Press release
04/07/2010

PDF format

Wikimedia France and the Bibliothèque nationale de France have signed an agreement allowing Internet users to access transcripts of public domain works through Wikisource (those transcripts are originally accessible from Gallica, the BNF online library of digitized texts.)

Some 1.400 French texts will be integrated into Wikisource.

These texts, digitized by the BnF, have been automatically transcribed to allow full text search. However, on ancient texts, optical character recognition often introduces errors. This partnership will let users participate in the proofreading of texts so that these texts will be in perfect accordance with the original version.

Through this partnership, Wikimedia France emphasize the value of the work done by Internet users on Wikisource and demonstrates that collaboration between volunteer-driven projects, such as Wikipedia and Wikisource, and public institutions such as the BNF, allows literary resources to reach as many people as possible.

The collaborative proofreading of digitized texts hosted on Wikisource gives readers a quality/reliability of texts that only human-driven proofreading efforts can achieve.

Wikisource is a Wikimedia project created in 2003 which aims at distributing transcriptions of public domain or free-licensed works. The project has already collected 50 000 texts, all in the public domain or under a free license, which allows the public to freely access these (often ancient) books. Teachers, pupils and students working on ancient works are part of the Wikisource audience, but the goal is really to create a rich and reliable digital library.

Wikisource: http://fr.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Accueil

____________________________________________________________________________________

Press contacts

BnF François Mitterrand

Quai François Mauriac, Paris XIIIe, France

Press contacts : Head of press department : Claudine Hermabessière - 01 53 79 41 18

claudine.hermabessiere AT bnf.fr

Wikimédia France

Projet manager : Rémi Mathis remi.mathis AT wikimedia.fr

In charge of communication : Christophe Henner - 06 29 35 65 94

christophe.henner AT wikimedia.fr