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Introduction to Wikisource

#AWA Anglophone bi-weekly webinar

Tuesday 27 August 2024

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ALICE KIBOMBO-EKANYA

Librarian and Wikimedian from Uganda.

Find me on LinkedIn/AliceKibombo

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Contents

01

What is Wikisource?

Second

How is Wikisource related to the other Wikimedia projects?

Third

Understanding and contributing to Wikisource?

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Learning Objectives

By the end of this session, participants should be able to :

Define what Wikisource is and its place in the Wikimedia eco-system
Identify the policies of Wikisource
Identify the major activities on Wikisource in order to be motivated to contribute to it at a later point

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What is Wikisource?

The Free Library that Anyone can improve

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What is it?

Wikisource Main Page

A free online library of primary sources hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation. It is also a digital archive of texts that are :

Primary sources :

Original materials such as books, articles, documents and manuscripts that provide firsthand information or direct evidence

Public domain or freely licensed

Works that are no longer under copyright or have been released under a free license allowing for unrestricted access

Digitized and transcribed

Scanned or typed out texts, made available in a digital format, often with proofreading and validation to ensure accuracy ;

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When and why?

Officially begun on 24 November 2003 with the name Project Sourceberg
It aimed to provide a free repository for source texts, support verifiability in projects like Wikipedia and host all forms of free texts in as many languages and translations
As of August 2024, there are Wikisource subdomains for 79 languages of which 77 are active and 2 are closed (Source: Wikisource page on Wikipedia)
The active sites have 6,141,977 articles and the closed sites have 13 articles (Source: Wikisource page on Wikipedia)
There are 4,941,403 registered users of which 2,574 are recently active (Source: Wikisource page on Wikipedia)

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Relation to other Wikimedia projects

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Acquisitions on Wikisource

It sources materials from various places including but not limited to :

Public domain works Books, articles and other documents whose copyright has expired	Digital libraries Partnerships with digital libraries e.g Google Books , Internet Archive
User uploads Users can scan or type texts and upload then	Optical Character Recognition (OCR) Automated conversion of scanned texts into editable digital formats
Transcriptions Volunteers transcribe texts from images or audio recordings	Donations Publishers, authors or institutions donate texts
Government documents Official documents and records e.g constitutions	Classic literature Works from renowned authors and literary classics
Historical documents Primary sources like letters, journals and other historical proceedings	Collaborations Partnerships with other Wikimedia projects

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Policies of Wikisource

The Free Library that Anyone can improve

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Copyright policy

ALL user contributions to Wikisource are released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) and the GNU Free Documentation License

Fair use

This is the concept that copyrighted work can be legally used without paying licensing fees or receiving permission of the copyright holder. Fair use is explicitly prohibited on Wikisource.

Contributors rights and obligations

All works on Wikisource must be in the public domain or released under a license compatible with the free content definition

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Neutral point of view

Texts must be presented in a neutral and impartial manner without :

Bias :

Avoid personal opinions, perspectives or agendas

Interpretation :

Do not analyze , provide additional commentary or explanations

Editorializing :

Avoid additions, deletions or changes that alter the original meaning, reproduce the text faithfully, as it appears in the original source

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Inclusion policy

This works hand in hand with the copyright policy and defines what can be included or not using certain criteria :

Includes and focuses on	Excludes
Public domain or freely licensed works Primary sources Notable or significant works Scientific works with verifiable scholarly peer review	Original research or analysis Promotional o advertising materials Second-hand transcriptions Partial extracts Anonymous texts
Adding value to texts
Translations : Each Wikisource only accepts texts written in that language Annotations : Previously published versions of texts with annotations are the priority Multimedia : Multimedia content added to texts can greatly improve the quality and presentation. Such content includes not only published illustrations or photographs from or about the book itself which are out of copyright, but also original contributions of audio recordings, diagrams, or other content.
Acknowledging precedent inclusions and exclusions
Consensus Some works may fall outside the defined criteria but can be included on Wikisource through community consensus

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How can I contribute

Editing	Uploading	Maintenance & navigation
Proofreading texts to ensure accuracy and correct errors Transcribing scanned texts or audio recordings into editable digital formats Validating previously proofread texts	Uploading and transferring public domain texts from partner projects to Wikimedia Commons Transcluding and indexing texts from Wikimedia Commons to be easily searchable on Wikisource	Participate in community discussions Reviewing texts for quality and accuracy

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Criticisms of Wikisource

The Free Library that Anyone can improve

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Criticisms of Wikisource

Lack of expertise as some texts mat require specialized knowledge or expertise to accurately transcribe, proofread or validate
Language and cultural barriers : The content and community may be dominated by certain languages and cultures, potentially limiting its global reach, and diversity
Dependence on volunteers to proofread, transcribe, maintenance which can lead to inconsistencies and variability in quality
Limited coverage and selection bias : It may not have a comprehensive collection of texts and the selection of works may be biased to certain works, authors or topics
Quality and accuracy concerns : Some texts, if not thoroughly proofread or validated may contain errors or inaccuracies