Collaborate/Wikisource

Wikisource is an ever-growing library of freely-reproducible texts.

The Wikisource community scans, proofreads and checks texts to produce definitive electronic versions.

These can be linked or cited from Wikipedia or anywhere else, or copied onto other sites or media (respecting the relevant free licence).

As well as English, Wikisource is available in dozens of other languages, gradually building an archive of their literature and scholarship.

Cover of Francis Bacon's Instauratio Magna

Examples of texts

• Out-of-copyright or freely licensed reference materials, such as the Dictionary of National Biography or Grove's Dictionary of Music and Musicians of 1900
• Literary works from authors including Shakespeare, Austen, Dickens, and Wilde
• Personal papers of notable figures, such as the FDR/Churchill correspondence
• Official papers, such as Acts of the English Parliament or various National constitutions
• Journals and periodicals, such as the earliest issues of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society or newly published research

What can you do?

• Upload digitisations of historic books and documents, with a description of the physical location.
• Bring in a trainer to show you how to publish text collections in Wikisource.
• If you produce research or official documents, make it as easy as possible for Wikisource volunteers to incorporate the material: release your outputs under a free licence, and use open document formats that make text easy to extract.

Next steps

• If you are in a Jisc-funded project, contact the Jisc Wikimedia Ambassador, Martin Poulter, (martin.poulterwikimedia.org.uk).
• Wikimedia UK can put cultural and scholarly organisations in touch with experienced Wikisource contributors (infowikimedia.org.uk).
• The Beginner's guide to Wikisource is a good starting point.

This page has been created as part of the 2013-14 partnership between Jisc and Wikimedia UK