A special 'thank you' to Rohini Lakshane for working on this article.
Regards,
Nitika
Konkani Vishwakosh (encyclopaedia) relaunched with a free license, may boost Konkani
Wikipedia
http://www.dnaindia.com/blogs/1901806/post-konkani-vishwakosh-encyclopaedia…
The Konkani Vishwakosh was re-released under a Creative Commons (CC-BY-SA 3.0) license
last month at an event held at Goa University, Taleigao. The digital version of the
Vishwakosh (encyclopaedia) will be available in a few months. Under the license, the
Vishwakosh could serve as a source of reliable references for the Konkani langauge
Wikipedia, which is currently under incubation.
Last month, Goa University re-released a four-volume encyclopaedia, Konkani Vishwakosh
under a free license. The encyclopaedia presents information about the world with an
emphasis on the Konkani language, Goan culture, the folklore, history, and geography of
Goa, etc.
What does the open license mean?
The Konkani Vishwakosh was relaunched under the CC-BY-SA 3.0 (Creative
Commons-Attribution-Share Alike 3.0) license. The Creative Commons licenses are a legal
tool for copyright owners to manage rights and permissions for their works. Under the
CC-BY-SA 3.0, users are free to reuse, modify, build upon, and redistribute content from
the Konkani Vishwakosh, as long as they attribute it. The same license also applies to any
work created by using content from the Konkani Vishwakosh. Licensing the sources of
knowledge is a way of enabling access to knowledge, especially for those who may have
little or no access to it.
Relevance to Wikipedia
One of the cornerstones of Wikipedia is the use of citations. All writing on Wikipedia
must be supported by reliable and independent references. Any editor may challenge and
removed unsubstantiated content on Wikipedia. The Konkani Vishwakosh could serve as a vast
and versatile source of references for articles in the Konkani language Wikipedia, which
is currently under incubation. Content from the Vishwakosh could go into the building of
the Konkani Wikipedia as the text on Wikipedia too is available under a CC-BY-SA 3.0
license.
Digitisation of Konkani Vishwakosh
The Centre for Internet and Society - Access to Knowledge (CIS-A2K) team and Goa
University together have undertaken a project to digitise the Vishwakosh over a period of
two months (October and November 2013). They have made a call for volunteers to type out
pages from the encyclopaedia in the Devanagri script. More about the project here.
Links to press coverage, and report of the launch event by CIS-A2K.