Wikipedia talk:The Wikipedia Library

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British Newspaper Archive

Per the August–September 2024 discussion here, BNA access appears to have stopped due to difficulties in setting up a viable way to access it. Does anyone know if there has been any movement on this front? It's an incredible resource, and was extremely valuable when it was available. It's unavailability also has the attendant detriment that already cited works are no longer accessible, because (unlike newspapers.com and Newspaper Archive) it doesn't have a clipping function, such that everything remains behind a paywall. --Usernameunique (talk) 00:34, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We have not been able to make much progress on that front unforunately. I will check with them again if there's a way to overcome this issue. VSj (WMF) (talk) 19:12, 4 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you for your efforts! BNA is amazingly useful indeed. Mapple (talk) 08:50, 5 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, thanks Vipin. Fingers crossed. --Usernameunique (talk) 16:22, 7 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Springer access expired

The WMF's access to Springer journals seems to have expired again. All closed access journals/book chapters, including those that I had access to several months ago, are no longer available e.g. [1], [2]. Can this be fixed? Thanks. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:52, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Other editors like @Olmagon: have reported the same issue. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:55, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I also am having the same or a similar issue, but I was trying to access some books about grasses and grass like plants to improve Graminoid. To check if it was just the books I was trying to access I check to see if I could access the chapter Peach in a book I have used in the past. Edit to add: also I did try using a different browser and clearing cache and cookies on my usual browser. 🌿MtBotany (talk) 19:04, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@VSj (WMF): is the WMF already aware of this? Hemiauchenia (talk) 21:20, 3 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for reporting this. Yes, I have emailed SpringerNature to reinstate our access. I will update here as soon as we have an update. VSj (WMF) (talk) 19:06, 4 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

SpringerNature has reinstated our access. Let me know if you're still facing any issues. VSj (WMF) (talk) 10:55, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Excellent news! Thank you. —Kusma (talk) 16:27, 10 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The Baghdad Observer

Is there any possibility of getting access to the digitial archive of The Baghdad Observer which is held by East View Information Services (which has some archives already in the Library)? It appears to be a Hoover Institute/Stanford University product. Regards, Goldsztajn (talk) 10:24, 8 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

We have limited access East View Press, you can see more details and browse their collection here. For the resources that are not included, please feel free to add them to the suggest page of the library. We are constantly working with existing partners to expand access to more collections. Thanks. VSj (WMF) (talk) 20:02, 20 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Eligibility rules?

I'm curious about the 500 edits / 6 months eligibility rule. Why does this exist? I remember a few years back, I was doing an article review for somebody who needed to find better sources but wasn't eligible for TWL access under that rule. I enquired on their behalf and the TWL staff was kind enough to bend the rule and grant them access. I had mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, I was happy that I was able to get this person access, but always suspected I had twisted the TWL staff's arm and put them into an uncomfortable position (and if that was indeed the case, my apologies). I am currently in a similar position (doing a FA review for somebody who could benefit from, but is not yet eligible for, TWL access), and I'm hesitant to repeat the arm twisting.

Do we really need this rule? If it's impractical to hand out library cards to everybody, would it at least be possible to lower the threshold a bit? Alternatively, would it be possible to legitimize my previous tactic by officially allowing somebody who is already a TWL user to sponsor a new applicant who they felt was deserving of access? Perhaps in conjunction with a commitment to mentor and supervise the applicant to prevent abuse? TWL is truly a wonderful resource and it would be great to provide this benefit to more of our highly valued new editors. RoySmith (talk) 20:28, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I've also been wondering about this. At the last WCNA, there was a panel discussion with Kenyan editors who mentioned that Internet access is limited in rural areas, and many people there can only get online for brief periods per month. This makes the edit count requirement for TWL access an undue burden, even for those making substantial contributions. Could a different metric be used for those editors? Nick Number (talk) 21:38, 15 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

See phab:T314357. The relevant part is this:

These requirements were previously 1000 edits / 12 months activity until approximately 2015 when we lowered it. The new criteria were chosen largely arbitrarily. The library has approximately 60 Memorandums of Understanding with publishers which include the current activity requirement. These would each need to be renegotiated with the relevant publishers - this took a lot of work when we lowered from 1000/12 to 500/6, when we had approximately half the number of agreements. Because the ability to login to the library is gated by these activity requirements, we would need to reach 100% agreement on lowering the activity criteria to change them, unless we change how access to the library functions. We preferred a single set of criteria, checked at login, so that users can gain a clear understanding of how the library works without needing to verify themselves against multiple sets of criteria.

ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 00:35, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I understand this is a cumbersome process, and appreciate the effort that got us to where we are. But the memoranda will inevitably need to be renewed or renegotiated at some point. In preparation for that, can we agree on a set of criteria that would accommodate editors who, due to limited Internet access, can only make a small number of large edits? Nick Number (talk) 15:22, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I have been lurking for quite a while, watching edits on this page as a general reminder to myself when I actually need access. The way I look at this is ... this rule exists to ensure an editor is active and serious about editing Wikipedia, instead of just wanting free access to stuff they don't want to pay to get. As for rules, I would add an additional rule that clarifies when access should be taken away from inactive editors. • Sbmeirow • Talk • 04:38, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that opening up access would not be helpful. Coretheapple (talk) 13:10, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I think the rule prevents equity and sustainability. I have a university account so I can get behind a paywall community libraries do not have the resources you often require. If you live in developing countries internet is expensive and not having online resources immediately available costs money. People should not have to pay to be a wiki editor but they are if they are paying for internet and can’t find reliable secondary sources. Can’t we have affiliates sponsor opening the libraries to people they train and mentor? I’ve never heard of a library say they had too many people visiting and using their electronic resources. RosPost RosPost 17:04, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Hi all - thanks for sharing your thoughts here on this topic!

It should go without saying that I obviously would love for everyone to be able to freely access the information contained in the collections we provide access to, and not just in the context of Wikipedia. Even limited to Wikipedia, it would be an incredible improvement if anyone with an interest in editing could gain access. This rule doesn't come from a self-imposed limitation, but rather as a consequence of how we get access to content for the library. Rather than paying for access to the databases in the library, we negotiate with publishers for free access. These negotiations often hinge on the argument that providing this access for free results in active Wikipedia editors using the publisher's resources on Wikipedia, and therefore more citations link back to their websites, which results in more visibility of their content. Publishers are often concerned about opening up access to a hard-to-define global pool of anonymous internet users, because they don't want to undermine their business models of charging money to access their content. To assuage those concerns, we needed clear boundaries on how we would determine which volunteers were likely to use their library access to improve Wikipedia, versus simply having a dormant Wikipedia account to get access for other purposes. As I noted in the quote ARandomName123 helpfully shared above, the current criteria were decided quite some time ago, and were not informed by much data analysis, the library was a much smaller project at that time. It's possible that a slightly different set of criteria could be determined with more effort put in, but I'm honestly not convinced they would be significantly different, I'd still expect it to be in the hundreds of edits and at least a few months of editing activity. It's very easy to make a Wikipedia account, sit on it for a while, and make some inconsequential edits. We've seen users abusing the system in this way even at the 500/6 criteria level!

I'm not currently convinced that the large effort required to do that analysis and update agreements would be worth it, given that it's unlikely any change in those existing criteria would be significant.

All that said, I do like RoySmith's idea to think about other ways to verify active editors in good standing. A sponsorship model could be one option that I'd be interested to think more about. We've talked about that in passing a few times in the context of in-person editathons - what if an event organizer could enable temporary library access for the day for the people in the room? There's still the issue of agreement wording to figure out there, but it does strike me as a better option. I can't make any promises about quick changes here, but this is something I'd like us to keep thinking about. If you have other ideas for how to verify who is or isn't likely to use the library productively on Wikipedia I'd love to hear them. Samwalton9 (WMF) (talk) 14:31, 23 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Somewhat pursuant to this, I raised a question about this at the Village Pump here that I think contains a relevant concern. WP:TWL says (correctly, it seems) that for automatic access It can be accessed by any registered editor whose account is six months old, but here it says 6+ months editing (my emphasis).

