies. Very helpful resource indeed. Obviously, I would like to stay within the rules, so here's an interesting question. I've spotted my great-great-grandmother (and her husband) in a family tree. I've got an almost complete family tree from my grandfather going back six generations. The person who has my great-great-grandmother in her tree has encouraged me to make my own tree as that is how one apparently swaps notes on relatives. Am I allowed to do so, given that this would not be WP-related whatsoever? Please ping me when you reply as I don't usually hang out at Meta-Wiki. Schwede66 (talk) 03:18, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Schwede66: While the accounts should primarily be used for your on-wiki editing, frankly there's very little we could do to stop you also using it for personal reasons, so this shouldn't be a problem :) Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 09:48, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, Samwalton9 (WMF). Can confirm that I'm one of the more active Wikipedians. Schwede66 (talk) 18:22, 23 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Ethnologue data[edit]

Question: Is the Wikipedia Library able to provide access to the Ethnologue dataset? --Yair rand (talk) 00:44, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Yair rand: We could look into this. Do you have a sense of the community demand for this resource? I think this is the first time I've seen a request for it. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 11:42, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I was wondering about this, too. I stumbled upon the problem because I saw we had been using Ethnologue as the core data for parts of List of Wikipedias by speakers per article (see my related comments a few months ago) and w:en:List of languages by total number of speakers and wanted to update them. They can no longer be updated until someone either gets access or finds an alternative reference.
Globally it has two interwiki links (Interwiki map). See the "Interwiki links" tool results for Ethnologue (3547 results) and for EthnologueFamily (63 results).
Enwiki has a bunch of uses, but using a variety of methods so it's not easy to get a firm number (See w:en:Category:Language_external_link_templates for many templates).
That's just from a brief dig. HTH! Quiddity (talk) 17:59, 24 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@Samwalton9 (WMF): Unsure of general demand for it, beyond what's indicated by Quiddity's links. I personally am interested in it for Meta-related uses. (How many people speak each language will probably be among the factors taken into account when distributing representation on the upcoming Wikimedia Global Council, and I'm trying to work on possible formulas, among other things...) --Yair rand (talk) 08:54, 26 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Another vote for adding Ethnologue, as it's commonly used as the ref for the number of speakers of a language in infoboxes on enwiki, and often the numbers are several editions out of date, which can be significant for smaller languages. Somnifuguist (talk) 10:17, 16 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Agree Ethnologue data would be useful. Juandev (talk) 12:08, 18 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Newsletter page and translation?[edit]

Hi, I wonder if we could do two small patch-ups; I am trying to en-ja translate TWL Newsletter back issues, and share the information with those fluent in Japanese language. Does it sound feasible to:

  • make a sub-section for past issues, maybe div col so that the list be more handy on larger screens;
  • push the Newsletter page for translation, ie, add translate tags so that those who translated the page would be pinged whenever update has been arranged.

I am translating wikipedia:TWL into ja, and hope jawiki editors be suggesting GLAM resources before long. I wish to pave the way to realize that, and Newsletter would be a great resource to understand the TWL aims and purposes. Cheers, --Omotecho (talk) 23:52, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

New Wikipedia Library Collections Available Now (February 2021)[edit]

Hello Wikimedians!

The TWL owl says sign up today!

The Wikipedia Library is announcing new free, full-access, accounts to reliable sources as part of our research access program. You can sign up to access research materials on the Library Card platform:

  • Taxmann – Taxation and law database
  • PNAS – Official journal of the National Academy of Sciences
  • EBSCO – New Arabic and Spanish language databases added

We have a wide array of other collections available, and a significant number now no longer require individual applications to access! Read more in our blog post.

Do better research and help expand the use of high quality references across Wikipedia projects!

This message was delivered via the Global Mass Message tool to The Wikipedia Library Global Delivery List.

