Wikibooks Enters Textbook Publishing Field

The Wikimedia Foundation launched the Wikibooks project to create a kindergarten-to-college curriculum of textbooks based on an open source development model. Material written for the new texts can be short or long and easily modified, and the resulting Wikibooks would be freely licensed. The goal is to produce thousands of books and smaller entries on a range of topics by employing a worldwide community of writers and editors. Any reader or student could create a personalized book or edit an existing title. Wikibooks currently contains more than 11,000 submissions from volunteers (professionals in many fields, college and graduate students, and professors). The project is still in the early stages and faces competitors such as Google’s digital library project, which has run into copyright issues.

ZDNet, 28 September 2005