Wikipedia Goes To Paper
April 24, 2008 | by Christopher Nickson
The most popular German Wikipedia searches will be published in a 1,000 page book by Random House.
It’s not too many years since companies were making the big leap from print to online. Now, it seems, the trend might be starting to work the other way. The German version of online collaborative encyclopedia Wikipedia is going to summarize it 50,000 most popular searches into a 1,000 book to be published this September by Random House, according to Deutsche Presse-Agentur.
And what will you find in there? Not just the stuff from your dusty old encyclopedias, that’s for sure. Instead you’re more likely to see entries on the TV show House or French first lady Carla Bruni. However, given Wikipedia’s occasionally dubious reputation for accuaracy, the facts will all be independently checked first.
Wikipedia Germany has said that the entries would be more like citations and the rights of contributors would not be breached, although Wikipedia’s rules do allow commercial reprinting. But Random House – which came up with the book idea - wouldn’t be able to claim copyright.
"They can't re-monopolize it," said Arne Klempert, Wikipedia Germany spokesperson. "This will demonstrate that open source writing also offers publishing houses opportunities for commercial development."
It’s thought that the book will appeal to those who don’t have an Internet connection. The German edition of Wikipedia is second in size only to the English-language version.
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