OPEN PUBLISHING

Taylor & Francis extends Wikipedia editor access to all journals

New agreement with The Wikipedia Library allows volunteer editors to use the latest peer-reviewed research to enhance the quality and reliability of Wikipedia articles

TAYLOR & FRANCIS GROUP

The work of Wikipedia’s volunteer editors has been given a significant boost with the announcement they now have free access to all Taylor & Francis and Routledge journals. Through The Wikipedia Library, a project of the Wikimedia Foundation, the global non-profit that hosts Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects, active Wikipedia editors will be able to read and cite millions of peer-reviewed journal articles across every discipline, from anthropology to zoology.

Wikipedia is one of the most widely used sources of information on the internet and has more than 6 million articles in the English-language version alone. The information on Wikipedia is curated by a global community of volunteer editors around the world. These editors compile and share information on notable subjects from reliable sources, such as newspaper articles and peer-reviewed journals, in accordance with the encyclopedia’s editorial policies and guidelines.

Since 2015, The Wikipedia Library and Taylor & Francis partnership has supported active volunteer editors, who often lack access to university collections, to read Taylor & Francis journals in the arts and humanities, strategic studies, and business. The new agreement, which extends the program to more than 3 million articles across all subject disciplines, will substantially increase the diversity of content available to Wikipedia editors.

In 2023, Wikipedia editors visited Taylor & Francis Online more than 9,000 times and there are now almost 67,000 citations in Wikipedia articles to Taylor & Francis journals.

“We are excited to expand our collaboration with Taylor & Francis and offer even more resources to Wikipedia editors as they conduct research on a range of critical topics,” said Sam Walton, Senior Product Manager at the Wikimedia Foundation. “This collaboration helps Wikipedia remain reliable and trustworthy for its millions of monthly readers, drawing on quality reference materials from Taylor & Francis journals.”

Martin Wilson, Head of Content at Taylor & Francis, added: “Wikipedia is the first port of call for so many of us when we want to find out about a new topic and Wikipedia editors do an amazing job helping to keep it as accurate and up to date as possible. We hope this extended partnership with The Wikipedia Library will make Taylor & Francis Online an even more useful resource for supporting that work.”