Grants:Project/Rapid/Bridges2Information/Wikipedia & Academic Libraries Edited OA Book/Report

Report accepted

This report for a Rapid Grant approved in FY 2017-18 has been reviewed and accepted by the Wikimedia Foundation.

• To read the approved grant submission describing the plan for this project, please visit Grants:Project/Rapid/Bridges2Information/Wikipedia & Academic Libraries Edited OA Book.
• You may still comment on this report on its discussion page, or visit the discussion page to read the discussion about this report.
• You are welcome to Email rapidgrants at wikimedia dot org at any time if you have questions or concerns about this report.

Goals

Did you meet your goals? Are you happy with how the project went? Yes, we met our goals. The book, Wikipedia and Academic Libraries: A Global Project, will be published September 15 (slight delay because of COVID). We received 60 chapter proposals from around the globe and 19 chapters will be in the final book - from 50+ authors located in Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, Ireland, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Netherlands, Nigeria, Spain, the UK, and the US. Authors include both new and established Wikimedians. We have been promoting the book on social media and there is considerable excitement and anticipation! Once the book is published Maize Books will begin their promotions.

Outcome

Please report on your original project targets. Please be sure to review and provide metrics required for Rapid Grants.

Target outcome	Achieved outcome	Explanation
Publish 20 chapter OA (CC BY) book.	On September 15, 2021 a 19 chapter book will be published (We accepted 21 chapters, but two chapter authors were unable to complete their chapters for various reasons). A final chapter (20) is by one of the co-editors and details the process of publishing the book.	Yes, we reached the target.
Altmetrics for the online publication and sales information about the print version.	We will not have this information until several months after publication. However, a quick Google search shows that the book is already listed at many bookstores for pre-ordering. Each chapter will have a separate doi for easier tracking.	N/A at this date.
Citations to book chapters.	We will not have this information until about a year after publication.	N/A at this date

Learning

Projects do not always go according to plan. Sharing what you learned can help you and others plan similar projects in the future. Help the movement learn from your experience by answering the following questions:

• What worked well?
  • The editorial and peer review process worked well.
• What did not work so well?
  • Trying to coordinate an edited book during COVID was difficult because of the unpredictable events, spread, and many stressors for authors.
  • Obtaining grants to fund an OA book was a cumbersome process. The academic world needs to consider easier funding models for OA books.
• What would you do differently next time?
  • We hope that this will inspire a future co-edited volume about Wikimedia projects and libraries. Over 50% of the chapter proposals for this volume were from within the US - so outreach through international connections to encourage submissions outside of North America would be beneficial. Of course, editors from outside the US would be helpful as well.

Finances

Grant funds spent

Please describe how much grant money you spent for approved expenses, and tell us what you spent it on. The entire grant was used to pay Maize Books so that we could make the book OA. This included copy editing, typesetting, indexing, promotions, hosting the online book, and designing a cover.

Remaining funds

Do you have any remaining grant funds? No.

Anything else

Anything else you want to share about your project? I would suggest that Wikimedia make funds available to academics and scholars to conduct scholarly research related to Wikimedia projects and also funds to publish scholarly Open Access materials related to Wikimedia projects.