My VPT concern was answered with reference to a bug related to edit count, which has since become irrelevant in my case, but as of now I have access to TWL because my account is older than 6 months (I created it a year ago) but I have only been editing for 5 months (my first contribution was February 17, 2025). It would be great if this wording could be clarified in one place or the other. Based on my experience, account age is the relevant criterion, not the editing history, but as it stands I find the wording ambiguous. NovaHyperion (talk) 07:40, 27 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

EBSCO search bar not working

The search bar at the top of The Wikipedia Library hasn't worked for some time. I noticed it breaking down here and there a few weeks ago for the first time. The error message I get is "A System Problem has Occurred To begin a new session, please login again." Viriditas (talk) 02:09, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Seems to work fine for me; try clearing cache/cookies? Nikkimaria (talk) 02:27, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, that worked. Is that something I should get in the habit of doing for the Library? Viriditas (talk) 02:50, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'd say it's a good troubleshooting step when you run into issues with databases generally. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:04, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Well, it's giving me the error again and now the clearing of caches and cookies isn't working. Viriditas (talk) 04:06, 16 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Access to the cited source through TWL

I found inconsosatency in time specification in the article Nganasan people#Genetics; description of the problem at Talk:Nganasan people#Time inconsistency. To correct it I needed to access the cited source to verify what's correct, but I could access the summary, and not the rest of the contents.

I was offered to access that through "my institution" or payed access (as by several other paywalled sources), so I logged in to The Wikipedia Library (was found eligible) and tried to access the rest of the article. The Springer Nature page asked for the name of my institution and I offered TWL (in several ways). The page offered several partial matches (of which I recognized several), but not TWL.

Any chance that could be made reachable too? Marjan Tomki SI (talk) 19:03, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@Marjan Tomki SI: When going through TWL, the "Access through your institution" option usually does not work. Instead, navigate to the article through TWL, or replace the "www.nature.com" part of the URL with TWL proxy version of it, "www-nature-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org". A tool like Zotero can automatically redirect pages to TWL proxy. ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 20:15, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

For the reference you posted there, this link should provide access through TWL: https://www-nature-com.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/articles/s41586-019-1279-z ARandomName123 (talk)^{Ping me!} 20:16, 21 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks. To navigate through TWL was (at least up to now) taking a lot of time, since interface required/encouraged choosing provider first and searching within that only second, which took concentration off the task at hand (contents of the article and it's verifiability, in that case).

Using TWL proxy seem straight-forward and quick, and when I'll start to use it, it should help a lot. At the moment, task at hand is diagnosing and reporting a bug in creation of url links from book id template to the library SW at sl Wikipedia, which also could take some time, and I am not logged in to TWL during that time. Marjan Tomki SI (talk) 03:39, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

New(-ish) Wikipedia Library access template

Just a note to draw people's attention to a template I created recently: Template:Wikipedia Library access (alias TM:Twlac). I created it as a way to avoid the hassle involved in manually checking whether or not TWL has access to a particular source.

The idea is that regular (non-TWL) URLs and DOIs should be used in citations, to ensure that readers who don't have access to TWL (ie. the vast majority of readers) can access the ordinary link; this new template could then be tagged on to the end of the citation to direct any future editors with TWL access to an accessible version of the source. The template can take a URL, a DOI, or a JSTOR ID, and converts the input into TWL link format.

Markup	Renders as
{{Wikipedia Library access\|https://www.example.com}}	Full access available to users of The Wikipedia Library.

(See the documentation for further examples.)

I have very little prior experience of making or editing templates, so I'm very open to feedback and contributions to any aspects of the template that need improvement/could be made more efficient/etc.

On a broader scale, I'm interested to hear people's thoughts on the template's suitability for being included in mainspace articles, as opposed to just on talk/project pages for instance. Given that such a tiny proportion of readers could make use of the link, is it actually beneficial to add this template to mainspace citations, or would it just confuse/distract readers? Should a feature be added to the template so that it only displays for auto- or extended-confirmed users—ie. the users for whom the template is most likely to be relevant? Or should the template be limited to use in non-article namespaces such as talk pages?

If anyone has any thoughts on these issues, or on any other aspect of the template, please feel free to share them on the template's talk page; I'm really keen to get an idea of the community's views on this! Thank you in advance! :) Pineapple Storage (talk) 18:47, 24 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]