--12:57, 1 February 2021 (UTC)

A proposal to collaboratively improve automatic citation generation from web sources[edit]

User:Scann and I have presented a proposal to develop a visual Citoid/Zotero web translator tool, to enable non-technical users collaboratively increase the number and diversity of websites understood by Wikipedia's visual editor automatic citation generator. We thought this may be of interest to the Wikpedia Library project, and we would highly appreciate your thoughts and comments in the discussion page, and your endorsements if you would like to support it. Thank you! --Diegodlh (talk) 15:52, 18 March 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Media Search (Czech language)[edit]

Would it be possible to add Media Search by Newtonone media? It is a full-text database of magazine articles in the Czech language. Some younger articles might be found via Google search, but not all and not old ones. Media Search has most of the full texts until 1993 and provides full-text search with metadata about the article, so it would be a great help for Czech editors to find information on topics fast. Juandev (talk) 15:19, 4 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Is ODNB gone?[edit]

It seems that I am no longer able to access Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Is it gone forever?

I write British biographies on Japanese Wikipedia and ODNB has always been an essential source. Without ODNB, the articles that I edit will certainly be of much poorer quality. ネイ (talk) 05:17, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@ネイ Hopefully only a temporary problem, cf. :en:Wikipedia talk:The Wikipedia Library#Oxford bibliographies HHill (talk) 15:42, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you! I was not aware of this discussion. ネイ (talk) 17:48, 18 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Oxford University Press resources are now re-activated :) Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 08:54, 6 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hiring - Partnerships Coordinator[edit]

Hi, we've just opened a part-time contractor position on the Wikipedia Library team! We're looking for someone to take the lead on finding new partnerships and maintaining the ones we already have, ensuring that we keep adding new content requested by users, and ensure that the access we have is interrupted as little as possible. If you've got any experience working with libraries, academic publishers, or on partnerships then please apply! https://boards.greenhouse.io/wikimedia/jobs/3336311 Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 08:38, 27 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Call for Advisory Board members for Web2Cit[edit]

Hello, The Wikipedia Library enthusiasts!

Web2Cit: Visual Editor for Citoid Web Translators project is moving!

With Diegodlh we are inviting people to apply to be an Advisory Board member. Is this you? Is this someone you know?

Check the Call for members and apply to be an Advisory Board member before August 6th!

If you are too busy this time around to apply, don't worry: we get it. You can also help us by spreading the word! We sincerely appreciate it. --Scann (talk) 18:57, 28 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

hashtag userscript[edit]

I wrote a userscript, generate a hashtags link to https://hashtags.wmflabs.org/ in the edit summary, see User:Shizhao/hashtagslink.js. Hope useful--Shizhao (talk) 14:33, 3 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Shizhao: This is very cool - nice work! I've added a link to the script from Hashtags. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 09:07, 5 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

New Wikipedia Library collections and design update (August 2021)[edit]

Hello Wikimedians!

The TWL OWL says log in today!

The Wikipedia Library is pleased to announce the addition of new collections, alongside a new interface design. New collections include:

Additionally, De Gruyter and Nomos have been centralised from their previous on-wiki signup location on the German Wikipedia. Many other collections are freely available by simply logging in to The Wikipedia Library with your Wikimedia login!

We are also excited to announce that the first version of a new design for My Library was deployed this week. We will be iterating on this design with more features over the coming weeks. Read more on the project page on Meta.

Lastly, an Echo notification will begin rolling out soon to notify eligible editors about the library (T132084). If you can translate the notification please do so at TranslateWiki!

--The Wikipedia Library Team 13:23, 11 August 2021 (UTC)

This message was delivered via the Global Mass Message tool to The Wikipedia Library Global Delivery List.

