Wikipedia:The Wikipedia Library/Plan

Motivation and justification

Principles

• Access to high-quality published sources enhances the encyclopedia's mission, improves our reliability, and enhances the efficiency of vital research.
• A variety of free sources are available in local libraries, university libraries and through Google (search, news, archives, books, scholar).
• Free and universally accessible sources are always preferable to use on Wikipedia.
• Many sources are not free or not accessible, requiring one to be in physical proximity to a building or have a subscription to view content.
• Proprietary resource providers offer paid access to a variety of sources that Wikipedians would find useful in their regular content work.
• These providers are not inexpensive and would be unaffordable to a majority of volunteer editors who work on the encyclopedia.
• A collaboration between resource providers and Wikipedia would be mutually beneficial.

What's in it for Wikipedia?

• Access to thousands of publications, some of which are not indexed by Google or only provide an abstract without paying a subscription fee
• Enhanced community relations with providers of education resources
• Another tool in the community's and editors' bag for improving articles

What's in it for resource providers?

• Opportunity to improve the content on the largest encyclopedia in the world
• Visibility within the community as having helped out with an essential aspect of site operations
• In line with policies, promotion of this collaboration
• Direct links within references back to proprietary web pages
• Greater awareness among readers who follow links that those resource providers exist and provides a useful service
• First come first served placement on the Wikipedia Library sign-on page

What it's not

• A formal partnership or contractual relationship
• A formal endorsement of a partner over other similar and competing research services
• An agreement to advertise a partner's services beyond what is normally done for the use of any source
• An agreement to use a partner's sources where free versions of the same publications are available elsewhere

Questions

• Where will the sign-on/firewall be hosted? Wikimedia Cloud Services? Toolserver? Wikimedia Foundation servers? Locally by one of the resource providers?

  The current plan is Wikimedia Cloud Services. A local resource provider is less desirable. Something Foundation-hosted is probably preferable for security and sustainability reasons, however the Foundation might move more slowly to get things up and running.

• What is the ideal protocol for coding single sign-on?

  Current plan is for SAML, with OpenID as a backup for incompatible organizations.

• How can we assure resource providers don't feel a threat of cannibalizing their core subscription business?

  Approved editors will have to be limited and a tight check kept on access codes.

• How can we incentivize the first resource providers to sign on?

  By offering top placement on the Resource Providers page and/or main Wikipedia Library search page.

• Why doesn't the Wikimedia Foundation just pay for access to these resources?

  The million dollar question, literally. In short, the Foundation has a responsibility to its donors to use its money scrupulously. Where free resources are available, the community must give them preference. Ultimately, the benefit to resource providers of associating with Wikipedia and having our top editors use their sites justifies the donation of services that would otherwise be paid for. In the end, Wikipedia is a public good and we want other organizations to share in our mission of sharing the world's knowledge with every human being on the planet. That altruistic goal is an opportunity in which others can share. One might ask, 'why does Wikipedia pay for its servers but not its resources?' That's a fair question with a fair answer. Servers are a commodity and they are a tier one necessity. High quality sources, despite our wishes, are a luxury. At the end of the day, we use what we can access. Fortunately, many of the resources we need are available for free or for fair use. But we are constantly trying to improve our access to the best sources any way possible. It is not essential but it is without-a-doubt important.

Wikimedia Foundation goals

• see: 2012-13 Engineering Goals -- Unscheduled (Q3+ or FY+1)
• see: Mediawiki Academic Access page