On Tue, Mar 8, 2011 at 8:51 AM, Andreas Kolbe <[email protected]> wrote: > --- On Tue, 8/3/11, Fred Bauder <[email protected]> wrote: >> From: Fred Bauder <[email protected]> >> Fred Bauder <[email protected]> >> I guess I would like editors to have access to archives and >> databases >> such as those ProQuest sells. Not sure how that would fit >> into our >> budget. > > > I would like to second that as well -- this is a very important way in which > the Foundation could support high-volume content contributors, and which > would make a significant difference to article quality. > > This should be a part of university outreach as well. Many university > students have log-in IDs enabling them to log into academic databases from > their homes. Please tell universities who would like to support Wikipedia > that this is a really important way in which they can support the project, > by allowing established content contributors access to these databases.
I don't mean to derail this thread off-topic ... but I'm a Wikipedian, I can't help myself :) Most (all?) university libraries sign contracts with database/journal vendors restricting access to only faculty/staff/students at the university. The library pays according to how many people that is. Giving access to others is generally a violation of that contract, and could variously: a) cause the library to lose access to the resource altogether, if the publisher determines that many 'unauthorized' people are gaining access or a great deal is being downloaded; b) cause the student to be sanctioned by the university for mis-using their log-in ID. So, uh, yeah, let's not do outreach asking for this. Sadly, most pay-for-privileges schemes like Aude describes, at least for American universities, are only for checking out books, not access to e-resources. (You can probably figure out what this means yourself -- to get access to databases, the WMF would likely have to negotiate similar contracts. For reference, my university employs a full-time person + several other people's time just for this job. Are we special? yes. Are we likely to get publishers to talk to us and do special things? Probably! But it's not totally simple.) /librarian :) phoebe _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