Approved access, but no notifications of it?[edit]

I've tried to figure out how you're notified and given login info, etc, when applications are approved, but I can't find anything, so I'm asking here. I've been approved for both Berg Fashion Library and NewspaperARCHIVE. The status for Berg has gone from "approved" to "finalized" and for NA, it still sits at "approved." But I haven't received any emails about being approved, or the login details, for either. How does this work? Am I missing something? Thanks. · Comtesse d'Autodidactica (talk) 10:24, 23 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Comtesse d'Autodidactica: For Berg Fashion Library you should have received an application approval email on April 16th from noreply@wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org - I can see from our logs that it was sent to your registered email address. Maybe you can check your spam folder?
For NewspaperArchive I agree this process isn't as clear as it could be. In this case we're required to collect user information and then send that over to the publisher so that they can set your account up for you. They should then contact you with the relevant details. Once that application has been set to 'finalized', your information has been sent and we're just waiting for setup. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 11:57, 24 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Samwalton9 (WMF): Thanks for replying! I did check spam for the Berg email and searched for email from the address you gave, but didn't find anything. Thanks for the info on how things work with NewspaperARCHIVE. ·• Comtesse d'Autodidactica (talk) 19:34, 24 August 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Search feature now available![edit]

The Wikipedia Library team is excited to announce that a centralized search tool is now available to all users eligible to use the library! Instead of needing to search across individual collections one-by-one, you’ll now be able to search content from across a wide range of collections from one search bar. This search tool uses the EBSCO Discovery Service software and contains a wide array of filtering and advanced search options.

To check which collections are indexed, we’ve also added icons and filters to My Library. Search pulls content from almost all of the collections which are accessible by default for eligible users (the Library Bundle). This means you can search with the confidence that every result will be accessible to you. In the future, we plan to enable users to turn off this limit, so that you could also search across collections which require individual applications, but we can’t guarantee that you’ll be able to access all results in this mode, as this depends on your individual authorizations.

To check out the search tool just head over to https://wikipedialibrary.wmflabs.org/, log in, and you’ll find the search bar at the top of your screen. We hope you find this feature useful, and would love to hear your feedback at Talk:Library Card platform/Search. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 17:40, 7 October 2021 (UTC)[reply]

New website[edit]

Sorry but I don't like it, it's very messy, and why did I get a notification 3 times about the new site? Edit: when searching from the library I'm redirected to external site https://ebscohost.com/ ??? Stryn (talk) 09:35, 11 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Stryn: Thanks for the feedback. Firstly, the notification being sent multiple times is a bug we're currently working on fixing (T295484), apologies for that. Could you elaborate on what you mean by 'messy'? As for searching, we're using EBSCO Discovery Service as our search platform; it handles the huge task of syncing our available content with publishers for us and meant we didn't have to build an entirely new search platform from scratch. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 10:52, 12 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Eligibility[edit]

I was surprised to find a Meta notification today that I'm now eligible for the Wikipedia Library. Thank you for the very welcome reminder; it will save me the trouble of finding free sources for papers locked away by the big publishers. However, the timing seems strange. I'm still short of 500 Meta edits, but passed the 500/180 threshold on enwp in 2008. Certes (talk) 16:50, 15 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Certes: Glad to hear that the notification was helpful :) We're just in the process of rolling this out (T288070) and the 500 edits criterion is based on global edits, so you received it after making an edit because you were already eligible! Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 13:27, 16 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

IRC[edit]

@Samwalton9 (WMF): Given this edit you may want to reconsider the mention of (Freenode!) irc here as well? Effeietsanders (talk) 05:42, 20 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for spotting that - I've filed T296625. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 12:48, 29 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Screwed up password[edit]

I made a mess of my Ancestry account. I changed my password, but then neglected to record the new one. I could not get a retrieve code because my email address is not on record with Ancestry. Also I notice that my access to databases has lapsed. Can someone please help me wit this mess that I created? My apologies for lousing this up, but I would love to get it fixed. If someone can ping me on Wikipedia or email it would be great. Thank you, Figureofnine (talk) 18:05, 22 November 2021 (UTC)[reply]

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