PRESS RELEASE - Leuven, Belgium – 26 oktober 2023 – Leuven University Press is pleased to announce a new partnership with The Wikipedia Library, a project of The Wikimedia Foundation - the global non-profit organisation that hosts Wikipedia - that will allow the encyclopaedia’s active volunteer editors full-text access to more than 400 online books.
The Wikipedia Library's aim is to connect Wikipedia’s volunteer editors with high-quality source materials that can help to increase the verifiability and reliability of the content hosted on the platform. Through this collaboration, the press is contributing to the free knowledge movement and reaffirming its commitment to promoting Open Science.
Nienke Roelants, Director of Leuven University Press, is enthusiastic about the partnership: "Our collaboration with The Wikipedia Library fits seamlessly with our commitment to the global dissemination of knowledge and academic rigour. By making our collection of online books available to Wikipedia editors, we are contributing to the democratisation of information and fostering a culture of reliable citation".
"We're excited to have Leuven University Press join the Wikipedia Library's network of partner organisations," said Sam Walton, Senior Product Manager at the Wikimedia Foundation, "Wikipedia’s global community of volunteer editors have created policies to ensure the knowledge hosted on the site is neutral, reliably sourced, and verified. With access to the extensive range of publications from Leuven University Press now available on the Wikipedia Library, Wikipedia's editors can continue to improve the quality of information on the encyclopaedia."
Key benefits of this partnership include:
- Enhanced credibility: Wikipedia editors will have access to peer-reviewed, academically sound sources, allowing them to add more citations to strengthen the credibility of Wikipedia articles.
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Broadened scope: A wider range of topics on Wikipedia will benefit from the information in Leuven University Press's extensive publications, helping Wikipedia editors to close knowledge gaps on the platform.
- Global impact: The impact of this collaboration will extend to a global audience of knowledge seekers, ensuring the dissemination of accurate information.
About The Wikipedia Library
The Wikipedia Library, a project of The Wikimedia Foundation, provides free access to research materials to improve editors’ ability to contribute content to Wikimedia Projects.
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organisation that operates Wikipedia and other Wikimedia free knowledge projects. Our vision is a world in which every single human can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. We believe that everyone has the potential to contribute something to our shared knowledge and that everyone should be able to access that knowledge freely. We host Wikipedia and the Wikimedia projects; build software experiences for reading, contributing, and sharing Wikimedia content; support the volunteer communities and partners who make Wikimedia possible. The Wikimedia Foundation is a United States 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization with offices in San Francisco, California, USA.
